Thrillseekers - Day 3, Holy Tuesday
April 23, 2006Ni-upload ko nalang lahat ng photos, just to get it out of the way. So in a nutshell, here are all the pics from the holy week vacation 
A Day of Many Firsts - Day 1, Palm Sunday
Minsan Lang Sila Bata - Day 2, Holy Monday
Thrillseekers - Day 3, Holy Tuesday
In Cebu
I’ve Looked at Clouds From Both Sides Now…, Day 7, Black Saturday
Tuesday started out very early. Wake up call was 5:00 because we had to get aboard the boat by 5:30. Why? For dolphin watching!
The sun was just rising when we got to the beach, so I tried to get a nice, dramatic picture of the sunrise. I shot several photos, but none of them really satisfied me…
This is the boat we used for the entire dolphin watching and Balicasag trip:
We were on the boat for a good 30 minutes before we saw any dolphins. Along the way, we just let the morning breeze roll off our faces while getting a good whiff of the sights and sounds of the sea. Our tour guide on this trip, Edmond (He’s da man! You’ll read about it later on…) pointed out a group of fishermen on their tiny bangkas finishing up their morning fishing run. It’s amazing that they could get all the way out there in the ocean only with their tiny boats, relying only on arm power…
After around 30 minutes on the boat and god knows how far off into the ocean, we finally saw some dolphins; and I learned one valuable lesson as a aspiring photographer: Dolphins are damn hard to photograph! Of all the shots and minutes of video I took, this was the most decent photograph I got away with:
Dophins are as hard to photograph as they are fun to watch. Nuff said.
After another 30 minutes of dolphin hunting, we decided to call it quits and head off to Balicasag island, where we expected to spend another day in the water. When we got there however, we immediately realized that this wasn’t going to be the case… Why? Rocks, pebbles and stones… that’s why. We went there expecting a white sand beach, and what we got instead were hard, pointy stones. Not to mention the fact that after only several meters into the water, there’s already a thick coral bed waiting for your feet… So no, this “beach” wasn’t exactly conducive to swimming. It is, in fact, meant for scuba diving… If you’re a scuba enthusiast, or just want to try it out, Balicasag is the place to go.
We had breakfast there, then my parents strolled around the island, the girls caught a little sun, while me and my bro lounged around with our headphones on… all in all a pretty dull morning.
Right now, after realizing that this beach was not that fun, the plan was to get back on the “Paradise” (the boat’s name) and head back to Panglao to spend the afternoon there. At around 11:00, we boarded the boat and headed back to Panglao beach.
We hadn’t gotten far before my mom saw a part of the island where a few other boats, same as ours, were “parked” and some people were swimming in the beach. He told Edmond to head towards that direction and maybe the beach there was better for swimming in. So we headed that direction, and true enough, the beach there was much much better. The coral bed was further off, there were fewer stones and the waves were awesome!
We spent a good couple of hours on that beach, swimming and braving the waves (I haven’t experienced waves that strong since then.) We had fun on that part of the island… but the “fun” really started when we headed off back to Panglao.
At around 2:00pm, we noticed that the waves were getting a little to strong for comfort, and so did Edmond. Along with this, it was also starting to rain and the wind was getting stronger so we packed up and got on the boat to head back. Once we were all on the boat and Edmond’s sidekick (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there were two of them…) was easing the boat from off the shore, this gargantuan wave caught us from behind… WHAM! It caught us unaware because we were all looking at the opposite direction. It drenched all of us and some of our stuff, as well as putting a good amount of water inside the boat.
When things were somewhat stable, and Edmond’s sidekick untied the boat, Edmond started to get the motor running… the only thing was that it wouldn’t get going… well at least not imediately. It took several tries before he could get it to start, amidst the worried looks on some of our faces. But finally, the motor got whirring and we finally got off the island and lined up for Panglao.
After a minute or two into the return trip, when we were all set and waiting for the sight of land, there was another “minor” mishap… The motor which Edmond had a hard time starting begun to sputter. I was nearest to the motor so I noticed it first. It went back a-whirring after a few seconds so I let out a sigh of relief. But after another few seconds, it started sputtering again… and then eventually the motor died. We were stuck out there at sea, with a dead motor, which our tour guide had a hard time starting.
The fact that I’m here to write this means of course that we all made it back to land safe and sound, so basically that’s all that needs to be said about that day. After around a minute of tugging on the motor, Edmond finally had it running again. When he had it going, we spent the rest of the 30-minute long trip rocking and meeting small wave after small wave, which Edmond maneuvered expertly.
