Welcome to Bali!!

Wow what an amazing first day! Aside from losing my credit card, it's been a really great adventure.

I made it through the airport without a hassle (after flying British, Emirates, and now Singapore, I must admit Qatar Airways is still my favorite). The airport taxi service did not rip me off.

Travel tip: when going to any foreign country where the price of anything is negotiated, first ask a third party local how much he/she would pay for it. I asked several airport employees how much they would pay for a taxi to my destination and was pleased when I got a taxi for less than their suggested amount.

I made it to my hotel without a problem (thank goodness I could exchange my leftover pesos into rupiah in the Singapore airport). I went to the atm, bought a sim card for my phone, picked up a few snacks and an Indonesian power adapter, checked my email, then fell asleep trying to update my blog. If reading this blog has the same effect as writing it, then all of you must be reading this whenever you can't sleep. I'm not sure what it is, but I consistently fall asleep while trying to update this thing.

The next morning, I woke up lying on my bed near my laptop, on top of my sheets while still sporting the clothes from when I left Manila the previous morning. I tried to write a few more lines and when I woke up a couple hours later I decided to get breakfast. The complementary breakfast was a wonderful array of both traditional and Western breakfast foods so I jumped on the opportunity to have the more traditional rice and vegetables in the morning. A side of fresh pineapple and toast topped off with a hot tea set in front of a televised tennis match without blocking the view of the pool made it all quite nearly perfect. One final unsuccessful blog update attempt urged me to be productive. After getting in touch with Margerie...

Timeout: Margerie is a friend from France whom I met while on my trip to Mozambique and she was one of the legends taking the Rescue Diver course with me in Cape Town. She has traveled the world but currently resides and works in Cape Town but is in Bali on holiday with her boss. I will be traveling around Bali with her this week before I head off to Gili Trawangan.

After getting in touch with Margerie, I decided to remain in Kuta one more night and travel with her to Amed to dive. When I told the hotel that I would like to extend my stay, they said all the rooms were taken so I moved down the road to the same hotel as Margerie. Every hotel seems to be authentically adorned with the beauty, magic, and mystery that is representative of Bali. Walkways are mazes lined with beautiful tropical plants and small neatly trimmed gardens. Grassy patches, gardens, rooftops, and gateways are some of the places that various statues called home. The statues were nothing like those found in North Canton. They depicted unworldly creatures, some with more than two arms, some with heads of elephants, others with dragon-like faces, and many more unusual features that exemplified the Hindu presence on the island. Away from the hotel, lunch was waiting for us.

Not knowing where to eat, I decided to ask the Balinese friends I made the night before where a good authentic place to eat would be. They told us a specific spot and gave us vague directions. We thanked them and went on our way over the uneven sidewalk while turning down the dozens of offers for taxis and motorbikes. Along the way we shared stories about the most authentic international culinary exploits we've each had as the anticipation built. We had to ask for the help of a few people along the way and were very pleased when many of them had never heard it before, confirming that it was a tiny place tucked in the corner of some alley. The anticipation continued to build. 5 stops to ask directions, 30 minutes of walking, and some two and a half kilometers later, we arrive at a massive restaurant suspiciously sporting the same name as the tiny hole in the wall eatery we thought we had asked for.  At any rate we decided to go in. It was gorgeous, the menu was completely in Indonesian (difficult but cool), but the food was expensive and although the squid was good, it wasn't the best. Apparently when we asked for an “authentic” restaurant, we meant “fancy.” I appreciated his suggestion at any rate and don't regret that we went there but I will never ask for restaurant suggestions abroad without being clear that I want a cheap place that the locals love. It simply further confirms my suspicions that in the Philippines and Indonesia (at least), all white people appear to be inherently rich. Pictured above is the restaurant. I told you it's fancy.

On the Way

If I don't move quickly enough, I'm going to fall too far behind in my updates, so unfortunately I'll need to be a little brief about some things from Boracay by talking about only a few things in detail and otherwise listing out others. I met Armand in the terminal, we shared some ideas about music, flew 45 minutes to Kalibo, hired a tricycle for 5 minutes to a bus station, took a bus for 2 hours to Caticlan, rode a ferry for 15 minutes to a pier in Boracay, then got a van to take us the last 15 minutes to the resort.

