Missing Boracay

Ok, so where I left off I was still in Boracay. I'm actually long past that and relaxing in Cebu City now, but I don't mind reaching back into my memory and re-visiting Boracay and later Moalboal.

On the first day in Boracay, like I said, I had gone and checked out one of the kiteboarding schools. The one I chose was www.freestyle-boracay.com. They were cool, after explaining my winter spent kiting on the snow, the owner, a Filipino named Ken agreed to let me rent without a lesson. So the next morning, right around noon I went back and got underway. While not taking a lesson, I did get help from a guy named Toto. He's not an instructor, he just helps them out and helped me rig up the kite and all that, he was more of a guide than anything. Anyway, it took a while to get things going. I spent most of the time bobbing in the water, staring up at the sky. Getting enough power into the kite to get your self moving across the water is something you don't have to worry about on snow. Too much power and you get jerked out of the water, clinging to the bar as you get dragged across the water. My old instructors called it the "Superman" for the pose you make holding your bar before crashing again. Too little power and you simply sink back down. After an hour or so, I finally had it figured out and managed to get up a few times and skim across the surface water, managing to keep the kite in the air, my board under my feet and my feet under my head. It was a glorious few moments. Even better is that Adrienne was reading on the beach at the time, but had the presence of mind to have a camera ready for those fleeting moments that I was riding.

Unfortunately, all that time spent watching the kite didn't do any favours to my face and even though I had worn SPF 30 AND re-applied when I took a break, I still turned the colour of red that makes the locals stare and giggle. Whatever, it was a blast.

We left the next day for Cebu Island. We had 3 days before our flight to Bangkok. We decided that rather than spend it all in a city that has only gotten mediocre reviews, we should go somewhere else on the island. We settled on a little town called Moalboal (moh-ALL-boh-ALL). It's known as a leading dive spot in the Philippines. But as I'm learning, everywhere in Philippines boasts great scuba diving. Neither of us scuba dive, but at least Moalboal has snorkeling and we figured hanging out with divers for a couple days would be alright. The bus ride there was a bit of a nightmare though, it was only about a dollar each, but we got what we paid for when a piece of the fan underneath the bus fell off with a loud clang and we dragged it while the driver slammed on the brakes. We had to wait an hour or so for a new bus. Adrienne made new friends outside the bus while I kept my sunburned skin in the shelter of the broken bus and read a magazine.

Well we must have come in the low season because the village was nearly deserted. Tonnes of diving outfitters and bars, but all barren. And most of the divers there were 50 year old Germans. Either way, the change of pace was nice. Boracay, while lovely, was just a little too much. This was like going from Club Med to a private beach. We did meet one other young person, an English guy named Archie who was on his gap year and spending it diving around the Philippines. On our second (and last) day there we got out snorkeling and I got to make use of my underwater camera. We had heard the snorkeling was good just off the beach, but we had no idea. Fifty feet off beach was an enormous coral reef teeming with life. We came to this eerie drop-off point where the coral just suddenly ends and drops into darkness. Luckily, there was a wall consisted of thousands of little mackerel or something that kept me over the reef, they stayed right at the edge of the dropoff, formed a very nice natural boundary.

The bus ride back was acceptable. So, now in Cebu City we have a couple days. Adrienne's birthday was yesterday, and I was instructed by Laura to humour Adrienne and do whatever she wanted. She decided on a movie. Fortunately, tickets were $2.50 and popcorn another dollar. I don't think tickets have been that cheap in North America since the depression. On the other hand, the selection was pretty slim. The only movie that looked appealing was 88 Minutes, the new Al Pacino thriller. Incidently, remember when i was in Vancouver I stayed in a friend of a friend's loft, the one he was renting from an actor who was off shooting in Australia? Well, said actor also had a small part in this movie! So that really came around full circle. While he was on screen I couldn't stop thinking, "Wow, I slept on this guy's floor and he has NO idea."

Anyway, I'll post one more time from the Philippines, probably tomorrow.

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