Homeless Diver

I bought a monthly password from a friend at the resort nextdoor and it normally works nicely. My wireless here is faster than cable-modem from Kalibo Cable when I had a dedicated line. Trying to get better reception to his guests in the resort, he installed a new, outdoor, high-powered wireless router. Problem is - its not connecting anyone with the outside or sometimes has negligable output (which is the reason for its entire design).  Now he seems to be back to using the smaller linksys little-blue-box which I can pick up but not his own guests.

Even though I’m a paying customer -  I still respect his first obligation as being with the guests in his own resort.  I wonder if they have any connection at all now. He’s a really cool guy so I’m sure he’ll hook me up for the last week.

Power outages, brownouts. Man, they’re getting really annoying and … well, they suck. It was annoying at first hearing they would be everyday, scheduled during the hot times. But still, at least we knew when to expect them and adjust our schedules. Then they were ‘close’ to the schedules but starting and stopping with more randomness. Then they would start/stop brownouts and completely odd times. Middle of the night, early morning. Sometimes off for 30 minutes a shot at 2 hour intervals. Then storms and bad weather messed a bunch of lines up and blew some transformers. Now… it goes out around 8am and comes back within 30 minutes. Then out again sometime around noon and back at completely random times.

And when the power doesnt come back on until 5:20pm, no one is around to reset the routers and switches for internet. I want to stay on Boracay, but I also like my technology and will pass on the brownouts.

DSAT TecRec diving, or Tec Deep Diver, or DSAT, or Tec I…. or whatever you prefer…. I learned something, thats actually tough!

All other PADI courses are generally designed so that it’s impossible to fail unless you simply cannot ‘get it’.  Even the numbers, if you get them wrong on the test, no probs - just a lil review. But if you can work the equipment and not drown, then you pass. Some courses (like rescue and nitrox) obviously dont fall into this category.

But not Tec Deep Diver, certainly not. This isnt a matter of learning new equip, which is easy, this is a whole different matter. And I finally found something in diving that I’ll have to actually work for.  This isnt recreational diving anymore. Here was my day:

• Dive briefing and  skills testing list.  uh-oh, I cant remember the skills steps all of a sudden, gotta write those down and try memorizing.
• Break for lunch…mine sits very poorly in my stomach
• put on the gear, which is massively heavier than a single tank rig, I dont need any extra weight at all for this.
• in the water heading to the boat…jeeze these waves are kickin’! Crap, cant get the fins on right, have to put on the mask just to see, high waves.
• getting on the boat is a pain in the ass, I’m the last one on and dude looks at me and walks away, i was about to throw my fins at him when another guy walks up. Oh hell… this is not what I had in mind, huge wave surge and my first time with a heavy doubles set. Have a lot of trouble getting up the ladder and into the boat—which for some reason, does not have anything like an entryway next to the ladder. Dude keeps telling me to go sit in the front but wont get the fuck outta my way.
• travel: waves are pretty damn big. even with 4 of us and one on the bow, we still crest the front 3rd of the boat over some waves. very slow going. I dont trust myself to not flip over the side so sitting on the floor is the decision.
• entry: since im sitting flat on the bottom, I cant stand directly up or even lean over with all this weight on–I wil have to twist/roll to the side and onto knees before standing. And with this rocking action, standing is gonna be a bitch. Boatman tries helping me up but will NOT get the fuck away from me. I told him over and over to get away from me so I could turn (didnt want my face in his nuts) but this fucknut just keeps lifting up on my tanks, as if that accomplishes a damn thing.
• now I’m thoroughly in a foul mood. This is not a good way to start a dive.
• water: I get in and learn something crucial, it fucking hurts to backroll with doubles tanks off a high boat in killer waves.
• the boat is smashing up and down and what do I hear?  “Get away from the boat! You’ll get fucking smashed!” or something really close.  I was gonna yell that I couldn’t get away because there were 3 other people in front of me, blocking my way, including the person yelling at me. As soon as I pulled the reg out, I caught a mouthful of wave….   screw it.  Why we would ever NOT do a negative entry in those waves is beyond me - but hey, I’m the student.
• skills: I learned that I have horrible buoyancy with doubles.  Everyone was easily hovering and fine tuning their buoyancy, but I keep flipping upside down. FUCK! its so goddamn frustrating to not be able do what should be easy as fuck.  Upside down?  WTF?  I haven’t done that since my first dives?!?! The bladder was a donut so of course, any slight tilt down instantly inverted me again.  And because of this, I cant do some of the skills.
• We took deco bottles but apparently had a skill to do on them… everyone else remembered the instruction, all I remembered was being told they were going with us that morning. So now I’m underwater and supposed to do a clip/usage skill on a deco bottle, but I have no clue what. Its not like a blackout event…. I remember clearly the bottles coming out and what was said  about them… but nothing about a skill on them.
• return: getting on the boat was just as hard. It sucked and the waves were even larger. at stationary, water was still getting into the boat. I thought Dan might have smashed his head on a pontoon cross member, but missed it barely. During the trip back, I couldn’t stop thinking how much easier it would have been if they just towed me by a rope rather than getting back in the boat.
• Back in the shop: my ass explodes from a bad lunch.

