Melatonin as i mentioned earlier in the post is the key Hormone that your body produces when you get into a dark room, the production of this is aided by no blue light (lcd Screens are bad for this) and also in a cool dark room. this is why you can be awake one moment and tired when you hit your pillow.
unfortunately happy medication disrupts this process and allows the mind to keep thinking and firing on all cylinders waking up from melatonin has a mild effect of sleepiness even though you had a great night sleep
it was 7AM and coffee was calling, i filled up my 1.5L bottle of water from the water decnter i had brought on the way home last night , packed my bag and left the hotel.
i had around 45 minutes to get a coffee and return for my Boat trip.
the coffee here is called espresso however i fell the heat and humidity effects the beans pressing ability to extract the Coffee bean oils… but for $1 New Zealand its still cheaper than going to the local Z in New Zealand at $5.20 per cup.
8 am came around fast enough and there was a young Filipino boy waiting for me , we took a light stroll down the lane to their office and i payed my 1600 Peso’s to the nice lady. this was broken down to
1400 Peso – Trip
200 Peso – Environmental charge (or actually lunch)…… which boggles me because i will explain to you later about the enviroment.
from there we walked down to the beach, when the street sellers see you walking with a guide down to the beach they all start calling you trying to sell you wet bags and snorkels which Gerald and i were not interested in… no need to spend money on that junk just to clog up my bag sitting at 16.3 KGs.
we got to the beach and their would have been around 50-60 boats all aligned up with different tour companies taking day trips out to the islands, the boy asked if i wanted to rent a set of waterproof shoes for swimming in as they have stone fish on the ocean floor, i explained to him the shoes i have on are old and doesn’t matter if they get wet as the soles are almost gone.
the boat we were on was white and at the back it has a small Helm and a food prep area out the back, you could smell the charcoal fires all ignited across the bay and the soft light smell of smoking fish was wafting around everywhere.
the boats hold anywhere from 15-26 people and are very narrow.
we boarded the boat and put on some life jackets which turn out that is only needed if you don’t know how to swim, it would amaze you how many people over here don’t know how to swim!
once we left the beach they put the boat in to neutral and the staff gave a small pep talk on the run sheet for the day and introduced themselves, our Captain is Called “captain jack Sparrow” i leant next to a youngish looking round eye next to me and quietly said “either he loves looting for treasure or his wife shits in the bed” unfortunately not only him head me and a few others around me laughed.
the gentleman name was Ed and he had been traveling Asia since September last year, he was Irish with a slight accent but not heavy…. and turns out he doesn’t love whisky or Guinness which was unfathomable in some sense.
on the other side of me was a Filipina called Marjorie ,or Maga as she liked to be called for short.
she was on holiday in Palawan for a while so i got chatting to her for a bit how Gerald and i came to be and that we were not some weird child snatches from New Zealand.
Ed is 24 and this is his first time backpacking around a foreign country, i asked him about his trip and where he had been, he had been in Cambodia, then Thailand where he was instructed this was the cheapest place to learn to Dive and get experience.
He is quiet by Nature… so not a Demetri Raffils by any stretch of you imagination…. more of person who internally rationalises his thoughts trying not to offend.
i asked him if he had met any cool people in his travels and he said he mostly kept to himself, there was a slight look of loneliness in him, which i know all too well. its hard traveling especially of you have trouble making companions to travel with.
he had got a girlfriend in Thailand while he was there and was going to meet her in Bali in a few weeks so i guess he had that to look forward to but it can be exceptionally lonely in that time.
so i took the time to ask him about his life and family back in Ireland and what his plans were once he had finished traveling. he didn’t actually know so the conversation was a bit one ended , but that’s okay.
