Homeless Diver

You would not believe the retarded crap I have to take these days, just when it was going so well. I’ve lived on Boracay for over a year and I’m still getting mistaken for my departed roommate thats been gone for a month now. They see me out and think I’m him.

I’m getting texts about it: “why doesnt he answer?, can you ask him?” well, close but reduce it to tagalish text-speak. Come on people, we dont look THAT much alike. Arm tats and shaved head, thats all.

It’s 5am and I’m finally not hungover from 2 days ago. About damn time.

Guess I havent been putting my diving in here.  I started the Master Scuba Diver plan with Dustin at Blue Mango. I’m filling up on cert cards and getting Tech I at the end.  His big thing is that I get plenty of diving in and know my skills for the specialty certs.  It does remind me that out all the people I asked, Dustin was the only one that explained RDP tables in a simple manner that was too easy to not understand on 3 dive projections… in under 30 seconds.

He did an excellent job of having me navigate all over a few unknown dive sites with nothing more than a compass and kick count. Since I already have my Rescue and EANx certs, he let me out further than I suspect others might go. I liked it. Tracing a route and returning to the mark is so much more meaningful when you can concentrate and not worry about observers.

For some reason, I’ve been enjoying the hell out of Boracay this past week, almost as if something’s changed.

For some reason, the brown outs haven’t been happening like they said. It’s not like it was a rumor mill that came up with the ideas, I personally called them and was told YES every day from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm would be a brown out for the entire island of Boracay. And it was going to last two solid months. But yesterday, it went out for 5 minutes in the afternoon and today for about 3 minutes around noon.

I’m not complaining… much the opposite. But I now suspect either they did a poor job of describing the outage (as being island wide) like they did the water issues a few months ago - which turned out o be only a few small areas and only from a certain distributor - completely unlike their public announcement that the entire island would be without water. Also, they could have put the fear of god into everyone in the beginning by making it sounds horrible (which it did) but then we would be relieved when its just a lot of spotty occasions of brown out - and no one complains much.  Yea, I think that last one would be the way to go.

now….. for a random picture:

Ole's: some of the prettiest girls on the island, just waiting for a person to serve.

A few nights ago, I ate at Red Pirates for their Friday night all-u-can-eat buffet for 200 pesos, and that food was good! Tons and tons of BBQ skewers of beef and chicken (or was pork one of them?), some large grilled tilapia fish, a potato salad, a spinich/vinegar salad, a chef salad, rice, etc… man, it was good!

We sat at the front table with Jaqi, Rod, Declan, and one of the new kittehs that only wanted to snoop on the plates but not eat anything. After 2 plates, I was stuffed and ended up laying down on the bench for a while. A few times ther were camera flashes as people took pics of the kitten sleepng on top of me ..  I still gota get copies of those.

It was a nice and relaxing night on Boracay with perfect weather of a cool breeze coming in from the sea. There was so much food left over, they were trying to get people to take plates of BBQ home with them.

food treasure - salvage rights being exercised in Red Pirates on Boracay

The new kittehs’ at Red Pirates have laid salvage-rights claim to Rods bag of leftover food. They might need to have some breaching tools lowered to them.

way too lazy

the new ice-company suppliers on Boracay. do you really want to buy your ice from a cart with the word "Yellow" in the title?

It’s 07:50 am leaving 10 minutes until the official start time of the power outage. They say they’re doing a substation installation and its gonna take 2 months of daily outages. But yesterday, it only lasted about 4 or 5 hours, perhaps less. I even called them and the guy answering was audibly weary of answering that question - yes, there would be many more such outages.

In Baghdad, we supplied a good deal of power to a ton of locations and I can think of a single area that consumed about 10 times more electricity than all of Boracay. It only took a handfull of electricians less than a half day to bypass every existing substation and generator to reinstate power. But Akelco, a government regulated firm, cant get this simple task done with the might of the Philippines government behind it for a tiny island like Boracay? Not for two months? Boracay only has a few single trunks… why not locally installed 1.5 MW generators? they’re pretty much standard every where else in the world… yes, even in third world countries. (but not here apparently). They’re even designed in shipping containers for ease of transport.