It’s a lot of complaining, I know…But I keep telling myself this type of diving isnt for everyone; it’s supposed to be hard. The weather on Boracay was bad that day and got worse over the next 2 days.

There was this guy that left today….lets call him Lance…mostly because that’s his name.  Well, this happinin’ cool cat spent a good amount of time here for his vacation and decided to throw a going-away party for himself after a month of dutiful service on the island. I found out the night before but everyone else seemed to know about it a week earlier than myself…. I blame the booze.

There was food everywhere. It was on the bar, the table, outside, in the sand when people puked, everywhere. Jesse was fire-dancing drunk again, which made for some good video.  These times are completely off, but they’re in order and thats all you need to know…

• 4pm: Cocolocos, Denis, Daniel, and myself are drinking and thinking about the free-food party later in the night.  Sounds good, but hell, we all started drinking too early. Storm is kicking in.
• 5pm:  Monty is drunk and complaining about ‘if’ and ‘when’ the party’s starting. We assure him they’re already cooking the food, but he insists that ’someone’ told him otherwise.
• 6 pm: Monty’s gone.. passed out is likely.  I’m drunk and eating beef schnitzel at cocolocos.. good salty drunk food.  Forgot about the party.
• 7 pm: cocolocos makes good drinks
• 8 pm: Walk Past Red Pirates, see people gathering…lots of Filipinos….much more than usual for this end of the beach so I stop in.  People gathering for the party–guest of honor not arrived yet.
• 8 pm or so: Lance arrived. We’re all drunk.inside of Red Pirates is packed. Tequila sounds right!
• 8pm: tons of food!   Shitloads!  Fuckin-A Lance… this is great!  I wont list it because…well, it was fucking awsome and you werent there so you lose out!
• 10 pm: inside, outside, garden, and surrounding areas are packed.  Everyone is drunk. They claim to have video of me singing…I hope not.
• 10:15 pm: William, Ryan, every main island singer/performer is here. somewhere.  please damnit—stop ringing the bell! free shots all around. over and over. why is this girl in my pockets…oh yea, thats why. free shots need tequila chasers.
• 11:00pm: Jesse does firedancing with the sticks… drunk as hell.  Tosses a few into the trees and …well, good times.
• 12:00 midnight: storm rages in…. drunks stumble about.  Carla says that her good friend tagged me as the “strange guy”. Great, now I’m a freak stalker and never got to be freaky. Tequila is in order…mucho!
• 12:02 am: Carla tells me that she doesnt remember my telling her that i liked her 4 months back… and says “thats cute”. …………..  hmmm……………………..  ok.  Tequila shot!
• 12:05 am: JD decides to be the “weird guy” stalker he’s already been labeled as
• 01am: something I dont remember, they say i was dancing. Someone has vid and pics.
• 01:? came home, computer.. left again
• 01:? head back to Red Pirates in search of food, theres none there. Jo Jo says theres nothing left but I know he’s full of it. brings me a little plate. Spend the next hour watching this girl try picking up another girl (which is a hot thing to watch) but they’re both too drunk so nothing happens. Bar runs out of tequila and San Mig Light.
• 02:? Blue Mango swimming at the height of the typhoon. Put my camera and 93 pesos and shirt in the dive shop.
• 03:? jeeze, thats some intense swimming and drowning. Lose my house keys, smokes, and sandals.
• 03?: note to self—do not dare the waves to “come on bitch!” when you’re already 2meters deep and the waves are a meter over your head. That shit hurts to get slammed to the ocean bottom in a flat second….and dragged about for another few seconds, on your face.
• 04:? walk back into Red Pirates and see people i dont know. I have shorts on I think. Vangie is macking with a german guy. I tell them all I’ve lost my keys and Vangie somehow knows I have left my outer guestroom unlocked. So I go there and crash after unsuccessfully attempting to break into the house.
• next day: Daniel V. from Sweden walks around the tiny ledge like it was the easiest thing, and gets into the house to unlock it.