I had been told different things about Boracay: it's littered with tourists, the beaches are pristine, the people there are snobby, I'll fall in love with it right away, it doesn't have good diving, the diving is great, I'll hate it, the beach is groomed twice a day, it is very international, etc. etc. Ultimately I wasn't completely sure what to expect. After dropping our stuff in the room, it didn't take Armand much encouragement to convince me to go swimming. After all, it was piping hot and I just spent the day cooped up in transit. My first steps onto White Beach were steps that will not easily escape my memory. The soft sand was so white and so much like powder that it was as if they mix it with flour. The shallow slope of the ocean floor allowed us to walk out a good hundred feet into the clear warm water before we had to swim. An hour must have passed when one of Armand's friends named Marin came along. Marin is a gorgeous Filipina raised in Orange county and she not only has an awesome heart and great personality to go along with her, but a perfectly-matched American boyfriend named Brett sharing all the same qualities, surprisingly from Dayton. I got to know them pretty well over the course of my week there and wish I'd known them since childhood.

Bom Bom Bar was great (though somehow pronounced “boom boom,” which was a bit awkward at first since “boom boom” in Sabang means sex). It turned out to be a very hip outdoor bar/restaurant spread over the sand centered around great live music. Armand did a guest appearance on the relatively open microphone with his very engaging and refreshingly quirky friend deemed the Reggaeman.

I managed to get in touch with Dustin, a friend of both Armand and Ethei (my favorite instructor back in Sabang) working at Blue Mango and ended up having quite a memorable experience. Right after meeting him, I was lingering around the shop and before leaving, he takes me aside and shows me an engagement ring. Seeing my surprise and bewilderment, he explains that someone is going to propose to his girlfriend on the dive. I jealously comment one how cool it would be and how I've never seen it before. After a moment's hesitation, he asks me to join him on the dive to help keep track of the rest of the divers. I threw on a set of rental gear and jumped on the boat where among several others were an anxious man and his unsuspecting girlfriend. We all dropped down and the instructor handed us bread with which to feed the fish. We all held out our offerings and watched in wonder as the swarm of greedy fish came to take as much as they could find from our fingers, sometimes nibbling our fingers by accident with their small and harmless mouths. Finally, the man pulls out a laminated paper:
Meeting you was by chance, becoming your friend was by choice, and falling in love with you was destiny. Will you marry me?”
The water that immediately began filling her mask was an indication of her smile behind her regulator which broke the seal of the mask allowing water to enter. The rest of the dive was uneventful in comparison, but later dives were nice. There is a site called Yapak (meaning “barefoot” in Tagalog) that is a gorgeous wall starting around 25 meters which was so nice I dived it twice. Most notably was the second time when we took a second tank on the boat so we did “Yapak 2” for the first dive then “Yapak 1” for the second with a one hour surface interval in between. We saw great fish in the huge crevasses and trenches on the first dive followed by a great hour sitting on the boat above crystal clear shallow water by the nearby Puka Beach. Unfortunately our trusty instructor/divemaster Dustin decided to go with a standard hour surface interval without considering the dive profiles. All of us should have known better. My computer started to worry after 5 minutes when we swam through a breathtaking arch at 42 meters teeming with life. The rest of the dive, I tried to make my computer happier by staying about 3-5 meters shallower than the other 3, signaling that I was okay but my dive computer was not happy. By the time we made our ascent, my computer said that we had 21 minutes of required decompression before exiting the water. Luckily I conserve my air and was able to provide air to my buddy Ginger during the last 3 minutes of the dive. After surfacing, Dustin's “I was going to have us stop for 10 minutes, but more decompression never hurts,” was not much of a comfort.