Oh well, lets see if the juice goes out again today…during peak usage times.

Brown out, black out, power outage; whatever you want to call it. I’m down at Blue Mango and sure enough, the generator is running. Supposedly for 2 months, the power will be out daily.

How does this happen? After a typhoon, they can get it up after 5 days but now the entire island is without electricity for 2 months, every day, during peak usage times.

Isn’t this supposed to be the crown jewel of the Philippines? The pinnacle of all tourism efforts both local and abroad? Akelco is allowed to raise and lower its rates without notice…now the power company can simply cut off power?

I seriously suspect a bullshit decision that benifits certain fuel distributors here on Boracay, Aklan, and where ever they come from. Thats a lot…a LOT of fuel thats going to be used by the resorts. I suspect that someone noticed the increase in sales duringthe typhoon.

Brown out that never stops?  HuH?

This is what I’m hearing from a god friend of mine who also happens to own a resort here. The low-down as that Boracay power company, Akelco, is going to turn off the electricity every day from morning to evening (hottest times of the day) for 60 or 90 days.

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!

Bullshit.  I’m not referring to his info, I’m referring to these people not being able to side step a simple substation for 3 friggin’ months. OK, so how is it that 5 electricians in a warzone of Iraq can manage it with more power output than the ENTIRE of Boracay needs… but this place cant? This is the crown jewel of the Philippines, is it not?  The entire country cant do in 3 months what takes a few electricians in Iraq only a single day to do?

We shal see if this comes to pass. Today is the projected start date. BTW, Akelco is the company I pay for electricity and they billed me for 4500 pesos for last billing period…when no one was even home! I’m sure the meter is correctly read, but someone is tapping into my line and they refuse to do anything about it. But now, I have my bat.

Yes, I’m in a much better mood. Why? Easy…. I got myself an aluminum baseball bat. Thats all it took. Have bat, will travel. I bought 1 of only 2 for sale on the island. The other was a wooden thing that was made from a plank board - first hit on anything and it splits. But yea, I walked all the way from D’Mall to my house with it and not a single damn vendor dared ask me to by ANYTHING.  hehe. But a few security and police stopped me, just to see if I was about to wreak havoc upon the general peacefullness of the morning. One even asked me if I had a permit because it was a deadly weapon; I said yea, I have one right here. <swinging bat> He nervously smiled and bid me farewell. I think so anyway.

Really, the spirits are much lighter today.

I was feeling so good that I prepaid a ton of diving courses as a package with Dustin at Blue Mango. Its a lot and it’ll have to be packed in tightly, but theres great rapport with these guys and honestly, they already know me too well to let me fuck it up. I can trust Dustin to make sure I know the material and skills rather than just rubber stamp a form because the money was paid.

Any hoo, thats all

I truly hate the dog shit out of this island. I hate the fair-weather friends. I hate the foreigners. I hate the water. I hate the sun. i hate the insane amount of prostitutes on this island. i hate people ruining the atmosphere of established bars because they have no fucking class. i hate the humidity. i hate bartenders padding my bill. i hate paying more because im white. i hate scummy people.  i hate not being able to go anywhere or do anything w/o every mother fucker on the island knowing about it. i hate people getting into my shit. i hate people talking shit about me when ive been level with them. fuck em.

Im gonna find me a baseball bat. wooden. i really hate this fucking place. fuck this place.

I hate liers. I hate them. I especially hate the godloving fuck out of people trying to get money from me they’re not owed. i hate brown outs. again, i hate the police that let gaggles of whores and fags-for-hire harass tourists. i have the muslim vendors association. i hate the media and government making this place out to be some paradise its not. i hate tanduay but i still drink it…i hate that. i hate the cats getting into my house.

i really, really do not like boracay right now.

