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Although the dangers of these waters are well known, the marina was still packed recently with dozens of small vessels making trans-Pacific journeys or shorter hops from the Philippine archipelago to Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

Some of the sailors could be seen basking in the sun beside their boats on what is an island paradise with clear water, gorgeous white sand beaches and magnificent palm groves.

“I don’t know why so many white men still go there,” Mac Mac Cansatsut, who skippered the chartered speedboat that I took to reach Samal Island, wondered out loud. “But there certainly is a lot more security,”

Cansatsut said the mood on Samal had become much warier after last year’s attack. Since then he has been warned to keep his boat away from Oceanview Resort. Visitors to other resorts on the island have had to sign waivers absolving the resorts of responsibility before being allowed to go down to the beach.

While tensions between Christians and Muslims on the island were sometimes a bit frayed, Cansatsut, who is a Christian, clearly remained on close and good terms with his crew, Do Do Animow, who is half Christian and half Muslim, and Paul Paul Musmoro, who is Muslim.

At a makeshift mosque in a waterfront slum in Davao where children were playing basketball under a hoop emblazoned with a crescent moon, an elder, Abdur Racman, quietly but forcefully expressed his contempt for Abu Sayyaf.

“I am embarrassed to be a Muslim. They shame us all when they cut people’s heads off,” Racman said. “Like the kidnappers, I am from Jolo Island. I am a Tausug and speak Tausug just like they do. But we are not like them and want nothing to do with them.