This picture is of me, Marin, and Brett. Other highlights of the trip include watching the beautiful sunset on a traditional sailboat as we cruised along sitting on plastic mesh holding the outrigger together as the warm waves slowly soaked our clothes. To find my favorite snack, I went to a little shop called Fruitas where one could not only find fresh fruit smoothies peeled, cut, and blended upon ordering, but also coconuts filled with fresh fruit. I would regularly get a mango banana coconut for hardly more than a dollar. They took a fresh coconut, cut the top off, shaved the meat (leaving the shavings inside), filled it with crushed ice, cut fresh mangos and bananas, mixed them all together, and filled the remaining space with coconut milk. These things were to die for and if I wasn't careful I would eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner every day. Another of my favorite things about Boracay was the scenery. I hope you enjoy the pictures that I think speak for themselves.

Round and Round

From 1pm until dinner time I wandered Manila with Armand both on foot and by car in search of a viola. The very quick version of the story is that we met on facebook through a mutual friend because the three of us have an interest in music. Armand contacted me to say hi and share a link, I found some of his other songs, and before I knew it we were setting up times for me to record for my favorite song of his. Fast forward back to the present, and we eventually found a viola to borrow. We borrowed it (for free) but it is priced around $150 – very cheap. Not just inexpensive. Cheap.

Sometimes things happen and no one really has any sort of an explanation. Sometimes we just have to shrug and accept these things. How did my alarm get turned off during the night? Why do I have an odd number of socks? What causes storms when the weatherman promises sunshine? Or the question for this occasion, how the heck do we get lost when we have a map? Leneth (the mother of the family I was with) was kind and considerate enough to draw me a map so I would know how to get back. I handed it to Armand's driver (typical to have a driver in Manila...at least from the few people I've hung out with) and the next thing I knew we had stopped 3 times to ask for directions, never quite getting the same response. I tried calling the three numbers I was given but to no avail. Eventually when I finally did get an answer from Leneth and had her talk to the driver, we still had to make several U-turns before we found where we were supposed to be.

I spent a little time that night listening to the song and trying to come up with a good viola line, but the problem is that I don't have perfect pitch and I couldn't figure out the chords. I decided the best use of my time was to go to bed and try to pull together some ad lib in the studio after getting the chords. Unfortunately, the combination of no shoulder rest, a different viola (of slightly different size), not playing for 3 months, and only just getting the chords really made things much more difficult than I anticipated. The recording session ended up being more of an embarrassment than anything and I packed up while assuring Armand that if we could have another session and if I could get a hold of a viola in Boracay then I would actually be able to help. He scheduled another session during my last couple days in Manila and managed to have a viola delivered to Boracay for me.

The next morning I took a cab to the airport ($6.50 for about an hour's drive) to kick off my vacation in Boracay...

City Slickers

As I was saying, I had mentioned something about recording in Manila for an album. I have been in touch with Armand online for the past month about coming to visit and spending some time in Boracay so this was finally my first chance to meet him. I left the house in mid morning with the daughter Maita in order to catch a train in the direction of the mall. She accompanied me there because the mall is on her way to school. It was a very good thing that she did.

We caught a tricycle (more about those later perhaps) and walked through three different malls (more about that in just a minute) that were like a labyrinth. We eventually found ourselves at the end of a line of people stretching about 60 feet all sweating from the stuffy heat and waiting patiently for a turn to purchase a train ticket. On the crowded platform, I was bewildered with what was taking place. When the train stopped and the doors opened, I witnessed an upstream battle possibly more difficult than the one undertaken by the Pacific salmon every year. The passengers on the platform were so anxious that they proceeded to flood the train as if it was bound for the promised land. After the determined exiting passengers defeated the onslaught of eager travelers and all the dust cleared, it turned out there was not enough room on the train for us to get in. However, allow me to explain the meaning of “not enough room.” Everyone getting on the train knows darn well that he is going to battle his way out when his stop comes. In fear of being trapped on the train, everyone packs in like sardines near the doors leaving plenty of breathing room at the ends of every car. The only problem is that it takes nearly 3 stops before there is enough shuffling to reach the less crowded area (which was still quite clustered). I was worried at first about someone stealing my wallet or cell phone but then I reconsidered it: we were packed so tightly that the pockets on my shorts were pressed snug against other passengers and there was no way to reach my belongings.