There is no such thing as privacy on Boracay. It doesn’t matter if you need it or not…every fucking person on this shit hole talks about shit they have no clue about. Ever play the circle-talk-rumor- game? 1st person starts with a sentence and each person whispers it into the ear of the person on their side - until it gets back to the original person. Almost always, in non-institutional areas (military, jail) the idea becomes garbled and different from the original….thus making a false rumor. But here on Boracay, its like the 1st person exclaiming there is no wind….but the second person relays a 20 minute speech on the evils of pull-tab soda cans.

Exactly! It has nothing to do with the truth and only took 1 person. Imagine when its like that thru 200 such people? To that end, it is NOT true that what happens on Boracay, stays on Boracay…or even shit that didn’t happen.

Example: I was in Manila recently and a lot of the Boracay group gathered for one last night-out with a month-long visitor. I arrived with her and nothing more. I did not sit next to her. I did not chill with her. Little conversation, very little. I did not buy her drinks. A person could have stared at me all night and never have any reason to think we were a couple or even friends. It was a group with about 15 eople.

But I come back to Boracay and this bartender (that I hardly see) congratulates me on getting engaged with my manila girlfriend. ———— What the Fuck!?!?!

He clamms up and acts like he doesnt speak english anymore. But it didnt stop there. Several girls found out about me being back and started texting.  A few mentioned my Manila girlfriend. I ignored it until the bartender had mentioned it. Then, last night, I got a text from a girl about my girlfriend in Manila. I have to go thru 15 text messages and she still wont tell me what the hell she’s talking about….. then I remember ……. she was there in Hard Rock cafe that night in Manila. She’s also the ONLY person in that group that lives on Boracay now aside from myself. She was the guest of another person in the group…yea <no name> you know who I’m talking about.

Enlightenment dawns on me… but still, the shit just got real. It was bad enough to find a lot of my friends thinking I was a transvestite during my absence, (must be a pretty damn poor one), but now this HO simply saw me walk into a Manila bar within a few minutes of a Manila girl, and nothing else, but decided to open her cock-holster to tell people on Boracay who-knows-what that ends up with me being engaged to the girlfriend of one of my buddies? What The Holy FUCK, over?

Now, as I’m writing this I was also texting a good friend on mine. She tells me that someone had told her I was admittedly gay - WAAAY back in the day..probably in September or November last year. Fucking great. Just fucking great. This island is full of people that spread rumor and lies like it was free candy…wildfire!…but god damn if this shit has been said about me for the past year and I’m just now finding out.

I give official notice: I will never trust a single mother fucker on this island again. I will assume you are lying to my face. Expat or local, doesnt matter. If you see me smile then rest assured that I’m thinking of how nice it would be to see you at your own funeral. Fuck you.

I woke up around noon today and promptly did nothing but some more laundry. Bleaching all the whites in the house that seem dingy after the house was empty for almost a month. Haven’t been shopping since I got back so I made some instant oats as food, not that I was hungry but I need it with my meds or I get indigestion really bad. Got a lotta paper crap I’m clearing out so rather than haul it up to the mainroad next week (only 1 day trash service) I put the unused hibachi standing grill on the back balcony and burned a bunch of it today.

Pretty much did that and puttered around on the internet until an hour ago when I got some daMarios and talked with Jaqi and Rod down at Red Pirates.The weather on boracay is really nice right now with a solid constant breeze comming off the sea.