Lance, Boracay can be fun…. its even better when you buy the food and booze! I’ve left a lot out of this story…. lots. like the part of me crawling uphill in the hillside flood zone to get home.

too lazy to update.. waaay too lazy, so heres a bulleted list:

• fly-paper sheets are an excellent deterrent for cats trying to get into your house, and funny as hell also
• illnesses were going around the island for a few weeks, a few people got hit twice
• been raining a lot lately on Boracay
• the roof leaks in my house, so screw the house - I’m leaving this dump.
• I’ve woken up on the beach in front of Red Pirates 3 times in the past two weeks - once in the biting cold rain
• yes, the rain actually got downright cold one night, it was nice
• sold a spare laptop for 6000 pesos
• still havent decided on where I’m going after this
• credit card fraud is a bitch
• ants again: WTF are they in this room!?!? I specifically dont bring food in here to keep them away!
• its low season and every girls mother is magically in the hospital now, so they’re begging for money
• ill do this later….gotta go do a recovery dive in the channel

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.

Almost came and sat right on top of us. Wind speed estimates were from 90 to 120 km/hr. I dont think anyone actually recorded it here in Boracay.

Apparently Fengshen means “God of Wind” in Chinese…which is odd and retarded at the same time. This wasn’t a Chinese storm and only hit Hong Kong after is settled down (as expected). And really, God of Wind? Yes, it was a lot of wind……thats normally the idea behind typhoons….its windy. I’m not knocking the Chinese, but how did they come up with this for the name? ahhhhhh….I found the answer:

http://www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/genmet/rpnames.html and http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/jma-eng/jma-center/rsmc-hp-pub-eg/tyname.html

These names are preselected in advance and they just go down the list as the storms occur. I had not known this. The first list is for use within the Philippines only. I have no idea why they’re the only Asian country to be so obtuse about what they’re calling it - and theirs was “Frank”. Everyone else is all one the same list, which is the second link. If they had made it to 25 storms last year, the Philippines would have named it…hehe…. “ZigZag”. BWHAHAHHA!!!!! I love it, a typhoon named after rolling papers!

The main Asian list has words/names donated from most countries that touch the Pacific basin. Next one will be Kalmaegi meaning ‘Sea Gull’ donated by DRP Korea. but the USA has some entries I dont get…

I had to look this up…what the hell is a Chamorro? It seems they’re the natives of Guam. Apparently, theres a huge anti-american wave going thru there. I mean, look up their web sites…seems like they truly and utterly hate the Americans.  I dunno why we would submit their names, must’ve been a PR move.

Palau is not even an American territory, its independent.  How did the USA manage to submit those words under its name? Thats like Texas claiming a polar bear as its official animal.

Aere is Latin….and it does NOT mean storm, (that would be ‘tempest’). Its just a general Latin term for ‘air’. Oddly enough, I found a lot of references that it IS the Marshallese word for storm. What are the odds of a pacific native language having a word in general common with Latin?