Three stops from my destination when I thought I had almost made it, an announcement comes over the speakers in Tagalog. My concern grew when I saw all the Filipinos exiting the train without the incessant battle that is witnessed at every other stop. Something was wrong. It turned out that our train needed repairs and thus was forced to be evacuated.  We were informed to exit the train and wait for the next one.  With the crazed mentality of the train riders, they would stop as soon as they stepped foot off the train in order to be first in line to get back on, clearly causing problems. Although none of the people were in a rush fearing they would be stuck on the train and miss their stop as with typical exits, quite a bit of nonviolent shoving still took place. We watched in a sort of betrayed confusion as our empty train pulled out of the station and everyone looked around wondering how an entire trainload of people was going to fit onto another already packed train. We eventually made our way back on and when my stop came up I thanked Maita, fought my way through the oncoming crowd, and watched her ride away leaving me alone on a crowded platform. The plan was to find the mall where I was planning to meet Armand in several hours and wander around until meeting him.

The Philippines is a country where one can find friendly people, jungles, mountains, great scuba diving, terrifying food (yes, dog), beautiful beaches, and malls. Manila is a busy city with a lot to be proud of but to me it will forever be the city of shopping as it boasts 3 of the world's 10 largest malls. I'm serious. 3 of the world's largest malls in one single city. Believe it. http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/09/malls-worlds-largest-biz-cx_tvr_0109malls.html. The shopping doesn't stop there. As if that weren't enough, Manila is literally littered with other malls: opportunities for consumers to buy whatever they can imagine in other gargantuan malls that didn't quite make the cut for the top 10. I slowly made my way wandering through a series of these massive shopping centers, had some Japanese fast food, a fresh fruit smoothie, and a pretzel, and eventually met up with Armand.

So Long Sabang

Pronounced properly, the title of this post rhymes. Anyway, greetings to all my readers. A couple days ago I left Sabang indefinitely. If I ever make it back to the Philippines, I will almost certainly pay a visit there. Only time will tell. In the interest of not making a post based on speculation and trying to guess the future, here's what I do know.

Less difficulty makes for fewer stories and adventures, but I was happy to forfeit excitement in exchange for a simple hassle-free departure from Sabang; I had no trouble getting to Manila. The hour ride on the banca from the boat station in Sabang (a hundred yards from Capt'n Gregg's) to Batangas was quite enjoyable and I walked directly onto an air-conditioned bus that took me straight into Manila. Meeting back up with the Fajardo family was a wonderful feeling: they took me back to a familiar house that felt like a home even to me. Their hospitality ranks among the best I've ever known.

That night, I tried something new. The daughter is in a capoeira group that meets several times a week. There are several regular participants who are very skilled and experienced, but there are also many beginners as well. When I walked through the door and realized I was the only white person, the only one wearing shorts, the tallest, and without question the least experienced, I started having doubts. As everyone started warming up, no one was offended by my utter cluelessness which made me feel much better and strengthened my confidence. If there's one thing I've learned about the Filipino population, it's that they are very helpful. I know any generalization needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but from my experiences, they have been very welcoming and eager to offer help. Anyway, the session continued with a sort of “monkey see, monkey do” format. The instructor demonstrated a move, and then the 20+ students would emulate it as best as possible: kicks, twists, turns, swings, sweeps, strikes, steps, handstands, cartwheels, handsprings, and more. The thing that stands out in my memory is how easy the instructor made everything look. I was constantly thinking to myself “oh, that's all we have to do? That's not hard.” These thoughts would inevitably be followed by a flailing flop onto the hardwood dance floor or at least a poor enough execution that my laughter would send me to the floor. One way or another, I usually ended up on the ground. However I feel that I must mention the feedback from other students and the instructor. Many people there were convinced that I had quite a bit of previous experience. Apparently no one (they reiterated, “no one”) gets the moves that I was getting on the first day...or second, or even usually third. For years I've wanted to pursue some sort of dance, gymnastics, or martial arts (this should be a surprise to the world because I never told this to anyone) since I think it's something in which I could excel. This capoeira session makes me want to do it even more.

