A Ferry Ride

As ever, my email is full of travel deal offers. Nowadays, very unlikely of me, I proceed to deleting them instead of rummaging over them in search of a fitted deal for my frequent family trips. A huge change  has gone over my family this year, which technically glued my feet inside our home to solely take care of my girls. I'm parenting 24/7. Alright, not fair to claim the credit all by myself. Husband actually, has never gone. He's still very much around. Thu' not so much physical but definitely 100% "around". In all aspect..


 
... virtually.everyday.7/24 during working days and yeah 24/7 on non-working days.

But him not physically around has put limit, if not totally ceased our little family adventures. If before with him around, he had already put limitations to what/where only was allowable, now I don't want to send worries to him by taking the girls on trip without him. If you're a family friend, you should know how oa protected this dad is to us.


 

But malls bored me to death. I don't shop. I mean shopping doesn't amuse me. Buying pricey bags, shoes, clothes would just end my day with heavy heart for slashing my wallet and after all would find no connection at all to these "lonely mom's toys". Long gone are my materialistic years. In my marriage and mom's life , a new matured me has emerged.

Now spot the difference of this photo of me and that of me in the previous one above. short and long hair? erk# haha. Seriously. Nothing has elated me so much as a nature trip. Need I say more?

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But for the meantime, I got to put my favorite activity on hold. While we are still in transition.  
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Meanwhile, traveling through my antiquated photos fill in the gaps.
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Ok, not that old actually. Just a tad over a  year old. Photos I hadn't posted yet but were somehow promised.
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Ready or not, let's go for a boat ride in Mindanao...

I never got bored traveling by water. I hail from a country with 7,107 islands. I practically have no choice but to have fun riding a boat to have reached some of them. # never as  pilot thu', haha. I just took the driver seat while he was still out.

 Mostly, I rode a local version of a boat called a "banca". A passenger boat/ferry  like that in the above photo is a typical boat used to reach a certain island here in our country. You can't simply jump out of an airplane to set foot in an island here. You have to add on a boat ride upon exiting an airport gate.



The interior is usually like this. Open air where passengers could enjoy the view of the sea. This kind is mostly used for short trip to a particular island coming from the mainland. Like a 30minutes to an hour long ride.

Personally, one of my favorite past times while riding a banca is to stare the parts of the boat which are called the "outriggers". I easily get lost in watching them slapping the blue sea water, until it's time to alight.




That.. in the absence of a perfect blue sea and whitish blue cottony sky. This was like less than 30 minutes away from the mainland Davao city.

Passing numerous islets in the middle of the sea  made this boat ride interesting.

More so when we passed near and had  better look of the islets. Look at the slides. It would be fun to make a stop here and swim. I almost forgot, this one wasn't an island hopping ride.I was bound to alight in one of the famous island resorts in the country.

Approaching my destination, resorts here and there were visible already.

However, a sad fact of being a third world country doesn't limit in the streets of the mainlands of our country. Right there in the middle of the sea were the versions of the street children/beggars. Throw a coin and they would swim deep to catch it. I don't know, but instead of getting entertained, my mother heart pitied these kids risking their lives to earn a living. Well, to console myself, I reckoned they must be excellent swimmers anyway.

I knew I was about to alight already when this beautiful facade of the resort appeared right on my very eyes.




How about staying a night or two in one of those pretty stilt cottages..

Well, have I mentioned that it was at The Pearl Farm in Samal Island, Davao? It was. Hop on there.

Third World Happy

fisherman husband : Love!!, Where's my breakfast?

wife: Why?.. Did you catch anything!!

wife: Don't you ever sleep with me tonight. .never!

Found this tiny fishing boat, docked on the shore. The texts were so funny, reminded me of our local jeepneys and tricycles on our roads, also with similar funny drivers' quotable quotes, haha. 

They say, one of our survivor tools is our innate sense of humor. I couldn't agree less. We are third world happy!!!!

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

Matabungkay, Batangas

Revisiting Matabungkay in Lian, Batangas, it seemed the characters of the place_ that of being known for its wide beach and clear waters, have managed to stay.

We were able to enjoy water activities here a lot more, simply because _ it's cheaper here!! I was not sure why, but the facilities were even newer than in the other higher end beach destinations.




The ocean was wide and blue yet invitingly calm for water rides. It was a lot lesser crowded than the famous Boracay but was offering basically similar activities.








I was able to make a fair bargain for the jetski so everyone in the family took turns to enjoy it.




They were not strict with time here. They even gave us some bonus extension time for banana boat.








Manong (the driver) was so challenged to drown our banana boat had enjoyed circling us the fastest he could, but we hold so tight, he couldn't beat us.




Now this one was more challenging and would take some leaping on water surface.








The size of flying fish doubled the banana boat and could take times two a number of passengers.




We weren't ready for it. We just watched.




There were two people who were unhappy_our youngsters! They felt left out not being able to join in our water rides.








So we took them for a swim and later...












...rented a banca (boat), so the kids would take their turn for fun on a lot safer vehicle.




We feasted  on beautiful corals that  Batangas is also known for.




Then something funny came up! Our boat ran out of gas!!hahaha! We were in the middle of the ocean. Our driver had to borrow my cellphone to call his partner. He fetched us, pulled our boat by jetski.




It all ended well.