I’m not making light of this but it was odd to see this combination of words in an article about the Ferry search being halted because of toxic pesticides that werent ever supposed to be on a passenger boat:

A handful were positively identified by clothes, scars and jewellery [sic], including a policeman who was returning from Manila on the ferry after processing his retirement papers.

Wearing face-masks, relatives wept. Some fainted and vomited, at what they saw. One of the bodies, a female, was clutching a headless baby to her chest.

Across the street, music blared from karaoke bars.

Source

Check out the inner wall of the eye on Typhoon Fengshen (Frank)! This joker came right next to us that night my drunk ass was walking around the island! You can see the eye open up right at its peak intensity next to Boracay

EDIT: Because the embedded flash is causing the page to load really slowly, I put it under the  the page break. It will still be visible on the “more” page.

(more…)

UPDATE: whoops, not everyone had power restored like I had said earlier. I went down to Red Pirates and sure enough, they were still without. Several bars/resorts along the southern end of White Beach didnt have power still…guess I was lucky. As far as I can tell now, everyone seems to have it restored. Honestly, I have no idea why I have it or even internet considering all the cables are under the remaining fallen palm tree.

I was going to post this on Yahoo Answers but screw em…its mine!

Heres the scoop:

Cell phone: Globe came on this morning, Smart has been stable for the past day. “Sun” is still showing up in the networks although no-one knows what that is…possibly some private venture someone let out of the bag during the emergency.

Land lines: the land-line phones are PLDC and never went down as far as I can tell. I have heard them ringing in houses even when the power was off and no generators connected…dont ask me, I profess ignorance on how that happened.

Electricity: Went down sometime early friday am, came back yesterday (Tuesday) about 5pm. Many resorts have generators but it was obvious that fuel was getting in short supply after a few days so usage was rationed to foodservice areas and rooms at night.  Sometimes. A great many places have no form of generators like Red Pirates bar, but that did not stop it from being full of patrons until early in the morning. I do not have generator access either, it sucked.—UPDATE—Seems like several places did not have electricity. I just assumed I would be one of the last ones to get it restored. I noticed Red Pirated was still out lastnight and gave Joey and Jen a good ribbing about it…Sorry guys!

Beaches: water came high on all beaches. Tambaasan is where the boats went to drydock but the water came all the way to the palm line and smashed a lot to bits. one person died the first day by trying to line a boat when he was smashed between it and another. I can get some pictures of this and post them. All the resorts have done an excellent job of cleaning up their respective areas. Even the kids scrounging for recyclable stuff to sell have made a windfall of this.

My Balcony: I have been thinking of chopping down a few recently overgrown banana and coconut palms that grew to obstructing my view of the sea.  Now I don’t have to, the exact ones blew down!  I have my view back!

Fuel: was in low supply. Rationing was enacted voluntarily because people were afraid they couldnt get it. The only formal gas station, Shell, refused to sell to people with jugs knowing that it was resorts getting the fuel and not for motor transport.–UPDATE—several people told me this was not accurate. Others told me this happened to them personally. I can only assume it was hit-n-miss for different people.

Water - household: BWSS ( or whatever its called now) was out for several days. There are conspiracy stories going around about how they selectivly shut off water to all but the highest bidders…this will prove devistation if true. Right now, its just a rumor because certain high-end places DID keep water while residential areas were without (smaller resorts as well). The Tubi water system was only out for a day and then only to certain areas. It was really low pressure for a few days so we all filled every spare bucket and container we had. This is all speculation and I’m sure everyone will deny it happened either way.

Food: never an issue except for those clueless people like myself that had only an electric burner…not a gas tank burner. Cooking is kinda hard. But food was never in short supply and yes, the stores were always open. They did keep the doors closed but hey, its a friggin typhoon! Just knock!.

Booze: Never a shortage of that on Boracay.

Flooding: a few nights everything was flooded. D’Mall wetmarket was about 10 inches deep. Back alleys were much worse. Main road between Station 1 and 2 were so deep that motor bikes couldnt get thru at one point… the water was halfway between the wheel axle and the upper section of tire!  Some areas, you simply couldnt see the road, sidewalks, dirt, nothing…just where the water met the buildings.