The next morning I woke up with soreness in my hips and right foot but made my way to the train station. My schedule included meeting up with Armand in a mall downtown. About two months ago I mentioned that I might record at some point in Manila. Those plans are finally coming to fruition but here's the thing: it's midnight and I leave the house in no more than 6 and a half hours for Boracay. I consider this my vacation – after 2 and a half months of work 7 days a week, I get 6 days off. Sounds fair to me. However it means that I will have to continue this post later. Stay tuned for a crowded train ride, a walk through a series of malls that could be a self-sufficient city, a crazy drive around Manila, and a recording session that could have gone smoother. This video is taken from the banca on my way out of Sabang. It starts at Capt'n Gregg's and pans all the way to my apartment nestled in the middle of all of those green buildings at the end of the beach.

Recovery

I haven't said so, but I've been quite ill for about 6 days. It's had ups and downs, but it hasn't been pleasant. Since then, I organized a successful day trip to Chicken Feather Island, Tomi and Renaud both left, Chris and Jay booked tickets out of the Philippines, and I decided to visit Boracay before going to Indonesia. While there, I will jam with a musician named Armand I met through a customer that came through here a while ago (I believe I talked about Bernardine before). I'm thrilled to see another part of the Philippines and to play music but I don't know which one is more exciting.

A couple days ago, feeling a bit better than the day before, I embarked on my routine journey to the dive shop. The relatively high tide resulted in a lack of beach and thus encouraged me to walk the second half of the commute through the small town. Before reaching the main road, I came upon two white tourists, perhaps in their 50s who were each trying to help the other find his way home. Each needed his companion's help because they were both staggering back and forth down the sidewalk, unmistakeably drunk from the night before. Reaching the main intersection, I found the space to safely make my way around the dynamic duo as they gave the motorbike vendors quite a laugh and then I walked the last minute or two to Capt'n Gregg's, right on time as always.

As I was feeling a bit better, I decided to put my name on the board for the morning dive, but 30 minutes before departure had to pay an unplanned visit to the bathroom. I like being descriptive about my experiences here in the Philippines, but I think everyone can imagine diarrhea perfectly well without further explanation. At any rate, my confidence and optimism was also flushed down the toilet and I wiped my name from the dive schedule. A quick talk with a few of the guys urged me to make a trip to the pharmacy for some imodium. On my way up the main road, I got stuck behind a couple of guys with wheelbarrows and squeezing past them I couldn't help but notice an arm sticking out; this guy was carrying a man in a wheelbarrow. My first thought was that the man was ill and this was the only way to take him to the clinic. I started thinking about my Emergency First Response training until I looked at the man's semi-cognizant smiling face and kicked myself for not having my camera. I'm not sure whether they asked or if the Filipinos just took charge, but the drunk men from this morning were being carried off to their resort in wheelbarrows through a crowd of very amused onlookers. Nothing I have seen in Sabang has made me smile more than seeing two plump jolly old drunk men being transported home in one-wheeled chariots made for hauling dirt, gravel, and cement.

The rest of the day is insignificant as my health steadily declined. One of our 3 customers, a 55 year old American living in Guam, suggested I take Ciprofloxacin and gave me a couple sealed tablets. I took one at dinner and yesterday felt much better. After a dive, a trip to the launderette, and a haircut I was still feeling fine so I think it did the trick. Thanks Jim! At 7 I decided that after a week of being ill, a massage was in order and I postponed dinner. My experience of professional massages is almost nonexistent so I really don't have anything to compare it to. However, for $10 I think the hour long intense full-body treatment was pretty much a steal. Feeling fully revived, I glided back home to fix up a delicious spaghetti and meat sauce dinner using my one trusty gas burner. My reliable dinner guest named HBO was there for me as always, this time with some sort of a war film set in the Middle East. It made me think of Conor and how I hope he will be home swiftly and safely. Thanks Conor and the rest of your Marine squadron.

Keeping It Fresh

While life carried on as usual back home, here's what was going on with me yesterday:

As always, I woke up to my phone jingling just behind my head and turned on The Simpsons. A brief inventory assessment determined that the breakfast menu was either toast or french toast and I quickly opted for the latter. The layout of my room is such that when I'm in the kitchen, the tv is around the corner at such an angle that I end up cooking while imitating one of those tippy bird toys and miss most of what's going on.

