HINATUAN ENCHANTED RIVER

     Hinatuan, of Surigao del Sur is located at the mouth of the Hinatuan River at the eastern seacoast of Northeastern Mindanao. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, has an irregular coastline, and 13 islets. It is located only a few nautical miles off the Philippine deep, which supplies the town with a rich diversity of fish catch and marine products.

    The town's name came fom two words, "Hato" and "Hatu-an". "Hato" in the native dialect means "a method of preserving fish”, while “Hato-an" means a place of preserving fish. Noted for its rich marine diversity of fish and animals (there are regular sightings of sea turtles and dugongs).

  Hinatuan has 24 barangays, and one of it is Talisay. This little known place is blessed with a hidden treasure --a stunning blue lagoon nestled within a mountainside and protectively covered by a forest. Its dark tinge comes from the Pacific sea pouring in from a deep underwater crevice.

The lagoon just sparkled silently, reflecting a dizzying gradation from aquamarine to a deep, dark blue in the middle where a hole was naturally formed deep down to where the Pacific Ocean may have seeped through. At the edge of the mountain wall lies a low cavern where an opening is yet to be explored deeper. Some brave souls tried cave diving but they ran out of 3 tanks each after swimming through 150 meters of a tunnel fit for one man and a tank. In quiet afternoons without visitors, big fishes come out and one can quietly throw bread crumbs to feed them.

It is said to be named during the World War I.  They said President Garcia and VP Osmeña Sr. came in 1925, and that a certain Francisco Rivera created a song entitled “Enchanted River” to describe the place. It was told many times of how a foreign diver tried the depths but never reached bottom. No one had ever measured it's depth and that explorers have not yet determined where the current flows to meet the ocean underneath. Amazingly, locals cannot figure why, to this day and in such clear waters they can see the vast wealth of big marine fishes, yet not one can ever be caught by hand, net, or spear fishing. Some had even dared dynamite fishing.

Local folks had told that nobody swims in the river alone by 6 pm because it was said to be watched over by enchanted spirits . In 1935, sightings of two strange women with long blonde hair and a man dressed in green walked on the waters and disappeared. They were said to appear before strangers or unwary locals. Locals said this place holds a magical enchantment that no amount of explanation holds. It was better left that way.