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S<br />
iargao located in the province of Surigao del<br />
Norte, is an archipelago in itself consisting of more<br />
than 40 islands with Siargao being the largest.<br />
The area consists of 9 municipalities, 8 of whom<br />
are located on the main island, these are; Burgos, Dapa,<br />
Del Carmen, General Luna, San Benito, Pilar, San Isidro<br />
and Santa Monica. The 9th municipality of Socorro is the<br />
second largest island in the group and is on the island of<br />
the same name.<br />
The name Siargao originates from the<br />
Visayan word siargaw or saliargaw a<br />
species of mangrove that is found on<br />
the island, in fact one of the largest<br />
mangrove forests in the Philippines<br />
can be found on the western side of<br />
the island in the municipality of Del<br />
Carmen.<br />
In the late 80’s an<br />
American drug<br />
trafficking, surf<br />
explorer named Mike<br />
Boyum lived in a small<br />
hut by the beach in<br />
General Luna.<br />
Up until the 80’s Siargao was nothing more than a sleepy<br />
island town in the Caraga region of Mindanao. The Lumad<br />
island folks subsisted through fishing, harvesting coconuts<br />
and not much else. In the late 80’s an American drug<br />
trafficking, surf explorer named Mike Boyum lived in a<br />
small hut by the beach in General Luna, this was after Mike<br />
burned down his G-Land surf camp in Java, Indonesia<br />
during a government crackdown and found Siargao as a<br />
place to hide out as well as surf. The area<br />
where his hut stood in Siargao fronted an<br />
area that will eventually be called Cloud-9,<br />
named after a locally made chocolate bar.<br />
Other surf explorers came around the<br />
same time including surf photographer<br />
John Calllahan of Surfer Magazine and the<br />
surf breaks of Siargao grew in renown. If<br />
you want to know more about this story<br />
you can look for a documentary film called<br />
The iconic Cloud 9 Tower<br />
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