Annnnnnd….brownout, just as I step outside. No bother, not going to be home anyway.

Out swimming around was pretty good although visibility was poor. Got about 1.5 kilometers out and saw many schools, large schools of sea catfish both juvenile and young adult. Things should never be left alone so I dove down five meters to wave hands thru them. I’ve done that a hundred times and touch them always but never once getting pricked by the poisonous spines.

Turning south, I had to keep more aware of the surroundings because it was now the boat traffic lane closer to Angol coral gardens than shore… Whats that, 2 or 3km out? I keep looking up for jellyfish that’ve been edging in and I was glad for my long hair growth, half stuck under the mask like some cheesy 1975 yearbook picture.

It was out here that I saw some strands….then wiggeling strands… then small darts… then WTF is this trying to rape my mask?! In hindsight, it was a beautful example of a black/white flatworm about an inch long. Now, this was about 10 meters up and it was undulating wildly like a damselfish and seemed intent to land on my mask….but damselfish have tend to have fins, tails, heads, eyes….everything this didnt. Had to look it up later.

There use to be a lot of brain coral down on the south end but now it looks like its been used for construction platforms, not just dead on top from COT but also crushed and flattened like a standing platform. The new resort down there ripped out the cliff a year ago and now seems to have sliced into the cliff face and ground to hide a buried pipe that extends into the sea… tried following it but there’s all sorts of sand out there (where it was a rocky area before) and the fine, angelhair moss growing dead-centered in the sand. A type of moss that I’ve only seen growing around high phosphate areas like stagnant waters or drain pipes. I’ve never seen this type of moss/algae grow in the ocean with moving water, honestly I’ve only seen it in freshwater runnoff.

The surface over there had a nasty foam floating all over and it burned my eyes a bit. A small cut on the hand got infected pretty fast and still hasn’t healed many days later.

It was a good swim, almost 3 hours but when I came back we still had a brownout. Power came back about 9am and went out at noon again for 7 hours. Then out again at 8pm and back shortly before midnight. All total, Boracay had 15 hours of poweroutage in a single day…..again.

A Korean national drowned while snorkeling at vicinity waters of Coral Garden snorkeling area at Angol Point, Barangay Manoc-Manoc, Boracay Island, Aklan on June 13, 2010 at 10:30 AM.

Personnel of Coast Guard Detachment Boracay received the drowning incident report from a certain Mrs Sojen Lee of La Isla Hotel Beach Resort, Barangay Manoc-Manoc, Boracay Island.

Immediately, Coast Guard Detachment Boracay personnel proceeded to the said area onboard a Coast Guard rubber boat to conduct search and rescue operations and were able to recover a floating body approximately 250 meters off the shoreline of Barangay Manoc-Manoc.  The victim was identified as Chang Hyun Lim, 20 years old single and guest of La Isla Hotel Beach Resort.

According to investigation, Lim was with a group when they rented the motorboat Biha MPC-2 which is owned and operated by Boracay Island Hopping Association. While snorkeling at the said area, Lim had difficulty in breathing and fell unconscious.  

At 11:30 AM, the Coast Guard team immediately brought the victim to Caticlan Baptist Hospital Barangay Caticlan, Aklan but was declared dead on arrival.

  Copyright (and thanks) to the Philippine Coastguard for the press release as retrieved 2010-06-20T17:11:38. Future corrections and edits will not be reflected here unless specifically annotated.

I’m posting this as general news for clarification since the islands coconut telegraph had a few different stories.

In response they declared plans to make Boracay a Gun-Free Zone.

The Philippine National Police will bar the unauthorized carrying of guns on Boracay Island as part of measures to tighten security and stem violence in the country’s top tourist destination.

Chief Superintendent Isagani Cuevas, Western Visayas police director, said in a statement that his office was finalizing plans for the implementation of the ban on the 1,032-hectare island-resort.

So there I am in a trike on the main road, at that new shopping mall One MGM is building, and the single largest sign of new stores moved in— Guns and Ammo Trading.

It seems I ripped the zipper off my shorts a few nights ago and only hope that was after getting home. Upon waking, I remembered finding that zipper behind the coffee-mug-o-rubber-bands. A zipper-pull that I’ve no clue of its origins but have been holding onto for over a year. Problem solved.

