Boracay: Beware the windless days!

Several blogs have been added below, so be sure you don't miss any!

Boracay was definitely fun. On the flight there, I enjoyed pointing out to Jordan Taal as we flew over, and other islands we flew by. We flew in a prop plane, which Jo Jo always likes.

Getting to the hotel from the Caticlan airport involves getting to the shore where you then hop on a little boat across the short distance to the island, then into a hotel van to as close to the beach as possible, then a walk to the hotel. It turned out to be relatively easy because it had all been arranged for us, so all we had to do is follow people. I must say I got more and more excited as we neared the island on the little boat, and as we neared the hotel! I've posted some pictures of our first day.

The highlight for me was getting to snorkel again, after having last done it in Maui a few years back. Actually, the highlight was sharing the experience of snorkeling with Jo Jo. He really enjoyed it--I bet he will blog about it, so be sure to visit his blog! There were lots of colorful fish, although almost all were smaller than what we saw in Hawai’i. Having a huge crowd of them feeding out of your hand in a riot of color was really cool, especially when they started nibbling on the bread right next to your fingers! We also saw a few clown fish, some boxfish (though not that species in the link), some fish on the bottom that were perhaps gobys, and some angel fish (maybe they were moorish idols these), a flutefish, and some very cool tunicates. Jo Jo and I also saw an amazing sea cucumber--it was around 7 feet long! Its front end looked like this and the rest of it snaked around rocks. It was cool to watch it feed, slowly stuffing sand into its mouth with its tentacles (they ingest sand and digest organic material, then poop out the sand). I'd have to say that the corals were a bit disappointing. They were not very bright--in fact, Carolyn and I wonder whether most of them were dead. However, there definitely were some bright colorful ones.

The weather helped keep it not as hot as it could have been, because clouds helped keep the sun from beating down on us a lot; it even rained a bit. But it was never too cloudy.

We did have one "adventure". We had taken a small sailboat outrigger around the island to snorkel at one place, and that took 3 hours (“a 3 hour cruise”!), so we agreed to take the boat out again the next day to visit more islands and spend a lot more time snorkeling. We agreed with the boatmen that 5 hours would be good, which would mean a total of about 2 hours of snorkeling. Great! Well, as you have probably guessed from the title of this blog, it didn’t work out that way. With no wind and a lot of paddling on the part of the 3 crewmen, we got back after NINE hours on the boat. I think we spent no more than an hour and three-quarters of that actually in the water! We got back after sunset! ACK!! While it was relaxing and all, and we got to see a great sunset while out on the sea, that is just too long to stay on a boat—especially when we were expecting to spend only 5 hours! Plus, we had to haggle with the boatmen about how much to spend. We felt sorry for all that paddling the crewmen had to do (who by the way were very friendly), so we compromised on the price, but we also feel that they are experienced enough to know what the weather will be like and advise us before we get on the boat so that adjustments can be made. The lesson is that you should agree before-hand how much less you should pay each hour over it takes, unless you are the ones who take longer (like by wanting to snorkel more).

One cool thing is that we saw a sea snake! It passed right between the hull and the outrigger, right under us (you sit on netting between the hull and outrigger)!









In an earlier post (you've read it already, right?), Carolyn talked about the poverty on the island. I have to agree about the feeling of being overwhelmed by it—really, by the juxtaposition of poverty and wealth. One thing I noticed is that the people that were doing the actual begging were the native islanders, the Ati. They are a Negrito people, considered likely the first inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago. As “Negrito” implies, they are very dark skinned, even for the Philippines. They have been pushed out of their ancestral lands. So I interpret the fact that all the beggars were Ati as discrimination.