Every weekday is Simpsons at 7 followed by Friends at 7:30. I've never really watched either show but since they're on, I've gotten into them a bit. I'm no raving fan of either one, but it's a nice way to start my mornings. I'd been following the episodes of Friends for a couple weeks to the point that one of the characters was about to move to France. About a week ago when 7:30 rolled around, all the characters were younger and I realized that I was watching an episode from one of the first seasons. Apparently the station decided I needed to get caught up on everything leading up to that point before I get to find out what happens.

After washing my dishes and delegating the air to dry them, I threw on my bag and headed off to work. We have two customers right now who are more interested in the local girls than they are in diving. In other words, work is awful. Right when I thought that it was going to be a long painfully boring day, Mark decides to treat us by taking us out to a 48m deep cave on double tanks. (Recreational dive limit is 40m). My eyes lit up like it was Christmas and I quickly began assembling my gear. An unusually bumpy 10 minute boat ride took us right to the entry point at which point we rolled backwards off the boat and started finning down as soon as we broke the surface. 20m. 25m. 30m. Darker and darker. 35m. I could feel the pressure compressing my wetsuit. 40m. Still descending.

By the time I reached 45 meters I could feel the nitrogen narcosis scrambling my brain. For those of you who don't know, nitrogen narcosis is a side effect of going deep and has to do with the increased amount of nitrogen in your body. People often relate it to being drunk. The only other time I really felt it was when I went to a deep wreck near Seal Island in South Africa and had trouble figuring out which way was up (great story if you're ever interested). The way it happened this time was slightly different. You know how you can have a couple thoughts simultaneously? Imagine trying to think 5 unrelated thoughts all at the same time. I'm not talking about multitasking or juggling 5 thoughts at once. I'm talking about having those thoughts competing for attention. It was like 5 people trying to talk to me at the same exact time, all of them equally determined to have my attention. I was unable to focus on any one thing at a time while finning around at 45 meters beneath the surface, fighting current, and trying to stay as close to the group as I could.

I look at my computer: nearly 49 meters. My head was swimming. We finally found the cave, zipped through the very short passage one at a time, and started our ascent. When I checked my computer, it showed 51.4m as the maximum depth: nearly 170ft.

Later, I got news that all of the instructor candidates (including Chris who works here) passed their course and exams. I was going to hang out with them for a bit but Tomi had made the suggestion earlier that we make a special dinner. We went to the market in a total downpour and bought supplies including shrimp, fish, and rice. Back at his place, we cut the simple ingredients, cleaned the shrimp, and thinly sliced the fish with my Letherman. We pressed the rice out on square pieces of seaweed and proceeded to roll our own sushi. I've never actually done it before so it was especially exciting. The fresh fish melted in my mouth, and the improvised soy sauce with chilies instead of wasabi ended up working quite well.

Following the sushi feast, we braved the rain all the way to the bar where we usually meet so we could congratulate the new instructors. We congratulated the three who were there but couldn't find Chris. However, since there was a pool tournament starting there at 9:30, Tomi and I decided to split and ended up going to play pool on our own for an hour before my bed was calling me so much that I couldn't ignore it and was forced to retire.

Checkup

Just wanted to say not much is different right now. I've been going about business as usual. Each day blends into the next and remembering the date or day of the week proves to be incredibly challenging.
Financially, I'm barely in the red. After two months here, I've had to take a couple hundred dollars out to cover housing, food, and visa renewal. I mention this because I got paid three days ago but the money is already pretty much spent and I have to go to the bank tomorrow.
I'm looking into flight options and may end up getting a Round the World ticket after all:
+Bali - Auckland (Spend about 3 weeks traveling around New Zealand seeing the country and interviewing at graduate schools)
+Auckland - Mauritius/Seychelles (Still can't decide where to go. I think Mauritius is cheaper so I might do that)
+Mauritius/Seychelles - Cape Town (Visit friends, bungee jump, eat naartchies, and go diving)
+Cape Town - Miami (I'll buy my own tickets around the Caribbean. I'll spend 6 months there, most likely split between two different locations)
+Miami - Cleveland (Home for about a month for Christmas)
+Cleveland - Chicago (Free stopover in Chicago just for kicks - maybe Brian Crush will be there?)
+Chicago - Queenstown (back to New Zealand for grad school if it is still on my agenda)

I've nearly made up my mind to go to the Gili Islands in Indonesia. Lombok is the island to the east of Bali, and the Gilis are 3 tiny islands next to Lombok, the largest spanning about 3km by 2km. It seems that transportation to and from the islands is frequent and if I ever get bored I can take a day to go visit Bali or Lombok. I would really love to visit Komodo at some point to see the dragons.