Maga on the other hand was a bit quiet but more outgoing in conversation and in reciprocal discussion, she was on a break from real estate sales in manila, she was on a retainer for her first 5 months with the agency she was with but in March 2022 they had another lockdown and she was struggling up to that point to sell her first Condo as during lockdowns customers didn’t want viewing due to risk of catching the Rona.
she lives in San Pablo which is around 3 hours south of Manila and is a rural area. she lives with her Mother and father, along with a sister and a neice.
as we approached the first stop for the day it was at a beech that was heavily over crowed with other tours , we all disembarked and this was a location to Snorkel, the snorkel area was small after 50-60 people were in there it was like being in an over crowded pool so i sat on the beach and people watched.
there were a lot of white men with Lady boys so i asked Maga why they had such a large population of Lady boys and she couldn’t really answer with a good biological reason why Asian men wanted a fake vagina… oh well.
we sat there and i asked her if she was a “Lady boy” she laughed and said that she was a 6ft tall Indian man with a huge penis and wanted me to give her 3 iTunes gift cards to unlock my computer from a virus.
so at least someone has a sense of humour!
after 35 minutes our guides blew a whistle and it was time to go to the second stop.
the next ride was around 40 minutes navigating up to a second island where we pulled into a cove and dropped an anchor, the captain said they would prepare lunch for us, we could go for a swim or go to the beach to relax.
we all looked out to the left of the boat and there was a mini Trash island that i made comment to and another lady who o thought only spoke Filipino laughed, turns out she was a nurse that was returning to the islands as she hadn’t been back to the island of Palawan for 16 years and her daughter needed to come back and meet some relatives who only saw her as a baby bump.
we exchanged light conversation about the American health care system and how it all works (more on that later).
old mate sparrow blew his trumpet and lunch was served… and it was very well done for such a small kitchen on a boat.
there was an assortment of fish and chicken and pork… with rice of course
after lunch we pushed onto another cover further up the stretch of water between the islands to our 3rd stop.
at this stop we dived off the boat and the water was deep, about 12-15 meters but Azure blue we had to swim through a hole in a rock to a secret beach located behind the Rocks, the tide was coming in so if you weren’t comfortable you could wait on the boat.
it was interesting to watch lines of Filipino and Chinese tourists all lying on their back in a chain holding on to each others life jackets as one tour guide at the front towed them into the hole in the rock which was only about 1 meter wide but 2 Ft high.
swimming through was relatively simple just go for it and let the current carry you in …. one side effect of this is on the way back from the hole in the rock your battling a bit of under currents of the power of the ocean being squeezed into a small cavity.
i got talking to one of the guides and he said that they had never had an issue here but one of the other tour boats a few years ago had someone try and fight the current and got pushed into the rocks and need some CPR to bring him back, i assured him i was a competent swimmer. however with a life jacket on i could imagine you would be at the mercy of Poseidon and his Wrath.
after swimming back to the boat i was using my finest Pidgeon english to speak to Captain and he looked at me with nothing but puzzlement, i was asking him about when high tide was….. in the end someone translated and said it was in an hour so we should carry on but first he asked if i could dive to the bottom, so i took him up on his challenge
i put my Prada glasses on him and gave him the thumbs up and said “rock star” he laughed.
i dived off the boat into the cool water… we it is actually 33 degrees as you barely notice a temperature difference and exhaled half of my lung capacity and started swimming down, my Gym shoes provided a bit of buoyancy and made it a bit hard to get good clean movement through the depths as i got to the 9M Mark the pressure on the lungs caught be off guard and i had to ascend back to the top.
when i came up to the top the captain gave me a shaky hand signal saying good try… i motioned to him 1 more try, he nodded and i tried again , i didn’t allow any air out and ensured the air in my lungs would allow some more pressure to hold them up. when i reached the bottom you can see small crabs moving along the bottom, they are bright red or black and very tiny, i did a 180 and pushed off the bottom and ascended back to the top.
cap was impressed! so that was an ego stroke, he handed back my sunglasses and climbed on baord to head to our last stop.
the last stop was only 20 minutes back up the coat and we didn’t drop anchor we just floated, i had exhausted my swimming capabilities so i sat on the boat and took photos of the group and chatted to the family from Texas, I had noticed the daughter of the Texan nurse was withdrawn and stuck on her mobile for most of the day so i got talking to her mum about the education system and that i was sorry there was so many messed up children with guns, she said she was lucky her daughter went to a reasonably safe school.
she works in the ED department and i asked how many gun shot wounds they had in daily, she said there was at lest 3 a day and most were from gangs or drug deals that go wrong. i explained our govt buy back scheme and she said that it sounded like something they should do. i reminded her that it disarms the good guys and the bad guys still get their weapons from the black market so its double edged knife in some cases.
