Sibuyan Island Part 2

Before even arriving, we were pretty much set on what day we will be heading back to Manila.  But dealing with the somewhat unreliable transport system, better be prepared to get delayed a day or two.  It happened to us.  What to do in Sibuyan to pass time aside from going to the beach?  Well, how about doing a road trip of the entire island?  This would take a big chunk of time off your day.  Sibuyan is a small island composed of three municipalities.  Magdiwang (where we stayed), San Fernando and Cajidiocan.

Joining us with the trip are a couple of motorcycles with back rides.  We will be following them with our car.  The first leg will take us to the town of San Fernando.

Antoninus and Jose Luis (our Coke guy) joining us

As soon as you leave Magdiwang town boundary, dirt roads lay ahead.  Don't expect fast foods, restaurants, even gas station ahead so better pack food and have the tank full.  It was a few hours bumpy ride but nonetheless fun.  That's the joy of being in a place for the first time.  Everything you see is new.  Green fields of vegetation, driving along the foot of the mountain.

Did I mention bumpy?

But fun!

Sometimes it got so rough that I felt the rocks scraping the bottom of the car.  As seen from the picture above, my passengers have to alight the vehicle and take the bamboo bridge so I can safely cross the stream.  A couple of hours on the road, rain again threatened our little road trip.  It started to drizzle.  Since our companions are on motorcycles, we rested on on a shed and waited for the rain to stop.  By chance, the place we stopped by is also the site of a monument built for an anti-mining advocate slain during a protest.

Rain quickly abated, thank goodness!  Otherwise, the roads might have turned muddy and slow us more further.  We are just about midway San Fernando and made another rest stop this time on a small "sari-sari" store to get a much needed cold drinks.  According to our guide, we are just about a few minutes away from where a tragic accident occurred.  The sinking of the passenger vessel MV Princess of the Stars in 2008.  From the main road, it about half a mile away towards the beach and from there you can see the wreck.

So close and yet so far.  A lesson never learned.

Chatting with Philippine Coast Guard

From there, we were met by the Coast Guard's head of diving operations who was kind enough to tell stories and his experiences diving in the wreck.  He even offered us a guided dive tour of the wreck if we knew how to dive and have our equipment with us.  But after hearing the stories of how their equipment on the storage rack would suddenly act up and feel/hear moaning during dives even if we knew how to...... PASS!  Again, thank you Mr. Coast Guard (didn't get his name) for taking the time.  Considering that he was watching the Pacquio-Margarito when we arrived.

With the fight on AM radio, we hit the road again.  This time for the Cantingas River in Taclobo, San Fernando where water from mount G2 flows.  With Sibuyan encountering 12-hour long brownouts, World Bank funded a hydro-electric power plant to harness the rivers power.  Good thing this was already operational when we visited.  Although we did encounter some power outages due to heavy rains.

It's past noon and we haven't had our lunch.  We made do with some snacks, local sweets and cookies until we find something decent where we can sit and dine.  The fight was over, Pac-Man won and we were on the move again.  Nearing the end of San Fernando town, we began to see some paved roads.  Sight for a sore butt!  We briefly stopped at Brgy. Azagra (I think) to stretch our legs.

Old....

Some signs of civilization!

Road-wise, Cajidiocan is a far better than San Fernando.  It's a bit more progressive since they have a port where passenger and cargo vessels (from Manila) arrive in a regular basis.  There is also a growing number of German retirees that now call this place home.  I was able to talk to one of them, Hans.  Arrived here a couple of decades ago, he decided to stay and now encourages people he know from Europe to come over and visit.  He owns a pizza house in town where we finally got some decent food.  Pizza, burgers, pancit etc.

'Twas mid-afternoon and dark clouds loom across the horizon.  We hurried to finish up and be on the road again.  But before we could even move an inch, heavy downpour came upon us.  Everybody scampered for cover and waited for it to stop.  No sign of it came and it was getting late.  It was then decided that we have to move and the bikers agreed to tough it out!  Mind you, one of the back rider is a lady (hi Kessa!).