Clubs: one night, everything along the beachside closed. I found out why - sandblasting wind and crap falling off palms left and right. It was physically impossible for me to see where I was walking. I HAD to put my hand infront of my eyes to keep the horizontal onslaught from hurting. Over and over, I would run into other drunks just as stupid as myself to be walking along White Beach in the middle of a typhoon just as the inner wall was near us at night.

Cocomangas - you guys are troopers! Never once did they stop partying and on top of that, made some SPECTACULAR pizza! John, Scott, Chico, Sean, and staff…..you guys know how to keep it alive!

No more messenger from me, people. Only 6 or less people have commented on here but a bunch hit me up on messenger about my comments..not sure why but whatever. To each, their own.

Anyhoo, I start classes again today with the Univ of Phoenix so messenger will need to be cut to a minimum.  The weather is still hot here. Havent been diving in a week but I usually get down to swim in front of scuba libre in the afternoons. Still waiting on the house inspection info and zoning laws, (its a protected forest area).

Today is going to suck, simply suck. I started waking up around 2am to what I think was the sound of cats yowling. Guess I was so tired that I left the light on and thought I saw their shadows under the door….so I get up for water and turning the lights off. Between 2am and 5am, I drank every bottle of water I had including the jars -  thats about 4 liters. Started sweating in bed and then Montezuma’s Revenge kicked in. I’m trying to update the software on the phone but its telling me that its already current, even thou the numbers dont match up. Headache is comming on.

I’m beginning to believe that some people were never meant to be in hot weather. I cannot recall ever being sickly or ill in colder climates. I had energy in colder areas. I was active. And one thing is for certain, I never in my life put on this much weight until I got to Iraq. Being hot and in the sun almost seems painful and puts me in a bad mood. Its about time I left this area…..it might be cheap living but hell, thats not keeping me from being miserable.

Today, I finally got back in the water again! Whoo Hoo! I had taken my gear down to Blue Mango a few days ago to get it back in the rinse tanks and check it over… re-seasoning it I guess we could say.

We had some really good friends come in the same day and spent about 3 hours in the water tossing Frisbee; myself w/o any sunblock. Needless to say, I got burnt so that after dinner at Arwanas, I was not feeling chipper enough to go out with everyone else. The next day was an ‘aloe-vera and dark room’ day for me as well.

This morning, I rolled down about 07:30 am after a 3rd night of mild insomnia. Sure enough Dustin is rearing for some morning diving - and this mornings dive is Yapak 1. Sweeeet! That’s possibly the most advanced dive site around Boracay without everyone having tech rigs and getting into a specialized dive. You can drop in around 18 meters and slope down to the top of the cave at 33 meters (depending on which direction you’re coming from). Theres another guy who is on his 99th dive for this one, just the three of us.

Starting off, I noticed a bit of water in my 1st stage of the regulators (personal set) because I had apparently tightened the dust cap too tight. Just a few drops and airflow is still good, no biggie. We start heading to the boat and right away my BCD is full-bubbling out the shoulder dump-valve where I had not screwed it back on correctly; Dustin easily fixes this w/o gear removal. Now I’m at 2 strikes.

We head out and the weather is magnificent: warm water, visibility is excellent. We drop in North of the cave, which is a first for me…and the current had already started moving. We did a hard (for me) swim for a solid five minutes against and across the current to the cave - man, out of breath. I think I actually started sweating in my mask. We head down and I drop straight to 44.5 meters while my dive computer is chirping that it no longer want to be my friend during such a rapid descent. Silly Suunto hocky puck.

I look at my air and Holy Crap! I’m sitting at 60 Bar already! I have never in my life seen anyone use a 200 bar tank that fast. Damn, looks like I’m going to be the one ruining this dive to only a single penetration. Anyhoo, we head thru the cave and out the top, get on the boat, head back - and I start feeling queasy. Back at the shop, I have a bout of Montezuma’s revenge and head to the house for some meds and a nap (dive later in the afternoon).