I'm off to get my laundry and maybe a bite to eat. It is going to be a very early night for me tonight because at only 5:30 I'm already tired. Believe it or not, diving (especially repetitive diving) really takes a lot out of you.

Blog Time!

A couple nights ago I managed to hop onto a night dive with Chris to the nearby deep wreck called Alma Jane. I've been there at least 7 times during the day but this was my first time at night. The boat searched around for a minute before finding the tiny marker buoy of a few plastic jugs tied to a rope. Upon dropping in, Chris and I battled the ripping current to make it to the buoy but after pulling ourselves down the line about 24 meters, the water was still, which set the scene for the eeriness of the dive. Unlike typical night dives, there was actually very little activity happening while we were there. It seemed as if all the nocturnal creatures either took a night off or went somewhere else. We were surrounded by complete darkness broken only by our two single beams from our dive lights. Floating through the inside of the large boat, the familiar beams and passages came into view in bits and pieces as the lights panned around. I can't explain how eery it was to see the wreck one beam of light at a time with almost no life at all. It's something I suggest all of my readers try to experience one time in your life.

The 19th of September was the Project AWARE International Cleanup Day where divers around the globe join in to help clean our marine environment. Due to a scheduling hitch, Mindoro participated in the cleanup yesterday instead. About 79 divers from at least a dozen dive resorts in the area came together to pick up trash in the water outside a boat yard across the channel from an elementary school. While all of us stuffed sacks with rubbish and fought our way to bring the heavy loads to the surface, the elementary students combed the beach for any sort of trash they could find. To give a bit of an idea: I was underwater for only 20 minutes before my large rice sack was so full that I struggled to surface and hand it to the nearest boat. What's worse is the amount of garbage I passed that was either covered in coral or too large to put in my bag. Tires, bottles, paint cans, clothes, bags, scrap metal, glass, plastic, toilets, hangers, and so much more junk covered the bottom that I was like a kid in a candy store grabbing everything in sight and stuffing it into my bag as if someone was going to take it from me. I reckon we could repeat the cleanup every day for a week and still not pick up everything that was in the water.

On a happier note, last night was a totally legitimate cooking on my own experience. There is a market a couple hundred yards from the center of Sabang. Rickety tables are stacked with very shallow plastic bins filled with an array of fish (virtually none of which have seen a knife), all sizes of prawns, mussels, clams, pork, pigs feet, and every part of a chicken you can imagine. This tiny market is contained almost entirely in one narrow and short alley sheltered by very low hanging plastic to protect from rain and sun while forcing me to stoop as I walk through. It's the kind of market that is very difficult to find if you don't know what you're looking for. For this reason, it seems to be tourist-proof and thus the prices are more fit for the Filipino population. That being said, I have a blog update brewing about how much racism goes on here, but in a completely different way than back home.

Anyway, yesterday I prowled through the selection of fish hoping to find tuna. I had to change my plan when I discovered that the tuna that day were too smart to fall for the free food dangling on a hook trick. I ended up settling for an enormous portion of blue marlin for about $2.50 though if I knew better how to scale, gut, and clean fish then I would have made a different decision. With the leftover change, I ventured further down to the end of the alley where the tables ended and I found a couple guys selling produce (and other small food products) nestled in the corner. I bought a bottle of soy sauce, two eggs, fresh ginger, a clove of garlic, and a small pouch of calamansi (local citrus more flavorful than lemon but the size of a cherry) all for less than a dollar. After picking up salt and pepper I made my way back to my room to begin preparing a wonderful meal of fish, mashed potatoes, and cucumber. I'm still working on my improvised cooking skills so I had to take the easy way out for the vegetable.