Part of the blackout stumble came back and found me in the G&C store by Station 3 and the girls remembered my leaving a pocket notebook five months before…… and they still had it! I think they want my body.

I suck at things like wiping high-ceiling walls and sweeping so cleaning of the new place has been a concern. Sho’ ‘nuf, one of the few girls I trust says she’ll do it for only 125 pesos a day, once a week. Only $2.50 USD a day!

I’m not one to go walking around getting things. I’ll walk for booze or booze or even possibly booze, but I dislike moving about Boracay for shopping, groceries, hardware store stuff, etc… Same day, no kidding, another girl agrees to do my shopping for cost-plus-5%. Heck,  I pay more than 5% of my average Budget Mart/Crafts receipt just in hiring a private trike!

Thats a damn huntsman spider, 2nd best eyesight and one of the quickest since it has to hunt lizards and mice. Those fuckers can see you from across the room and just might bite you for the hell of it. I’ve been bitten by one, its not fun. And they’re not particularly afraid of people either. Theres entirely too many of these on Boracay. Too many brownouts and too many brown spiders.

It jumped at me a few times, launching nicely off the wall, then it was running around the walls, ceiling, out into the room and escaping under the back door. Rather than following that soul reaping demon spider, it seemed appropriate to squirt a bunch of isopropyl alcohol under the door and light it, myself remaining safely inside.

I cope with large amounts of Tanduay rum and take-out food. And mangos, loves me some mangos.

My room was disgustingly foul because the owner thought it would be a good idea to open the back door while I was gone so the walls, clothing, bedding, furniture, every single item is covered in a layer of unsanitary mold. As I sat watching her person clean it, she dares tell me its not bad. Had to throw out a lot of clothing, ruined. Even the medicines in blister packs were molded, which tells me the place was flooded with steam at one point. I thought about confronting her on this but of course, shes Filipina so its automatically a lost argument.

While I’m cooling from the day, she tells me I have to move because someone is renting my room for 6 months. I object about getting kicked out after renting for a year and still having deposit credit: she says I’m not getting kicked out… “you can move to the room next door”… I said, “thats kicking me out!” She thinks not.

Think I’ll be looking for another place to live.

The SEAIR flight out was delayed by 3 or 4 hours.. telling us, and I quote “the plane is broken”. Great PR skills. Around 11:00, they fed us. It was fried bits of fried bits. I couldn’t tell if it was chicken, pork, beef, dog, cat, or what. its was pure crunchy fried meat with a slight bit of flexibility… barely. See that fork? Took me a while to stick it in there and the tine broke off. This isn’t SEAIR’s food but something from the airport cantina they bought for us. I always fly SEAIR because they’re cheaper and I like the small planes and they have some of the best pilots. Unfortunately, this ticket was expensive – likely because they’re carrying extra fuel in case they have to divert on a weather basis.

We waited, they fed us this while waiting to get to Boracay. Fried bits of fried bits anyone?

Giving credit where credit is due. The Caticlan cantina.

At the last minute the weather turned foul and the plane was slammed into the runway, causing people to scream… no crash, just a massive hard landing. Finally made it back to the Land of Brownouts. Sure enough, we have them every day so it’s a good thing I sprang extra for a 7 hour battery on my new laptop. Boracay itself isn’t bad, but the trip getting here is never pleasant. I’m just glad I didn’t have to suffer that horrible, uncomfortable, packed-like-sardines trip from the Kalibo.

MANILA — A plane carrying 32 people from the Philippines resort island of Boracay skidded off the runway after landing at Manila’s main international airport on Sunday, officials said. The plane got stuck in the grass at the side of the runway, he said. The runway was temporarily closed while repair crews tried to move the plane, which suffered damage to its landing gear.

The plane was returning from Caticlan, the town that serves the island of Boracay, one of the country’s leading beach resorts, airport officials said.

The accident came less than a month after a hard landing by a SEAIR plane at Caticlan airport forced flights there to be briefly suspended.

In January, at least two passengers were seriously injured when a small plane operated by Zest Airways missed the runway on landing and smashed into a concrete wall at the Caticlan airport.

Another SeAir crash relating to Boracay