Summer Sailing at Taal Lake

A wider degree of separation has been the scale, when it comes to lifestyle, between people who can afford to have a sailboat and the middle class. Many of us who have been derided by the lifestyle of the rich and famous, chartering the unknown places, island hopping and wine sipping under the sunset, thus accepting it as an impossible and only a recreation for the elite.










I was invited by my Japanese friend Toshi Takagaki San, to visit his business place in Balas, Taal Batangas.






A night before the visit, I was crammed to read Photography tips for shooting from rocking boat to have a good exposure, and the right shutter speed to avoid blurring. Luckily I had a lot of unread eBooks that had tips on it for my disposal. I’m a beginner in photography I must admit. But the Canon EOS DSLR I bought , really helps a lot and elevate my shortcomings to acceptable picture quality that those pro may laugh about.





When I arrived at the place I met Engr. Tato Bautista, a mechanical engineer who shares the same passion with Toshi San.






Tato, a Pinoy Engineer really struck my curiosity that I was too eager to tell him that I am really a frustrated Naval Architect and once had dreamt to design yachts.
He unveiled one of the 3 Sailboats he built.






Her name is Angelika, model VG20 a 20 footer mono hull sailing cruiser. Tarpaulins were fully unveiled and I said wow! “you built this?. “Yes, and that one too”! as he was pointing to a 22 ft Catamaran with broken mast. What happened to her? Well I need to reinforce the material of the Main Mast, terrible wind hit her directly, so maybe you can just take snapshots on Angelika and by next week you came here.,It will be done repairing.. “Ive heard that Catamaran runs 14Knots(14 Nautical Miles per hour) that’s amazing(I can’t hide my enthusiasm).







She was helped by a Nissan 4X4 pickup truck to launch again to Lake water of Taal. We set all the gears, we harness her sails, booms and all lashing needed to sail her. And out we shove off to the middle of the lake and shoot her with lots of snapshots from my Canon EF-250mm lens. Viewing the snapshots at my camera LCD panel, I was mesmerized, no doubt sailing can be a real fun!.






Kids like Nami(daughter of Toshi) a 7 year old kid who likes to sail and one day continue his father’s dream to sail and enter the Americas cup. The Honda Sailing team which Toshi joined had failed to enter. I can see her smile at my Camera and it was fun photographing her face and her funny front teeth.







After filling my 3 memory cards of snapshots, I finally got to try and earn my free Sailing lesson to VG20 Angelika. Well, I will just need few pointers, I myself is a water person, I grew up with the sea and had made fishing a living once. So everything is pretty easy for me. But sailing doesn’t end how to control just the rudder. But its how to synchronize wind direction and slips sliding the wind in the sail and propel the boat effectively. That was sail racing is all about. At the end of the day, it just left me with more enthusiasm and dream to build my own boat someday.

I began to realize that no matter how poor you are or unhappy with your earnings you shouldn’t stop finding your way for a recreational fun you have been dreaming about. Bliss of joy has been taking my every Sunday of the week, coding the web pages for Joomla and editing the pictures of boat I took from Balas, Taal. At the same time I have been practicing my Photography assignment right on Taal shore.

I hope that ascertaining this bliss that I’ve magically found will fit my friends Blog. She’s been waiting for these for a long time.





by: Cornelio Cenizal
repost from My Simple Odd Mind