Forty five minutes, a big mess, and one broken spatula later, I sat down in my plastic chair at my collapsible dinner table and looked down at my soft steamy mashed potatoes with fresh garlic, pan-cooked marlin with fresh ginger and calamansi sprinkled with salt and pepper, a nice piece of cucumber, and a cold glass of grape juice to top it all off. I ate silently in the company of mediocre television programming and before I knew it all that remained of the fish were the bones and lingering smell. Cleaning up my dishes, I felt very proud of myself for making something that didn't involve noodles or rice. Not only that, but none of my food came out of a package. I'm starting to think that I've come up with a dinner option that I will be using quite frequently in the month to come, and I think I'm going to be making some new friends at the local market.

There is either a tropical storm or typhoon named Ondo ravaging the northern part of the Philippines and we are feeling the effects here on Mindoro. Today marks the third day in over a month and a half that I have not gone on a dive. The water is so rough that a boat flipped over earlier today right in front of the beach.

The Eye of the Storm

The pictures don't go with the story at all, but they're good visuals. The first one is the view from my usual spot with an unusually few amount of people around. The second is what I see a few steps away from my spot by the railing that is directly above the beach. On with the update.

A couple days ago Mark had a few friends arrive from Australia. When I caught wind of his plan to take them golfing, I expressed enough interest to earn me an invitation to go with the three of them (and in doing so forfeit going to a new dive site).
I discovered later that due to the water conditions, the divers made it to the dive site and sat on the boat for a few minutes before deciding to turn back to shore. While they were doing that, I was having a much different experience.

Thirty minutes of winding along the bumpy mountain roads landed our jeepney high up the mountain. We bounced our way up the one-lane road leading to Ponderosa, the only golf course within driving distance. When we climbed out the jeepney's open back door, there was a mutual agreement that the conditions were too wet and rainy to follow through with the original plan. Instead I found myself sipping a mango shake sheltered from the rain talking to the 94 year-old owner with Mark and his two friends. This spot was gorgeous in the haze and I can only imagine its stunning beauty during favorable weather conditions. After a short stroll to the first tee, I was looking out over 50 yards of a steep hill covered with dense short growth leading to a short fairway (decorated intentionally with a small water hazard) and after a small patch of more thick ground cover, the green. The entire hole from tee-off to green was surrounded by jungle. I estimated that I would need at least 18 balls to complete the course. I insisted that Mark bring me back when the weather takes a turn for the best.

Making our way back to the jeepney, we agreed to take a detour to get some good Italian food on our way home. The road was much more treacherous on this leg of the journey. I gazed out the window at the magnificent mountains as the jeepney bounced along the ill-paved road, careening around every sharp turn. Pavement turned to mud and before long I realized roosters were jumping out of the way as we went splashing through massive puddles. At long last, the trusty jeepney came to a full stop, cuing our exit. We arrived at a deserted restaurant and my stomach demanded I order something substantial. As we were waiting for the pizza, I nearly lost my appetite when a small gentle yet frail stray dog came to our table. When she sat down under the table to rest, I noticed a massive open wound or growth on her underside. It was about the size of a racquetball and red in color where the dirt and sand hadn't yet covered it. I thought immediately of my open scabs all over my legs and made a point to keep them as far from this poor friendly dog as possible. When the food finally came, my mind worked hard to forget the stray under the table and also overlook the fact that I don't like ham or mushrooms. I inhaled my share of the delicious true Italian-style pizza and turned my seat around to look at the water beneath the gloomy sky realizing that an ugly day in the Philippines is still a gorgeous day in my book.

On the way back to the dive resort, my focus was drawn beyond the back door of the jeepney. I fell into a hypnotic state hanging onto a cool metal bar and staring out the open door. It seemed as if an hour passed as I watched miles of dirt paths, bumpy paved roads, and puddles constantly swerve and shrink away into the distance while far-off hazy mountains swung into and out of my view, slowly fading into the clouds. After seeing the world shrink away for so long, I felt like I was in some dreamland where everything in my sight was slowly inching toward me when I finally stepped off the moving vehicle. Walking back to the resort with a bit of a sway to my step and arms raised several inches higher than usual, I realized that even though the weather did not cooperate and I didn't get to go diving, I had an incredible time being out.