Seco Island

Seco is a sandbank in the Sulu Sea more than twenty nautical miles off the Antique coast - a crescent of white sand about a kilometre and a half long with a shallow lagoon inside its curve, no trees, no buildings, no fresh water and no shade of any kind. What it does have is wind: the amihan blows across it steadily from late in the year through spring, over the flat, shallow water of the lagoon. Trips are run by a small number of operators from Tibiao, usually as camping expeditions with everything carried out and back. Outside the windy months it is an empty sandbar with clear water and a lot of birds. The crossing is open sea and the island offers no shelter, so weather governs everything.

The landscape

• The sand crescent - a bare bar with no vegetation.
• The inner lagoon - flat shallow water inside the curve.
• The wind - the amihan blowing across the bar in the cool months.
• The open sea - nothing else in sight in any direction.

When to go

November to April for the wind season and the calmest crossings. Outside it, the trip is longer, rougher and often cancelled.

Before you go

There is no shade, water, shelter or facility of any kind - everything comes with you and leaves with you. The crossing is two hours of open sea. Sunburn and dehydration are the real risks, not the sailing.

Nearby

Tibiao's kawa hot baths and Bugtong Bato Falls are inland; Mararison Island is up the coast at Culasi.