I have no idea why, but this is the 3rd night in a row that ladyboys have been hanging out in Red Pirates at the bar. I guess it makes business sense for them since a lot of the older guys at Casa Camilla are into that sort of thing….but c’mon, no need for them to be hanging out on this end of the island so much! And especially not in there. It’s too small to accomodate that scene…its like a nippa hut version of Cheers. I dont mean to go on about this but, until now, I never realized how discreet and low-key the gays on this end of the beach are. There is nothing at all discreet about a ladyboy. I dont think I’ve ever seen them hang out in Angol before.  You want a partner of either of the sexes or transgendered (i think?) ladyboys…fine. Go to Summer Place or walk around Station 2 later in the night. Just want girls? They’re all over Station 1, Station 2, D’Mall, Cocomangas, Gilly’s, Andoks, Bamboo Lounge, Regency, or any friggin where you walk on the beachpath in that area… but down here at Red Pirates. Anywhere past Station 3 is not a good place for them to be hanging around. Luckily, this might be short lived since they seem to be getting picked up by the newer retirees as ’sowing their hedonistic oats’ in their early days here. Ok, I’m done with that.

now its past midnight and I never finished this post.  Been looking for a picture of a “bag of Andoks” online…they closed the one near here and opened another one further down the beach…not exactly close walking distance…still noy too far but definately not an option for a quick trip. The hole in my leg is still jacked up so I’m not moving about very much.

The Highlites that the article seems to spend a lot of time explaining:

• Resort properties on beaches will be declared ‘agricultural’ areas to put control back in Gov’t hands
• Supposedly, this protects occupants so they can finally put their name on the property by means of application
• Most resorts do not OWN the land but instead are subleased thru 2 or 3 different levels of people
• Owners (tax mapped) will have to pay the government AGAIN for the property they had been paying for over the last 30 years
• Because everything will be open again, and this is the philippines…pretty much anyone with the most money will see their application for ownership approved.

So…If you just invested 2 million Pesos in your building and several years left on your lease contract….you can lose it all if a new person comes along and has more money to offer the Government for the newly for-sale property. You will lose, your contract will become void. The new owner will have a nice turn-key resort business package.

the article and link are below here:

(more…)

Just a quick note.

My leg looks like it was shot with a .22 pistol and got infected. Hell, it happened when I was 19 or 20, got shot with a .22 and didnt know it till later. Now its infected and swollen but the Doc says it’ll be fine and to stop walking on it.  Not easy to do living on this hillside.

I’m 2 weeks expired on my visa but its normally OK since they have instant service here on Boracay and have no problems collecting the 500 peso penalty. Never any issues as long as I’m not a toublemaker - but this time, they’re not coming back until the middle of next month by which time I will not only be a month expired, but also lacking a certain “1 year” special visa stamp. Breaking 2 laws at once might get me thrown in jail…damnit! How do they get away changing their immigration tourist visa requirements 3 times in less than a year with out telling anyone?

The landlord is going to be in a legal world of hurt soon. I know he’s going to ask me for rent even though they have 90,000 pesos of deposit already for the last 3 months rent. Its just about to be the last 3 months. They already lied to me once before about owing them money and trying to change the original contract. I know for a fact they have no money left over to EVER return that deposit. And thats the rub. Of course they’re gonna ask for more rent…but before I leave this country, I’ll put a few thousand US Dollars into a lawyers hands and tell him to bleed them dry. I would rather pay thousands more and have these people feel the hurt of being lying scammers, their kids without food, their electricity turned off, etc…than to just quietly keep my money.

I think someone was staying in the house..theres a ton of daMarios take-out containers and also Andoks rice in the frige. I have never, ever, bought Andoks rice. The place is trashed and my bed looks like someone was sloppily eating beef stew on it. God, I hope its a food stain and not bloody skidmarks. Actually, there are several fluit stains on my sheets - the white sheets I bleached to perfection the day before I left.

I have someone telling people that I owe them a bartab at a bar I never drink at.

Apparently the house flooded while we were gone. Godamn typhoon winds.

There are 3 bars of soap in my bathroom. I have never had 3 bars of soap at the same time. Never. Not even a spare still in the package. Only 2.

All I had time for was this grainy pic just after the large Tokay gecko ate the smaller “ta-ka” gecko (according to how several people are pronouncing the small ones.) That would explain all the missing tails. Geckos eating geckos on Boracay - guess I learn something new every day.