Hovering

We spent the weekend in a place called Anilao, a 3 hour drive south of Manila. This 25 km stretch of ocean front is home to many dive resorts and apparently is a popular destination for Manila divers no doubt because of the great diving but also because of the ease of access, No need to fly or take a boat to another of the 7107 islands of this country. The other benefit of going somewhere you can drive to (or somebody can drive to) is the cooler full of wine, imported beer and Diet Root Beer!

I don't dive anymore but was thrilled to see the house reef off the beach - which was really why we'd chosen the place to finally put our new snorkeling gear to good use. We haven't been to a Philippine resort in quite some time (see Getting There is Half the Fun) and I liked this one because it was fairly new and there are only 13 suites. Also, this is rainy (off) season and the place was only half full. Many levels of different structures all the way up a hill from the beach - you can recline by the pool, in the lounge, in the treehouse, by the bar, by the mid-level pavilion, on the beach, on the balcony - many and varied are the reclining opportunities. And places to watch the sunset from.

So, several times a day there I was, out on the reef, hovering, trying to take in all there was to see, which was impossible -  corals and fish and any number of other things. I don't know why, but I had some kind of NEED to name everything. I'd look at a particular fish trying to memorize its markings, to later look it up in the Indo-Pacific reef book I'd brought - only to find that somewhere between the water and the beach my mind like a steel... uh, sieve, would forget the details. But who cares in the end. The shapes and colors and variety and movement, oh it was all so wonderful.

I did, however, have a complaint - and it's pretty major. At times when I was out there, face down, I'd feel something brushing up against an arm and, fearful it was a jellyfish, I'd try to move away while turning to face it. It was garbage! Empty pancit (instant noodle) wrappers, candy wrappers, plastic bags, rubber flip flops, who knows what else, all mixed in with cracked open coconut husks. Some days were worse than others and some times of day were worse than others but it was more or less always an issue. I remember when I first went diving many years ago and found a single beer bottle on the sandy bottom so jarring. Well this was almost unbelievable in the volume of stuff, except for the fact that I believe it completely. Of course some of the plastic had sunk to the bottom amidst the coral reef but it was the stuff floating on the surface that was the worst. Sometimes you literally had to brush it aside to move through it.

Last September 19 was International Coastal Clean Up Day and over 500 volunteers took part in the event in Anilao. In a 5 km stretch of the coast, in a 9 hour day, they picked up 1800 kg of trash.

The Philippines is certainly not alone with this problem, not that that makes it any better. Even out in the middle of the Pacific, away from the shoreline,  there are several huge accumulations of trash; one is said to be as big as Texas. Ouch.

Speaking of "ouch", on the last morning we were there, on my second fairly lengthy hovering trip to the reef, I got damaged. I wore a t-shirt so my back is fine, but the backs of my legs are so burnt I've been swallowing Advil, slathering on the aloe vera and perching precariously on the edge of my chair ever since we got home. I've said this before, I'm obviously not getting older and wiser, at the very least just older, but more probably older and stupider!