I wake up at 13:30pm and the power is out again, it seems to have been out for a while as my bed is soaking wet in sweat. Cell phone rings and its University of Phoenix trying to get me back into classes earlier than I wanted. While talking, I stand up to find my left ankle is really tight and sore as hell. The pain is shooting up the outside of my left calve and feels like overexerted muscle, I was like where the heck did this come from?!?

So now I’ve got the trots, Brown-out just ended, bedroom smells like rank sweat, can’t walk properly, missed the afternoon dive, and have the embarrassment of ending a dive a lot faster than it should have. All because I went straight for a hard dive after all this time off.

But ya know what? I still enjoyed today. I feel much better; beat up for sure - but definitely better.

I awoke around 04:30 with a killer sinus problem. I slathered menthol-rub all over my face, neck, chest, around the ears…practically used it like I would if it were sunblock. I even put a dollop up each nostril, and learned thats not such a good idea.

Well, it went away after a while. Now it’s after 17:00 and the sinus issues are back. Just in time for anothe brown-out, so I’ll post this when the power comes back on.

Been really humid here on Boracay recently.  Oh, my head hurts.

Ya know, theres been so much drama this past week, I’m gonna turn off the SEO entry for this one. But sure enough, I’m still not going to list the details here. In the US, we call that “Pleading the 5th”. Or drinking a 5th….or something that somehow connects alcohol and legal issues…..

Well, the nice weather is gone and the sun came back out yesterday, after raining for almost a week. That creates humidity. OK class, all together now lets pronounce humidity….” DAYMN!” I can see how the different pronunciations might be confusing…in in the mother tongue of fat-crackerese, DAYMN! said loudly is a valid expression of painful humidity.

Lets see…

• I found out my cell phone is jacked up. It sends messages out to people not intended. The clicky sound for the camera also stopped.
• I have been drinking myself stupid recently, worse than normal and I hit black-out drive before 10pm last night.
• I used FaceBook to find a long-lost best friend I had back in the Army.
• I am single again and could sell my sheets to a sperm clinic.
• I found out that I can pack everything I need into 2 bags and a backpack…not bad considering my scuba stuff is in there too.
• I also found out that I can swim in stormy water at 05:30am using a mask with no strap.
• I got my visa renewed, late as usual.
• I found out that I have been here so long that they will not let me leave when I want. I am required to now pay 500 pesos for paperwork a week before and another 1400 pesos at the immigration office in the airport. So, if theres an impending death in the family, basically I’m screwed. Thanks for visiting the Philippines and spending more money than my family makes in a year!…oh and be sure to leave your wallet on the way out. Bye now!
• I have had the feeling of hair-in-the-back-of-my-throat for a solid week now.
• I shaved my head back down; sweating in that mop was not doing me any good.
• I accidentally sent a few hundred emails to people by mixing up the merge of gmail addy books and adding people to Yahoo messenger.
• I had a deep conversation with a guy who spent 5 months in a mental wing of Philippines prison last year…then agreed to have him teach me some diving specialties.
• I cleaned the house spotless last week; now it looks pretty unsanitary.
• I spent way too much money this past week.
• I am going stircrazy on this island. I dont want to dive. I don’t want to see the same people over and over. I dont like tourists anymore. Nothing blows up here. I need to get back to work just to have something to do.
• We have had more and more power outages.
• A big part of Boracay island was without water yesterday. Apparently one of the suppliers were low on supply so they sent people to sneak out and turn off the lines to certain areas so the ‘big guys’ could have water. Small businesses, residential, public…no water. Resorts and spas and anyplace with a swimming pool - lots of water. I watched the guys fan out to turn it back on later. They denied doing it even as about 20 of us watched them. While the denial words were coming out of their mouth, they were kicking sand back over the access cover so it wouldn’t look disturbed.
• I got heartburn last night for the 1st time in months.
• Got a sunburn on my head, neck, and shoulders.
• Looks like I’m losing weight again.

As I type this, leaning on my bed, I look around and cant stand the sight of the inside of this house anymore but really dont want to got be around any one else either. That means I have to wear clothes. On the brighter side, I have a new outlook on finding a better quality of female companion. Not that this will actually happen, but hey, its a start.

Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch….

