Vinta Inks -Sikatuna (Sandugo 1565)

Miguel López de Legazpi ( c. 1502 – August 20, 1572), was a Spanish navigator and governor who established the first Spanish settlement in the East Indies (Islands of Southeast Asia, mainly the Philippine and Indonesian archipelagos).  He crossed the Pacific from Mexico to land in the Philippines in 1565.   

Legazpi’s expedition anchored off Cebu but did not go ashore due to opposition from the natives. Therefore he traveled around the archipelago obtaining peace with various indigenous nations and kingdoms.  Blood compacts was made on the islands of Samar, Limasawa and Bohol.  It was in Bohol on March 16th 1565 that a blood compact was made with Datu Sikatuna to seal friendship and trust and it is that blood compact that this ink is named after.
Following the compact in Bohol the expedition returned to Cebu ultimately overpowering the natives.  Cebu became the capital, transferring to Manila in 1671. 
According to Vinta this is a dark red ink with sheens of green to symbolize both friendship and the lush green landscape of Bohol where the Sandugo was held.

Monument to the blood compact

Previous Vinta ink reviews cover how to obtain the inks , the prices and the packaging.
When you open the bottle the ink is so dark it is impossible to tell what colour it will be but the colour on the lid is dark red,  blood red?????.

Chromatography revealed an orangey red, a dark red and you can see the green at the leading edge, a dark olive green.

I had bought this ink about 3 months ago and at the time swatched it on Tomoe river paper, I'm not sure why I didn’t see it then but on my col-o-ring today - why hello Krishna Jungle Volcano.  It is the same orange base colour with the same metallic gold-green sheen.  As with all sheening inks you need to look at things from different angles in order to appreciate everything.

And to prove this is Jungle Volcano with another name.

Sikatuna on top of Jungle Volcano

On Tomoe you get the dark red that was promised i.e. it looks less orange,  move the paper around and that green sheen comes out.

For the writing I used a new Laban pen which I may end up regretting.  I don't have an ultrasonic cleaner so it took nearly a month of soaking and flushing (including using pen flush) to get all the jungle volcano out of the pen I used for the review of that ink.  I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach this is going to be as bad.
I started with copy paper which I thought jungle volcano worked best on.  Here there was not much to choose between any of the papers I used.
 It is an odd colour more peachy with green sheen than a dark red ink.  It is another slow drying ink.

On Rhodia paper it dried quicker and not quite so brown as on the cheap paper.  Interestingly when I smeared the ink to test drying times it really looks like a dark red ink.

I liked it the most on Midori but for some reason just felt it was going to feather on this paper – it was something about the writing experience which I can’t really explain.  Anyway it didn’t feather and again was probably a little browner when dry than jungle volcano.

This ink Is very reasonably priced, the packaging is nice but the bottle is going to become increasingly impractical as it empties.  The ink flows well, there was no hard start but  it doesn’t dry very quickly.  The three Vinta inks I have reviewed so far are great inks I am just disappointed with the colour (pink sands) the shimmer (cosmic blue) and here the similarity to jungle volcano.  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, I went back and looked at the Vinta website again and the first time round clearly didn’t look closely at the swatch they have there.  Maybe I should have bought some of those pastel inks.
In summary – if you have any Krishna Jungle volcano you don’t need to buy this
Saturation – high
Shading – no
Sheen – lots
Flow - good
Nib dry-out - none
Nib creep – none
Start-up – immediate
Feathering – nil on any of the papers used
Drying – slow
Cleaning – I’ll let you know when I clean the pen, I will definitely come back and do a PS because of my experience cleaning the jungle volcano.
Water resistance – not sold as waterproof and quite rightly so it just disappeared with my usual testing.