I also got asking about their school system and how it works as i have never fully understood the middle school and collage thing, her daughter who is 15 is in middle school and is into the arts and crafts, by now her daughter had chimed in so i took the opportunity to aske her about her school experience as at 15 its can be a tough time for any teenager. this was like a bolt of lightening to her and she spoke non stop for about 20 minutes and her mother listened with intent.
she goes to a school in Texas of around 2500 students and said that it was hard to have good teachers and even more its hard to avoid conflict during the day at school , so i asked what conflict does a 15 year old texan school girl struggle with.
here is the list and i trust you it will blow your mind.
-Kids smoke weed in the toilets daily
– there is drug deals going down in the hall ways
-kids bring knives to school who are gang prospects
-some kids bring hand guns
– girls are sexually assaulted in the hallways between class
-most teachers don’t care about the wellbeing of students
-sex on school premises
there was talk of there school getting a Security officer however i made point that i don’t know if a rent a cop would take a bullet for 13-16$ an hour for a student and her mother agreed.
i turned to the mother and asked “how she felt about her daughter going to school now” and she looked at her daughter and said she is going to be locked up like harry potter and home schooled when they get back.
the daughter at this stage went for a swim and i kept chatting to the mother and she said that was the most she had talked the whole holiday, i laughed and said I’m sorry it wasn’t quite your ideological vision of how her school day was. she laughed and said “i’m sure there is a lot i dont now”
as we finished our conversation it was time for our 60 minute return to El Nido, the sea was calm and the air is warm with the sun slowly setting, looking upon the island of Palawan there was big rain clouds above El Nido (it apparently rains atleast once a day).
we got back to port at around 5 PM and i asked Ed and Maga if they wanted to get a beer so i arranged to meet them at SAVA at 6PM they both agree’d …. ed a little bit more hesitant than the other.
6PM ****
Maga arrived first and we chatted about the day, i made note that i thought ed might be getting a bit lonely traveling, she said we should have set him up with the nurses Daughter on the boat…. i brought it to her attention that she was 15 Years of age and that the best way to get involved with island police would be to proceed in trying to play Cupid with that idea… she couldn’t believe she was only 15….. and then i reminded her the legal age in both the PH and USA is 18 SOOO its a no fly zone!… even if you have angel wings and a bow and arrow with a halo.
Ed turned up and we sat there for a few hours. there was a Dutch guy next to us with what i could assume his father and he had blood pouring out of his leg and arm, he was just finishing his beer so i said “you might need a few more of those to numb that one” pointing to his arm.
the scary thing is, he did hi currently bleeding injury a week ago in Vietnam it still looked fresh!
the night was starting to settle in so the 3 of us wandered off to a restaurant called Angel Wish that specialises in local seafood and Filipino Food,
Maga Ordered – Chilli Squid
ed – Pork Sinigang (traditional Food)
and I – sizzling chicken.
the sizzling chicken was first out on a hot plate and was literally exactly what the item was… it was sizzling chicken with garlic rice. but it was very tasty and well cooked.
Maga’s food arrived next with looked spicy but as for being a vacuum cleaner i got the opportunity to have the left overs which i left a bit for Ed aswell…..
then we waited…… and waited….and waited….. it had been 40 minutes and eds food still hadn’t arrived, Maga hailed a waitress and asked and then we saw a flurry of servers go to the window at the kitchen and table orders were flying…. looks like they had forgot Eds food… and he was the hungriest of all of us!
about 20 minutes later Eds food came out and it looked like a soup the could feed half the village!
we sat there as Ed decided to mistakenly eat a whole green chilli that made him go bright red and he played it cool and handled it well.
Ed was off to Jakarta tomorrow to carry onto bail to meet his New Thai mail order bride.
it was time to call it a night and hit the hay
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
-Winston Churchill-
Quantum Entanglement 