I was doing much better this morning but now I almost wish I could hurl. Some salty soup didnt do the trick like it should have. Some pickle juice had me feeling better for a while and the body was responsive too but that was short lived. It didnt help that my lower back was killing me from the start. The only thing I was lifting was a foam mattress but I guess that did it.

And damnit! Why the hell does it smell like piss and milkfish all around the place! Urine oder is wafting around the hillside. The people downstairs are cooking with scrap construction wood again and the smoke is coming inside thru the balcony. Milkfish! I don’t know if thats what it is but Filipinos eat that stuff all the time and it smells like rotting flesh in a garbage dump. Cooked or raw, stinks to high hell. But they like it.

On the bright side, the stormy weather season is early this year! They call it “Habagat” which is when the winds change direction and start coming at us from the west. Even when the typhoons spin up and arrive from the eastern side, because of the rotation of them, the wind actually hits on this side of the island first - directly from the sea. This time, we are up on a hillside with two balconies facing the sea so this should be really sweet! And the wind!  Oh man, it’s gonna kick up and be almost constant for a long time meaning we can kill the aircon pretty much. I can’t wait! I just might jizz right now while typing!

Usually, its a pain to walk about the house with the heat. Soon the rain will start as well. Even though this place is impossible to shutter-up, it still has poor air-flow qualities. But now the wind will come directly thru the house! And much cooler too! weeeeeeeeeee!

Lets start from the beginning, around midnight or so. I was still sick and pissing from my arse. Ole girl was pissing me off with silly little stuff like making childish whining groans and saying “baybeeeee! I’mmmm sooo hungreeeeeey!” Couldnt opt for a simple “do we have something to eat?” or even “I’m hungry”. No, she has to do it in that so fucking annoying voice like a child wanting candy at the supermarket checkout line.

Then the power goes out from 01:00 until almost 03:00 am. No where even close to peak usage/consumption times. Sleep until around 17:00 in the afternoon. Get up and clean some more, going after the kitchen that time. Find a spider in the bag of carrots that I’ve been bitten by before. I really hate them - look mean and hurt like hell. Then an army of ants come out to eat him.

Shave my head again because this cracker just isnt doing so well in the heat these days. But for today, the weather was really nice. Opened the windows to let the wind in.

Our guest stops by and we had a good discussion about biology and genetic sequencing. Quite refreshing since it’s a rare treat on Boracay to have conversations about anything more complicated than sports on TV. Imagine the school geek being sent to a football/baseball summer camp. Thats me, here. I’m not saying that diving is anywhere close to being a ham-fisted knuckle-dragging sport like american football, but lets just leave it by saying that I really enjoyed the hell out of the conversation even when he was way over my head, (he’s a University Professor).

We had a few drinks, he sprite and coke~cola, myself coke/rum and a bottle of 2003 something white wine from Napa Valley. Started on hot-gluing the framework of a paper-mache’ lampshade project hobby of mine. Sealed a floater-jar as part of my personal artificial reef that I’m putting together without telling anyone. Its gonna be small and, erm, well odd. I guess it would more readily fall into an Art category. But by calling it an artificial reef addition, it becomes legal to put it where I intend on putting it. Screw it, if the Rotary club here can get away with dropping a bronze plaque of their chapters seal and call it reef restoration, then I’ll use their excuse too.

ole girl starts cooking a ton of bacon and ham while were talking and fills the kitchen with grease smoke. Talk about a non-cooking person. I cleaned the HELL out of the kitchen during this time. Manage to put a bloody fingerprint on the wall again. Drops of blood on the floor. Don’t know how I cut my finger so deeply.

This whole time, the weather is so nice that I’m not using the aircon and don’t really stand in front of the fan either. Apparently I told him that I would go snorkeling with him in the morning. He leaves around 2 or 3 or 4, I forget. By this time, I’m drunk and take off walking to get some cigarettes. Came back and for some reason, decided that it would be a good time to fry some ham slices, poach a few eggs in hot oil, slap it on a sammich with cheese, and grill the whole damn thing! I barely remember eating it. But my nicely clean kitchen? no more.