A Month of Diving In Romblon Island, Philippines, and Arriving In Taiwan
A Month of Diving In Romblon Island, Philippines, and Arriving In Taiwan
We just spent a great month diving in the Philippines, and now we fly to Taipei to start our walking journey.
Diving in the Philippines was so much fun, despite some days when we had pretty strong storms with high winds.
We spent a whole month in Romblon, on two different islands, and I got to dive twice every day.
Romblon is famous among underwater photographers as a good place to find macro and super-small macro creatures.
There are no large, pelagic fish, no dolphins, no sharks, no manta rays, no schools of large fish and almost no turtles, but the nudibranch, sea slugs, crabs and crustaceans are so colorful and beautifully designed, that you feel awe and wonder at the Divine Mother who created them all.
It is really a testament to the glory of our Universe.
The days of diving passed too quickly.
Every morning I woke up early at 6 am, packed my camera gear and lights that had been charging overnight, dressed up in my bathing suit, brushed my teeth and put a rich cream on my hair to protect it from the salt water and sun, and went for breakfast.
After breakfast, of a toast with avocado and a plate of fruit with green tea, I boarded the wooden outrigger boat that is stabilized by stalks of thick bamboo painted white.
Jules, who doesn’t dive, swam laps in the hotel’s pool every single day for an hour while I was diving.
Even on very stormy days and days with some currents, he put on his swimming suit and swam for a full hour.
Some mornings, when the weather was very stormy, the boat was docked at a quiet bay on the opposite side of the island, and I walked through the local village, accompanied by my dive guide who carried my heavy camera.
The local village was charming in a rustic way.
Water was pumped by the locals from a communal well, and there were many Sari Sari shops, which are small shops selling candy, snacks, basic toiletries and sometimes basic food items.
Outside the Sari Sari stores, there were colorful vending machines which I initially thought were for dispensing candy or bubblegum.
But my guide explained that the locals cannot afford cell service on a monthly plan, and these machines provide two hours of internet access for a coin.
Near the vending machines there was always a bench to sit on, because the internet signal only covered about ten to fifteen meters around the machine.
All the doors were open, so I was able to look into the houses and observe the daily lives of the fishermen and their families.
I saw mothers nursing babies, elderly people washing up, preschool kids watching TV, and elementary and high school kids studying in classrooms.
Mothers were combing the long hair of their daughters, carefully removing lice with a very thin comb.
The fishermen were already at sea, either swimming with a handheld speargun and a mask, or fishing from tiny boats, with a single fishing line which they expertly released and pulled between their first finger and thumb.
When somebody returned to shore, fishermen on other boats would hand-signal to ask them if they caught anything.
If the answer was yes, they would always make a hand signal to ask if it were a big fish, by stretching their hands far apart.
Whenever I saw this hand signaling silent conversation, the answer was always NO!, so the fishermen would signal “small” by making a small space between their thumbs and first fingers.
It was amazing to me that they even recognized one another, as everyone was wearing balaclavas on their faces and hats, to cover their faces from long days in the strong sun.
But of course they also recognized each fisherman’s boat, and their stature and energies, and didn’t even need to see faces to recognize one another.
The diving was wonderful and I enjoyed the devotion and gentleness of my private guides and the two guys who manned the boat.
At the first resort we stayed at, they had no other divers or customers, and we were treated like royalty.
Every meal was very carefully prepared for us and designed to cater to our wishes.
The food was so delicious that one afternoon, we asked the chef to teach us how to cook some of our favorite dishes.
One dish we loved was green papaya slices cooked with turmeric and Moringa leaves.
The other dish was banana flower, called banana heart, cooked in coconut milk, and a dish of chickpeas with green peas, cooked in coconut milk and spinach.
The chef was cheerful and kind, and his food was simple to prepare, but really finger licking yummy.
This is because he makes his own coconut milk daily from grinding fresh coconuts, and he picked fresh moringa leaves, banana flowers, green papaya and spinach from their own garden, only about an hour before preparing our meals.
I am adding here a video of his cooking demonstration.
We spent two wonderful weeks enjoying Alad Island, with great diving, great accommodations, friendly staff and great food, before we were transferred to Romblon island.
Our second dive resort was located on Romblon Island, which is considered to be the Marble capital of the Philippines, because a huge quarry of marble existed here, providing the country with lovely whitish marble.
This time the resort was not empty and daily I dived with three other divers.
Even though I dived in a group, I had my own dive spotter, who looked for super macro creatures for me to photograph.
The three other divers were a brother and sister and their friend, all from California.
They were very experienced divers, who have dived all over the world, and also really the nicest people I could have hoped to spend hours with on a tiny bamboo boat.
As it turned out, my group of divers were leaving to Manila on the same weekly flight that we were scheduled to fly out on.
Together, we took the ferry from Romblon to Tablas island, and spent an overnight at a dingy hotel by the airport, in order to make the early morning flight to Manila.
A serious storm ravaged the area overnight.
A local emergency alert was ringing on our phones, signaling that this typhoon could cause damage and flooding.
The next day in the early morning, after checking in for our flight, we were told that the flight had been canceled because of the weather.
I explained that we had a flight to Taiwan on the next day, and that we had to get to Manila today.
Our options were not great.
One option was to stay another night at the dingy hotel by the airport, but the weather forecast seemed to be the same and there were no guarantees that the plane would arrive from Manila tomorrow either.
Another option was to take a small ferry to another island that had an airport, and hope that there was an available flight to Manila.
But the man who helped me figure out how we could get to Manila, called his friend who told him that the waves were so high that the small ferry that serviced that airport had been canceled.
The only remaining option was to take an hour long taxi ride to the other side of the island, and wait until evening and then board a nine hour vehicle ferry, that would take us to the port of Batangas.
From Batangas we would need to take a three hour taxi ride to Manila.
We did the calculation of hours, and it looked like we might still miss our flight to Taiwan, but it would be better to be in Manila than stuck on a tiny remote island with a weekly flight.
We opted for the ferry.
We arrived at the ferry terminal with many hours to spare and in the pouring rain.
We asked a small restaurant if we could spend the day inside, if we ordered breakfast and drinks.
They were glad to have any business, and we spent all day in the restaurant, chatting about our lives.
By early evening we boarded the big ferry and spent nine hours trying to sleep in an air conditioned ferry hall, that had about fifty bunk beds and many seats.
Our friends from California fell asleep almost immediately after they entered their beds.
In Batangas, we hired porters to transfer our dive gear to a taxi van that took all of us to Manila.
It seemed to me to be a heroic task, to be able to drive in the dark and through the rain storm for hours, but we arrived in Manila with about thirty minutes to spare.
We spent the time taking showers in our room, collecting the luggage we had left in Manila, and then we took a taxi to the airport.
When we landed in Taiwan, the weather seemed so hot and humid.
It seemed impossible to start a long walk in weather like this…
We felt that we should have started this pilgrimage at least a month later….
Wishing you a pleasant day or night, wherever you are in the world,
Tai
Cooking class with chef Chris:
