The Dance

Life on the Calumpan Peninsula was quite different to that on the live-aboard dive boat. It had a different pace. We had different expectations. For one, we weren’t tethered to the boat, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest inhabited island. For another, we were keen to experience a little of Filipino culture.

But we were there to dive; it’s what were came for; it’s what we paid for. And like the Tubbataha Reef, there were innumerable sites to dive within reach of Batangas; there were even more beyond Maricaban Island, but those were beyond easy reach. We did all our diving from outriggers, so where we dove had to be within relatively easy reach. They weren’t especially swift, but what they lacked in speed they made up for with the taste of authenticity. They brought the age-old tradition of pearl diving to mind. That was sweet. It certainly added character to the trip after a week aboard the Svetlana, although I must say that the Svetlana had that in abundance.

But unlike the Tubbataha Reef, our being so close to human habitation brought us face to face with an abundance of free floating trash. Flotsam. Jetsam. I won’t say it was everywhere, but its occurrence was regular enough to warrant our being given net bags to clip onto out belts to collect what we could where we found it. Noting news reports of reefs of garbage three times the size of France informs me that our efforts were negligible, at best.

Were that the only difference: we also experienced free reign fishing, and when I say fishing, I mean harvesting using explosives. We’d be drifting on the current at sixty feet when we’d hear a distant thump. That rattled me. I knew what that sound was, even if the others didn’t. I’m a miner; I know the sound of a shot fired when I hear it even if it’s muffled by water. Not so the others; they were oblivious, then. But not for long; Kim asked the Master what it was when we surfaced. I think she wished she hadn’t, because it proved not to be an isolated occurrence. We were less satisfied by the comment that the fishermen weren’t likely to drop their sticks of powder overboard within sight of other boats than we should have been, I think. Sometimes the thump was less distant than we’d have liked it to be. Thankfully, those distant thumps were less common than the plastic we were collecting.

The current was stronger, too, being pressed between two sizable landmasses. We didn’t fight it, we used it. And if we missed something we wanted a closer look at, so be it, we missed it. There was no going back. But we took heart, we were sure to drift past something equally spectacular.

Our time on Luzon was more labour intensive, too. We man-hauled our gear to the outriggers, we man-hauled our gear back from the outriggers. I was okay with that. I was used to manual labour and was itching for any such activity. And it was fun travelling in the outriggers. I got a kick out of the eyes painted on the hulls that led the way, their touch of anomalous pagan dichotomy amid the flood of Christianity everywhere, the brilliant white bodies, the brightly painted trim. I just got tired of nudibranchs and crinoids. Bill adored them. Bill never tired of them. They were infinitely varied, infinitely colourful. But after so many countless minutes waiting for him while he got the perfect shot of each had taken its toll.

Bill had taken his toll. He was sullen and taciturn. He barked orders as though he were in charge of the tour, when he was just a client, just like the rest of us. Okay, maybe not Jenny, but she wasn’t in charge either, there to audit the tour, the accommodations, the value for our buck. Bill demanded quiet, Bill demanded privacy, Bill demanded. He wasn’t the only one. A few others had joined us for our second week, others who, travelling together, hadn’t felt the need to join our little threesome in our nightly discourse. Fuck ‘em, I thought.

We sat out long after our late dinner, lingering over a bottle of wine, talking about books and movies, out home towns and our pasts, our respective travels. We tried to keep it down. But sound carries at night. But I suppose wine can jack up the volume a little, too. What can I say? We were on vacation.

Bill hushed us.

The girls hushed. But I’d had enough of bossy Bill.

“Excuse me?” I projected up to their room just above us.

“We’re trying to get some sleep,” he said.

“It’s nine o’clock,” I said.

“We’re diving tomorrow,” he said.

“Me, too,” I reminded him.

“Just keep it down,” his unseen self demanded of us.

“You ought to keep it down, too,” I said. 

He had no comeback. He retreated back into his room, taking his complaints with him. I was referring to his fairly robust braying rut before supper. Jenny, Kim and I were in the common area, gin and tonics before us, novels in hand, light snacks of tropical fruit hollowed out, their husks discarded but not yet cleared away, legs crooked over armrests, soaking in the surf as it rolled in, watching the first of that night’s moths flutter about the overhead lamp, dropping into and never again rising from the bowl of water in the centre of the table. We were listening to Bill and Ursula’s headboard tapping and then hammering the bamboo walls. Jenny began giggling. Which set the rest of us into fits. We applauded Bills final release, bursting out into laughter. Were they embarrassed? I don’t know. I don’t care. Fuck ‘em. They might as well have done their deed in full view for all the quiet and privacy that bamboo afforded us. Which wasn’t much. I burst in on Kim mid shower when it became impossible to hold my water anymore. One could just as easily walk in on someone getting changed. It happened. It’s not like there were any doors.

Jenny, Kim and I wanted to have fun. We wanted to get out into Anilao to get a feel for the culture. So we did. We went to the market, we went into the shops. I was astonished how much pirated stuff was out there. And the price was not the price. Some people love that. Some people love to haggle. I’d never been comfortable with it. I was never that good at it. Jenny and Kim came to my rescue.

On returning, we saw a pavilion being erected. I asked our Filipino guide what was going on. She said that they were setting up for a dance being held that night.

“Can we go?” I asked.

Sure, she said, anyone could go.

I asked the girls if they wanted to go. They did. We asked the others at our digs. They did not. They were tired. They wanted to go to bed. Fine, I thought, go to bed. They did. We didn’t.

We went. We were the only white people there. Everyone was fascinated by us. We danced. The locals wanted to dance with us, too. But Holy Mack, it was hot. It was humid. We needed to sit down and catch our breath. The locals made room for us. They brought us water, water in a clear plastic bag cinched at the top. But what to do with it. Did they have a cup? They thought that funnier than I’d intended. I was shown how they punctured a small hole in the bag and drank from it like it was a wineskin.

The disk jockey had stopped playing music and had ventured out onto the stage with a microphone, addressing the crowd. I was okay with the break.

The happy faces around us gestured for us to be back on our feet. I begged off, happy to rest a few moments more. They insisted. They corralled us, took us by the hands and brought us to our feet. Come with us, they said.

So, we did. We were brought on stage.

Jesus, what have I got myself into, I thought.

The disc jockey shoved the microphone in our faces, and asked us to introduce ourselves. We did.

He said something else, something I didn’t catch.

He shoved the microphone in my face again.

“Am I to sing?” I asked.

Everyone laughed.

 

Culture Shock

My time on the Svetlana was short, two days shy of what my stay on the Nautica ought to have been. The days were filled with discovery, though, each day as wondrous as the last.

There was little privacy, though, not with our rooms open, our showers on deck, and the only common area in continuous use being the aft open (and somewhat covered) deck where our gear was hung to dry, and almost all our meals were served, where the sun was. There was another lounge forward, fully enclosed, well-provided with couches, games table, TV and VCR, but we rarely entered it by day. We’d spend an hour or so in it at day’s end, but we were usually so exhausted by the day’s dives that we’d find ourselves in bed no later than ten.

The meals were ample, the larder fully stocked for a full complement of passengers and crew, which surprised me considering the week had been set aside for one heiress and her instructor. A few meals stood out for me. We were served jumbo shrimp that I originally mistook for lobster. My family was never one for shellfish (my mother’s not a fan), so I had no clue what to do. I leaned into Kim and asked her what it was and how to eat it. She took that in stride, and before I knew it, I was cracking them open with as much aptitude as the others. The King crab were another matter. I cut myself on their spines with each leg gripped and snapped.

We had a free afternoon on day as we cruised from one reef to another. I took the time to lay some tan on. Or so I planned. I pulled out the SPF, the first time I had on the trip and began to slather it about, taking great care to reach each and every exposed inch. We were on the 8th latitude, the closest I’d ever been to the equator, so I knew the sun would be the strongest I would have ever experienced. Kim helped me to get my back. Protected, I stretched out on a lounge chair out from under our aft awning.
I suffered no more than ten minutes, if that. It wasn’t that it was hot. It was. It was like being trapped in a microwave oven. I could actually feel the sun’s rays penetrating me. It felt like being stabbed by thousands of needles. It wasn’t painful, it’s just impossible to describe the sensation. I flopped on my back for a short time to the same affect. After about five minutes a side, I felt seared. I’d had enough. It was too much for my tender Northern Ontario Irish flesh. I grabbed my towel, and danced back across the hot plate of deck panels, back under the protection of the overhead canvas.

“Had enough?” Jenny asked me.

“Jesus,” I cursed as I dropped into my usual seat. “I’ve never felt the sun that strong before.”

That’s when I was told what latitude we were on.

I didn’t bother trying to tan again. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my face, arms and legs did brown to a rich golden hue. It was a shortie tan, rather similar to a farmer’s tan, but unless I was naked, no one could tell.

We bid farewell to the heiress and the crew back in Puerto Princesa, making our way back to the airport. The flight to Lauzon was delayed. What else is new? But only by two hours. We landed in Manila, and headed south to Anilao, and then Bagalangit.

We stopped for lunch along the way. I wanted to go the water closet afterwards, to wash, to pee before getting back on the road, and walked into a room that could only be described as culture shock. It was an Asian WC (water closet). By that I mean had I needed to do anything but pee, I’d have had no clue what to do. There was a long concrete wall ending in a trough that drained into a hole. That wall was self-evident. There was a hole in the concrete floor beside it with a water bucket alongside. No toilet paper. No toilet! I knew which hole was for which, but had I been in need of the larger hole, I’d have been at a loss.

Bagalangit was beautiful. It was a stretch of rocky rolling hills. It was wooded, jungled. Its structures clung to the cliffs that plunged into the ocean. Our “resort” was much the same. We parked alongside the road that thread down to the base of the peninsula on a weathered side strip, got out of the shuttle, and slid down the stone stair walkway to our home for the next week. I saw thatch, I saw bamboo slats, I saw a stone foundation. One flank dug into the slope, the other side perched on tall green stilts that anchored in their stonework, our rooms on the top ground floor, the kitchens, offices, dining room and gear were on the lower beach ground floor. A concrete base faced a thin strip of sand that gave way to a tumble of rocky stones that collided with the surf. Birds called, monkeys hooted, howled and screamed, the surf rolled in and in again.

We signed our wavers, noted our credit cards, and scaled the stairs to our rooms, where we met those joining us for a second week. I found a hostel. Bunks lined the walls, six to our room, the bath behind, beads separating it and what lay behind. Were one to look in from my bunk, one would have a clear view of the sink and the toilet behind it (at least there was a toilet). Fully half the room was a tiled shower. No shower curtain. The toilet faced the shower, the showerhead the toilet.

That would take some getting used to.

A gecko barked. It scampered from hoist to trestle, searching the thatch for a meal.

If you’d never had a gecko in your room, that too could take some getting used to.

 

Be Cool

More often than not, we dove from the runabout. The Svetlana was not suited to the purpose. It was too tall, too big, too heavy, and could never get close enough to the reefs anyway. Now, if we were to be collected by a trailing net, that would be another thing altogether.

Runabouts are better. They come to you, especially if you slip the pilot a Twenty and butter him up, telling him that he’s the most important man on the boat, owing to I’d be relying on him to chase my ass down were I to be swept away by a current. It worked, too. Every time my head poked above water, there was Juan grinning down at me.

Dive vacations have a certain rhythm to them. You rise, you break fast, suit up and dive. You dive again before lunch, eat, then dive again. You dive before supper, eat, and then dive again if you’ve a mind to when the sun is slipping below the horizon.

That much diving can strip you of your heat, regardless whether the water is 85 degrees or not. The shortie gets set aside after a few days and an “arctic” top is donned in its place. And you still get cold after spending four to five hours a day in the water, an hour or so at a time. When you upgrade to an “artic” weight, you need to re-weight. Too much weight and you need to use your BC to control buoyancy, completely unnecessary in salt water; too little and you can’t get below the surface, left flapping and floundering like a whale stuck in the shallows. You never want that to happen. It doesn’t look cool, and if there was one really important take-away from Otta’s Blue Water dive training, it was “whatever you do, look cool.”

I did my utmost. I rolled off the runabout like a pro, I tucked and piked, plunging to depth like a weighted stone, rolled face-down and flat when I approached the bed, and inhaled deeply, instantly buoying myself and hanging weightless amid the fishes.

I conserved energy, I sipped my burps of air, rose and dropped by lung volume, and allowed currents to carry me to and fro. I looked cool.

Diving in the Sulu Sea was fantastic. I saw even more than I had in Australia. A cyclone had battered the Great Barrier Reef weeks before I’d arrived, tearing up corals, killing spots. Not so here. I tracked a lion fish, probably the most poisonous thing in the ocean, until it decided that it had enough of my scrutiny and waddled ever closer to me, forcing me to back off and give it the space it demanded. I poked at the edges of a moray eel’s hole with my knife until he too had enough, bursting forth in a wall of teeth. I hitched a ride on a white-tip when I jiggled his tail while he was sleeping under a shelf of reef. I’d have never done that in Australia. Not at first, anyways. When we’d pulled up to a reef sporting a few dorsal fins and Gordo said we were “good to go,” we all hung back, expecting to be the object of a feeding frenzy. Gordo just laughed at us, saying, “They’re just white-tips,” as though that cleared everything up. When we still hadn’t moved, he jumped in, scattering them. “See,” he said. “They’re not Tigers!” So, I had no issue with jiggling the shark’s tale and hanging on for a few feet. I repelled back up an anchor line, surrounded by a hundred parrotfish. I hopped from high reef to high reef, navigating by compass alone, slowing my drift by drifting fins first.

Like I said, I looked cool.

At least until my regulator began to leak air into my BC. I’d chosen a faulty one that day, and had no clue about it until I was at depth.

We rolled over the edge of the runabout and plunged to the protection of the reef. It was a simple dive insofar as all we planned to do was follow a reef ridge, spanning a gap, and then surfacing once we reached a far mound past a sandy span. It was mildly difficult insofar as we were to cross the current swept span. I found it difficult to keep my depth. I checked my BC and found it mildly inflated, so I purged it. And found myself rising up the ridge again. I purged again, thinking “What the hell!” I was not inflating my BC. But it WAS inflating. I unclasped the inflator hose, expecting to see bubbles rising from the open hole, but no bubbles bled from it. I reattached it, waited a moment. All seemed as it should be; so, I carried on.

Moments later, I was rising again. I kicked hard to find my depth, expecting easy response from my force fins, some of the most powerful fins you can buy, but even they struggled to keep me down. I felt my BC and it was inflating fast. For some time now I’d been angling down, my fins increasingly above my head. Soon, I was almost swimming head down. And still I felt myself rising!

I knew I was headed for surface, so I stopped fighting it, deciding to control my inevitable assent, instead. I tore the inflator free, began purging the BC again, and began exhaling furiously, trying and failing to check my now completely inverted and foot-ward rise, but the current had caught me, sweeping me off the protected reef, off and up. I grew dizzy with my sudden rising. The world spun. My mask flickered with the sunlight and the bubbles that ripped across my face. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell which way was up. I was surfacing faster than my bubbles, far faster than I should have, far faster than was safe. I began wondering about the bends. I’d done a lot of diving by then.

My legs broke the surface before any other part of me. I flopped and rolled, laying full out on my back. I spit out my regulator, set my mask on my forehead. Exhausted, I took a moment to catch my breath before looking around. I considered deploying my rescue buoy, sure I was on my way to Easter Island by then.

Then I heard the distant whine of an outboard and I saw the Juan and the runabout beating a path towards me, Jenny and Kim already aboard.

“Hey, boss,” Juan said when he pulled up alongside me.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see anyone’s face as I was to see his.

“Hey, buddy,” I said, slipping my fins off, tossing them into the boat.

I think he earned the promised second Twenty.

Hitching a Ride

I can’t say I wasn’t a little surprised when we woke in the Tubbataha Reef. I ought not to have been; Methuselah had made it quite clear that they knew how to navigate their sea. And here we were, right where we’d set out for. He was on the walky-talky with “ground control,” discovering where the Svetlana was at anchor inside the reef, on which atoll. At first, the fact that there was an actual “ground control” was a little surprising to me, but our being that far from any island, I thought it a brilliant idea. Control point, field medic, EMS seaplane, the only thing it was lacking was a confectionary.

I stepped down to the foredeck and leaned back against the cabin to watch the Svetlana draw near. It certainly wasn’t the Nautica. The Nautica was shiny white, sleek, apt to rise up and fly, its keel high and skimming the surface. The Svetlana was red hulled and streaked with ages of grime and soot. The only thing white about her was the salt stains. She was heavy, likely only able to muster a chugging gait, and that with the wind at her back. What can I say? She looked like a fishing trawler, sans booms.

She’d also been out two days. So should we have been, had we arrived on time, had the Nautica not been as broken as the flight that should have whisked us to her on time. Water under the bridge.
Bill, Ursula and Kim were on deck waiting for us. They’d endured a similar fate we had, even if their flights had arrived on time. But without a Jenny with them, Bill had to step up and spend his time on Palawan conferring with San Raphael, and ultimately leading his own little pack on their own fourteen-hour outrigger adventure.

Bill was a steady sort, if a little taciturn; his being a lawyer might do that; being sixty might have had something to do with it, as well. Tall, narrow, wiry, he’d been diving for decades. Ursula had not. But Ursula was still rather experienced, having been Bill’s trophy wife for the better part of a decade.
Kim was more like me, if a little older, her forty to my thirty-two. Kim was a solitary sort, a dedicated bachelorette, an executive expat, living in St. Petersburg. She was successful. Okay, maybe not like me.
We of a similar sort, Jenny, Kim, and I became a trio. Of course we would; we were of a kind: youngish, single, travellers, divers; prone to bookishness, lovers of food, wine and beer. Of, course we’d gravitate to one another’s company.

Jenny was exactly my age, in fact. And born in Ottawa. And adopted, too, although she knew far less about her background than I did. We gave one another a hard look after that, speculating whether we were twins. We couldn’t be, though; there was no mention of a sibling in my stack of birth and adoption papers. Maybe there wouldn’t be, either way. Either way, we became siblings for the duration.

But I’m skipping ahead. We arrived. We nestled up to the Svetlana’s lowered stair. We climbed aboard to a heartfelt welcome from the crew, from our fellow passengers, too, all two of them. That’s why we were able to hitch a ride. The Svetlana had been booked by just one person, a Japanese mogul for the private use of his daughter, who’d just taken up diving, and her instructor. There were no other passengers. It must have taken some negotiation by San Raphael to get us on board. But here we were, scaling the stairs nonetheless, welcomed by all, smiles all around. I’m thinking it had been pretty boring on board without a full complement of rowdy divers to fill its hold. We’d fix that.

We were shown to our cabin, the last available. The heiress had one, her instructor another. Bill and Ursula shared one. Kim had another. Jenny and I would have to share.

“No problem,” I said, “no different than a co-ed hostel,” as if I’d ever spent a night in a hostel. The closest I’d ever been to staying at a hostel was Cambrian Res.

What can I say about our accommodations? I called them Avant-guard Soviet Chic. They were sparse. They were narrow. They were decorated in the very best fake mahogany panelling. No expense had been spared.

They sweltered with the door shut unless the air-conditioner was on. Nothing ever dried in them, although things could freeze. The air-conditioner had two settings: tropical stagnation and arctic hurricane. Blankets were as thin as sheets, and as thermal. We took to sleeping with the door open. I’ll assume all the other rooms were the same as ours; Kim’s was; and both were a sliver of nautical bunks with a maritime head tucked at their feet.

A maritime head is a wonder of engineering, if not comfort, if you’re wondering, requiring you to straddle the toilet to shower, nose to nose with the sink. Not that you’d want to shower in it, not on the Svetlana; had we, whatever hadn’t drained would have lapped the toilet until doomsday. Water pressure was an issue, too. I soon discovered that for the brown to go down, I had to run the tap a little to get the water flowing in my room’s general direction.

I learned quickly: showers were on deck, my main bathe would be in the sea while wrapped in neoprene just after breakfast, with all bio breaks in the main water closet off the dining room, except in an emergency.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I loved it. It was an adventure. It was memorable, far more than any five-star stateroom would have been. Had it been such, it would have fallen from my memory like every other hotel room I’d ever had the pleasure to crash in. Quick, describe your room at the Sheraton!

We unzipped our bags, scattered out gear about, setting up tanks and checking regulators. Donned shorties, weighted belts, pulled on BCs, dragging on last cigarettes.

I met our runabout pilot, a spritely Filipino no taller than a twelve-year-old. I shook his hand, and slipped him an American Twenty.

“Keep a lookout for my bubbles, kid,” I joked. “There’s another twenty in it for you if I’m not lost at sea.”

At the end of every dive I made, he was idling no more than twenty feet away from where I surfaced.
Money well spent.

The Southern Cross

Face to face with the crew of the outrigger, that passage about kidnappings and murdered tourists crashed into my courage. I had the notion that I entering the opening scene of a Noir flick, and that I was not the hero. I suppressed a rising panic. I was getting quite good at that by then, surpassing panic. Practice makes perfect, you know. No, no, no, my tortured jetlagged mind rebelled. This can’t be the boat. This isn’t right! This isn’t what I signed on for!

Jenny’s reaction wasn’t especially encouraging, either. This was the last straw. Long days of stress had finally derailed her. She deflated, looking as lost and panicked as I must have in San Francisco.
“Well…” I said, sucking up my fears and puffing out my chest in a display of male bravado. “Not to worry.” I pontificated. I screwed up my courage, not so much for myself (I was feeling like I was being led to slaughter, truth be told, and strangely resigned to my fate), but for her.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said, “I could call—”

“No more calls,” I said, putting my arm around her and giving her a squeeze. “In for a penny. We’ve come this far.”

I grabbed our gear and made for the boat.

How male, how cavalier, how arrogant. Who was I trying to kid? If these guys were going to kidnap us, torture us, kill us, what could I do about it?

Onward, just the same; I had come this far—we had come this far; and all because of her. And really, what else was I going to do, go home? I certainly wasn’t going to let her go on alone.

The eldest of the three onboard gestured to the younger ones to help, and the proprietor waved farewell.
I boarded the boat, Jenny right behind me. I couldn’t help but feel that we were consigned to brigands and pirates as I watched the Jeepney disappear into the night.

The ocean-going canoe pulled away from the jetty and then the harbour, pitching and yawing as it cut the inky swells. Aft, the lights of Puerto Princesa sunk below the surface as we slipped away into the bleak night, taking all hands with her. The city’s glow grew fainter the further we sailed into the pitch, until it faded altogether. Darkness, a waste without reference, embraced the small boat.

It wasn’t that bad once we got going. Ocean breath swept across its tiny deck, carrying away with it the stink of fish and exhaust. It stripped my heat away with it, as well. I sat, my knees in my chin, curled into a ball to conserve what little remained.

I felt a furtive tap on my shoulder. I twisted about, expecting Jenny. I was met by a tobacco-stained, gap-toothed grin. Was he the Captain? He must have been. What else could he be? He looked older than Methuselah, his face cracked by sun and wind.

“Would you like to see the compass?” he stammered in broken English while offering me a cigarette. Would I like to see the compass? What a surreal thing to say. I almost giggled. I almost burst out laughing. But I could see that he was trying to set me at ease. My apprehension fell away.

“Sure,” I said, accepting the smoke. “Why not? I’d love to see the compass.”

Aft, the Filipinos trained their single flashlight on their most prized possessions: a fixed compass and a map of the Sulu Sea. A faint line was penciled in, tracing our course and marking our position. Many such courses had been marked, erased and marked again, leaving the paper lightly frayed, feathery. Each destination was the same: the Tubbataha Reef, a near circular collection of dots that marked the centre of the map.

We were sailing east-north-east, so said the compass (I prayed that it wasn’t jammed with grit, and God being merciful, I saw that it wasn’t—it was floating on its gimbals), and at least as far as the faint pencil-line was concerned, heading directly for the reef, just as the map directed. I nodded sagely, precipitating a medley of chatter and head-bobbing amongst the crew.

I slept fitfully atop the cabin’s roof with Jenny snuggled against me, a few beach towels over us to keep the wind off us. It was cold. We spooned.

I awoke on a sea calmed to glass.

What time was it? I didn’t know. It was late—very late—three in the morning, maybe.

I sat up quietly, so as not to wake Jenny, and gazed up into the night sky. I was struck by what I saw, awed, mesmerized by a field of stars, as big as dimes, sparkling in a sea of infinite depth. The Milky Way, a broad band of brilliant light, swept over the world. An immense moon floated in its sea. Below it beckoned the Southern Cross.

Eternity hung over me, infinite and unfathomable.

I tore my gaze from its hypnotic beckoning and peered over the gunnels at our wake. Our path was speckled green with shimmering incandescence, life agitated and set afire by our passage, mirroring the arc of the galaxy above. I had heard about that once and had forgotten all about it, having never expected to witness it myself; but there it is, a galaxy unto itself.

Unimaginable depth fell below me, abyssal and mysterious.

I was lost in the wonder of the moment, that profound moment: at sea, blanketed by one sea of lights and buoyed above another. I was caught between, seemingly small and insignificant, drawn to both. I could feel myself drift.

Jenny shifted beside me, drawn to my warmth. Anchoring me.

I looked down at her, her hair mussed across her face. I heard the quiet whispers of the crew behind me. I remembered Methuselah’s smile, his cackled laughter.

A thought came to me, something I heard or read about travel, something I knew to be true, but only then did I understand it implicitly: it’s not about the places, stunning though they may be, it’s only scenery; it’s all about the people met along the way.

That said, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world, just then.

Bliss.

 

A Taste of Asia

Manila stretched out before me, its expanse obscured under a humid rusty brown cloud. I wouldn’t be in it for long.

We pressed on, eager to catch our holiday, following the trail of breadcrumbs left by San Rafael.
There was a snag. There was always a snag. The dive boat, the Nautilus, was broken—first the plane and now the boat! Not to worry, San Rafael was one step ahead of us and had made alternate arrangements. Another dive boat, the Svetlana, had room for our dive tour, but it was already at sea. All we had to do was catch up with it. Jenny led our headlong rush, herding me along—me, the self-proclaimed intrepid explorer, lost and reeling in the cacophony of the East.

“It’s good to be back in Asia.” she confessed, breathing deeply. “I’ve missed it.”

She missed it? How could she miss this? It was even more of a blur in the light of day. There were people everywhere, more people than I had ever imagined, milling about, rushing here and there, gaggling rapidly, smoking incessantly, and their bodies already stinking with the heat, even at this early hour. She swam these waters with ease, reminiscing, while I floundered in the surf, afraid to wade beyond my ankles lest I be carried away in the riptide.

Though my apprehension burned bright enough to guide ships along rocky shores, I tried to suppress my angst. Breathing deeply, as she had, I tasted Manila’s tainted air: the humanity crushed together, the cigarettes, the spices, the smoke of open-air fires burning garbage, and exhaust pipes belching forth copious clouds of carcinogens far in excess of anything I was accustomed to. My breath caught in my throat. I can do this, I coaxed myself, more challenge than assertion. I’m not some newbie. I’ve been places: Toronto, Jamaica, Australia.

I looked to Jenny for support. She radiated glee and excitement. Her show of confidence was infectious. We had a lifeline in San Raphael. I can do this, I thought. But then again, I was only along for the ride.
A taxi took us back to the airport. Six lanes of traffic squeezed into four. Horns pressed into the gridlock.

The flight to Palawan was late. What else was new? By this time, I would have been disappointed otherwise. But it was all right. I was beginning to get the hang of this place and its dichotomy, its hurried sloth. It is a strange place, the East, balancing modern technologies and ancient traditions. It was chaos and tranquility, but I was already becoming desensitized to it.

It ought to be easier this time, I thought, more so than those times before; in all those others I had been alone. Now I had Jenny, she who had missed all this. And I had my trusty Lonely Planet guide; let’s not forget about that.

The flight to Palawan was surprisingly uneventful. The plane was waiting for us. And it worked. We scaled the air stair, took our seats and were off.

I was struck by how provincial Puerto Princesa seemed after the haste of Manila. It was serene by comparison. Rocky up-thrust hills, bristling with tall, stately palms stretched as far as the eye could see. White outriggers bobbed on a placid green sea. Screeching gulls wheeled overhead. Brown faces beamed welcome despite the weight of the heat. Palawan was Eden in Pacifica.

The serenity lasted until I saw the first armed forces truck brimming with armed soldiers bearing arms rush past. I discovered, upon further reading, that Palawan was a hotbed of political strife. Terror abounded there. Muslim extremists clashed with the Roman Catholic government, wielding guns and bombs and, rumour had it, kidnapping and killing tourists. I thanked God we were only staying a couple hours.

Jenny announced that we had a short wait.

“Where? I asked.”

“At a resort,” she said.

It wasn’t much of a resort. It was small, economical, a place a backpacker might call opulent. But it was a pleasant place to kick off our sandals for a couple hours, languishing in the heat.

We sat chatting. Small talk. Getting to know you talk. Jenny told me that she was a Canadian, too. From Ottawa. So was I, I said, being born there. I asked her how she landed in San Francisco. She was about to answer when the proprietor approached us and asked if we’d like a beer. We would, we said. “San Miguel?” he asked. That sounded fine. He asked us if we’d like our beer cold. Good Canadians, we’d like our beer cold. The beer arrived, an iceberg in each mug. The proprietor beamed pride and delight; not every establishment is able to offer such a luxury as ice. Thrilled to be nearing our final destination and lounging in the tropics, we drank deeply, only contemplating Hepatitis A, B, C and Z after half our beers were drained. Too late, we shrugged. We raised a toast, clinked our mugs and trusted to inoculations and fate. We joked about Russian roulette and drained what remained. More San Miguels awaited.

The sun tracked across the sky and dipped closer to the horizon as I nursed the second San Miguel, looking content, self-satisfied and feeling rather Hemingway-esque.

Jenny called San Rafael, finalizing our transportation—the last leg of our relay race. I was a little nervous. I’d never had to catch a boat before. I tried to radiate an appropriate masculine calm.
“We’ll catch the boat,” she soothed, “not to worry.”

How could I worry? I, oblivious to her stress, was in her miraculous hands.

A Jeepney collected us, shining chrome, lit by more coloured lights than would be needed for three Christmas trees. Jesus, I thought, it was warded by more religious stickers than I could count. Little passages of Scripture. Jesus and Mary and Saint Christopher.

To take us to the market, the proprietor explained. “You have to buy food and water for the trip.”
Trip? What trip? I’d forgotten that the Svetlana was at sea.

Food? Why food? How long would it take to get there

It would take some time, I was told.

“How long?” I asked.

Fourteen hours.

I gasped.

What to buy? I don’t recognize any brands on the shelves. Flustered, I decided on bananas, a package of biscuits, some sort of flaky pastry and some fruit drinks; and water, about two litres worth. The cashier laughed, obviously amused by my apparent confusion.

Provisions purchased for sailing into uncharted waters, the intrepid explorer, now immersed in a fugue of culture shock, was ready for what might come. We were driven to the docks. Acrid smoke spewed from the garbage burning alongside our route. Plastic, rubber tires, Styrofoam, soiled diapers, banana peels; they burned everything. Jeepneys and Trikes jockeyed for position, brayed and bleated shrill horns under a cobalt sky. Brakes were rarely applied as the vehicles swerved and squealed to avoid crushing pedestrians who, smiling apologies or ignoring us altogether, walked, ran and scurried across our path, placing their lives in God’s or Allah’s benevolent hands. A frantic, rushing, jostling medley of humanity flowed around us.

The Jeepney parked on the jetty at an empty concrete pier. Its lights were the only thing pressing back the pitch of onrushing night.

“We are here,” the proprietor said.

I stood and looked about, but standing revealed no more than sitting. The pier appeared as empty as before.

“Where’s the boat?” I asked.

“There,” the proprietor pointed. His finger pointed down to the waterline.

Guided by his finger, I saw it: a shallow boat, its white paint peeling like moulting scales and stinking of fish and gasoline. Thirty feet long and thin as a spear, its outriggers slapped the black waters as it rocked in the surf. A low covered box of a cabin, flat roofed, graced its hull.

Three Filipinos sat aft, smoking, their faces sinister behind the red glow of their cigarettes.

They looked like pirates.

The Relay Race

I was hooked on adventure holidays. Shake and bake on a beach was boring by comparison, so I had no desire to repeat the experience. I did some research and decided on the Philippines, booking with the same scuba dive vacations travel agency as I had for Australia.

Everything looked fantastic. The Nautica was at least as posh as the catamaran had been. The Tubbataha Reef, at the very centre of the Sulu Sea, looked as rich as the Great Barrier Reef. They spoke English there, too. Definitely a plus.

I departed for Toronto on the appointed date, and began my first wait. My connecting flight to San Francisco was in five hours. International transfers are always long, I would discover. I had supper, a drink, a few hours with a novel, and boarded for San Francisco when summoned. I napped on the flight. Everything was going as planned.

I discovered there was a problem upon arriving in San Francisco. There was a delay. Passengers were summoned to the PAL (Philippines Airlines) desk for an update. There were a lot of Asians and Filipinos pressing into the PAL counter, each expressing their displeasure at the same time. I leaned against a pillar, expecting I’d have to wait until their anger to be vented before I’d get a chance to enquire what the issue was. It was, and I did. It turns out the plane had not arrived from Manila.
“How long of a delay,” I asked them once my name was called.

Twenty hours, they said.

Twenty hours? Why twenty hours? Because the plane was broken. It had not yet left Manila. I couldn’t believe my ears. I’d never make the rest of my connections! The dive boat would leave without me! I saw my itinerary crumbling before my eyes.

There were options, they said. I could continue on with Aeroflot. I perked up. Where was hope; I’d make it after all. Would my luggage be accompanying me? No, it wouldn’t. It would have to wait for the next flight. I decided to wait and travel with my gear. A dive vacation without dive gear or clothing seemed a silly proposition at best.

“David?” I heard behind me.

I ignored it. I thought it vain to believe that someone could possibly be calling out my name in the San Francisco airport. It had to be some other David. Obviously some other David.

I received a voucher for a hotel. Two more for a cab to get there and back.

I backed away from the counter and leaned against my pillar again to gather myself before facing the upcoming twenty hours of uncertainty. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly.
“David?” I heard again. I opened my eyes to the only other Caucasian within sight. A woman. Attractive, too. I was confused.

“Are you David?” the brunette asked again.

“I am a David,” I said.

“I’m Jenny,” she said, “from San Raphael Diving.” My tour company. I blinked back my surprise. Here before me was my saviour, and at the moment I needed her most. Glory be!

She explained that she was accompanying my dive vacation as an observer, and that she too was stranded, albeit less so than I; she at least could go home for the ensuing hours of uncertainty.
She explained that she’d called her boss, that her boss was aware of the problem, and that other arrangements were being made as we spoke, that my vacation was delayed, but still on, and that everything would be fine.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

I still had eleven hours to hang out in San Fran when I woke. I looked at the phone, then the phone book, wondering if I should contact my cousin David, a resident of San Fran. I wondered if he’d be happy to hear from me, un-looked for, and in the middle of the workweek. There were way too many D. Tishlers in the white pages, so I abandoned that half-baked plan.

I made arrangements with the hotel for a day tour.

A minibus arrived to pick me up, and I was off to see some sights. I retraced Steve McQueen’s route in BULLITT, hung out in Haight Ashbury, and finished up on Fisherman’s Warf, overlooking Alcatraz. There wasn’t nearly enough time left to me to go there, so I settled for some snaps, bought some souvenirs for my parents, and returned to the hotel and the airport with time to spare to catch my plane.
I met up with Jenny and discovered that I had even more time to spare than I’d anticipated. The plane had finally made it to North America, but it was being looked at again. There would be another four-hour delay.

“They definitely didn’t say twenty before four, did they,” I joked.

They hadn’t.

We finally boarded. I took my seat, only to discover that I was seated beside a young mother and her yearling. The baby was already fussing and we hadn’t even left the ground, yet. I despaired. I was in for a long flight.

Jenny came to my seat.

“Holy shit,” she said. “That kid isn’t even two, yet! When we take off,” she continued, “beat it for the back of the plane as soon as the seatbelt sign is turned off.”

I didn’t ask why. I presumed there were seats lacking babies back there. I grabbed my stuff just as instructed, and found the back of the plane nearly empty.

Jenny was already there.

“Take a 4-seater in the middle,” she instructed. She had, so I did too. More people rushed to the back just as we did, they too taking what was left to stretch out.

That sounds selfish, but the flight was over eighteen hours long, and it would have been intolerable beside a screaming baby. And it’s not like the Filipinos weren’t doing the same thing. And I could smoke back there, I realized. PAL was one of the few airlines that still allowed it.

We landed in Manila in the middle of the night. Even at that hour, it was stifling. The air was as thick as soup, so humid that I was stepping in pools of perspiration in my sandals by the gangway’s end.
My gear had arrived with me! Praise be!

There would be yet another delay, I discovered. There was only one flight to Puerto Princesa on Palawan each day, and that was in the late morning, so we were booked into yet another hotel.
It looked colonial, as far as I could tell. I was dog tired. Lights illuminated palm trees, stucco and wrought iron. I was grateful to see a working air conditioning unit in the room, less happy about the bed that drooped much like a hammock from front to back and left to right.

I can’t say that bothered me too much. I undressed fully and collapsed into it and woke sprawled atop the covers the next morning.

Not bothering to dress, I threw the French doors open, pleased at the prospect of the balcony that stretched out before me, less pleased with my view. Rooftops stepped out from the balcony, each as varied in height as the steps of the Giant’s Causeway, fading from view into the brown haze of heat that still hung low and heavy all about me.

I stretched and stepped out onto it, and leaned out over the banister and took it all in.

It was my first good view of the third world.