Slippery when wet...

It was now a race to get back to Magdiwang as quickly as possible.  Heavy rain=dangerous roads!  Good thing everybody arrived safely in one piece, wet and tired and all.  We were supposed to stop by a water falls but decided not to.  Since we didn't see it, another reason to go back! :D

No ferry was due until the day after next so we had another day to spend.  Dad brought over from the US some of his fishing gears and I brought mine as well.  While the rest will be enjoying the beach,  we will be fishing.  A boat was hired to pick us up around 5 in the morning and prepped our gears the night before.

We'll be out the sea for 12 hours so we packed coffee and sandwiches.  Came morning and a tiny boat anchored on the beach was waiting for us.  We loaded up and headed out.  A few miles out and we started casting while having breakfast on a really rocky boat.  There was a bit of a drizzle and I forgot to bring a rain gear.  All I had with me was a t-shirt and a bush hat for cover.  A few minutes later, I felt icky.  Then did something I dare not mention LOL.  Everyone on the boat, the pilot, Dad and Tito Boy was cool with it.  I guess it happens to anyone gone fishing from time to time.  By mid afternoon I was already sun burnt, cold and wet.  We were moving from one fishing spot to the next but the fish aren't biting.  Late afternoon we were hit by a squall and big waves I though the boat was going to capsize.   Half day fishing and all we got were lots of debris and one measly 2-pound grouper.

It was a great experience visiting Sibuyan.  Maybe next time I'll climb G2!

Sibuyan Island Part 1

November of last year, we found ourselves heading for Sibuyan, Romblon for the 90th birthday of Lola Titing.  My father-in-law's mom (Hi Dad Nolan!).  He traveled back from the US to celebrate the momentous occasion.  The jump-off point of our journey is the port of Batangas, 2 hours drive from Manila.  From here, we will be taking a RoRo bound for Romblon 12 hours more or less by sea.

If you don't get sea sick, it's not much of a problem.  The ferry leaves at around 5PM.  In a few hours you'll be having dinner and be ready for bed.  There's not much to see anyways.  Only the darkness of the night in the middle of the sea.  There will be a brief stop at Tablas Island port of Odiongan, Romblon for unloading and loading vehicles and passengers.  By daybreak, we were approaching the island of Romblon, Romblon.  The Capital.

From here, we would then transfer to another ferry bound for Sibuyan Island.  Here's where it got tricky.  The ferry bound for Sibuyan was already docked before we arrived.  The only holdup was a truck conked out while disembarking.  I thought to myself, good!  I have time to drive our car out the ferry since we brought one wait for the truck to get fixed and load our vehicle to the Sibuyan-bound ferry.  The problem, it was low tide and the ramp was too steep for our vehicle to exit.  To make it short, we got left by the ferry and there's only one trip per day.

Snap from inside the car waiting to disembark.

The ferry in the middle left us.  Montenegro shipping lines sucks!

But hey! At least we get to spend a day in Romblon.  It was about 7 in the morning and no amount of complaining from the port authorities will bring the ferry back.  Tita Inday's vegetables are rotting away in one of the trucking services that got left also.  So we picked up our bags and went straight to Uncle Popoy's house to have breakfast.

Yes, that's breakfast. A gallon of water....Just kidding!

It was a blessing being left by the ferry.  We received message that it was raining quite heavy in Sibuyan and there's no electricity.  They get to visit relatives otherwise skipped and I get to meet them.  The town center is not that big so we got around just by walking.  And if you don't feel like it, there's always somebody willing to offer a ride specially for a visiting relative.  It's a motorcycle country so be prepared to back ride.

Cathedral of St. Joseph

After a brisk walk and some chit-chat, we prepped our gears and headed for the beach house a few minutes drive from town.  It will be our pit stop for the day before ferrying out to Sibuyan the next morning.

Recovering from sea legs

Away from the city lights

Refuel!

Woke up early the next morning and wait straight to the pier.  A backlog of vehicles created by the previous day hiatus might leave us again stranded.  So we muscled our way in to be first on board the vessel.  It's another two-hour trip before reaching the port of Ambulong Magdiwang, Sibuyan, Romblon.

We arrived late in the morning and Tito Boying is already waiting for us.  He guided us toward the place where we will be staying.  A rented beach house, nice!

The main house

Weather here can be quite fickle.  It can be sunny and then suddenly rain in a span of few hours sometimes minutes.  I guess that's the effect of having a majestic mountain nearby named Mount Guiting-Guiting (loosely translated I think is "saw tooth like") commonly known to local mountaineers as G2 and is rated 9/9 in climbing difficulty.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, enjoying the view and unpacking a lot of stuff.  Uneventful to say the least.

That uneventful!

Relatives started trickling in the following day and the preparation is gathering steam for the big day.  Half the guest is coming in from out of town/country.

11.11 is Lola's actual birthday but the big gathering is still two days away.  That evening, they cooked a few "handa" and have a simple quiet celebration for Lola.  Prepared the cake brought in from Manila, lit a few candles and started singing.  She was quite happy seeing her sons and daughters celebrate with her and the impending family reunion.

See her distance from the cake?  Still has steam in her!

They lounged around the balcony after dinner, stories of old told over and over again yet never tiring to hear for people separated by distance that don't see each other as often as they wanted to.  I decided to head for the beach with tripod and camera on tow and took this shots.

Bright lights from the fishing vessels.

Starry starry night!

More relatives came the following morning a day ahead for the celebration.  We already have an itinerary and they will be joining us.  The more the merrier!  A short trip will take us to a small dam where we will be having our lunch and splash into the refreshing water.  It's my first time here and I'm taking it all in, the beauty of nature.  From where we sit overlooking the gentle flowing river is the evergreen G2.  Locals say that the mountain is enchanted and inhabited by creatures from the netherworld.

Who needs a swimming pool if you have this?  No chlorine!

There is now a resort nearby that offers food and accommodation.  Should you decide to come here, it's a place to consider staying.  Several areas around the dam is flat enough to setup tables and chairs.  The prime spot is just about where I took the photo above.

The resort I was talking about. Forgot the name though.  Will get back on that.

Our picnic area.

We stayed until around mid afternoon spending our time swimming, drinking and mostly eating!  At least I got some tan from this one.  Too bad I don't have a picture of me.  One of the drawbacks of having a camera and appoint oneself as the designated photographer for the trip.  I think there are some in the other cam but the images are on Dad's PC now back in the US.  Dang!  Word of warning though,  there are no restrooms here unless you ask permission from the resort if you can use theirs.  We changed to our dry clothes from behind the bushes.  Find a good spot, ants might have a field day.

Peaks of G2 at 300mm

Then went back to the beach house to help the new arrivals get settled in.  The place is getting a bit crowded and we had to do some rearrangements and relocation to be able to accommodate us all comfortably.

Didn't think much about dinner.  I was still full from the picnic and having few bites every now and then.  We were thinking about doing something else.  Bonfire!  We got ourselves a cooler filled with ice and beer, a few chairs and started gathering wood.  Then, there was fire....

As we were about to settle in comfortably on our chairs...RAIN!  Talk about party pooper, boohoo!  We scampered back into the house carrying the chairs and the cooler.  Lost my interest on those ice cold beer and just played cards.  Good thing I won me some money :)).

Big day came and everybody was at their Sunday best.  Preparation started a day before and they slaughtered several pigs for the occasion, five in all I think.  Talk about pork overdose!

Lola is dressed up like a Binibining Pilipinas candidate all smiles seeing all the visitors as they come.  Tables were already setup by the caterer crossing our fingers that no rain would come.

Mama's Boys

All in all, it was a great day.  Enjoying home cooked style food with great company.  Birthday party and reunion rolled into one.  It lasted until early evening as visitors keep on arriving.

As for me, I got tired running around taking photos lugging around my neck a couple pounds of camera.  Since I don't have a picture of myself, went to the beach and took one!

Wish you were here.....

Dramatic oh! :)