Monday 22nd September
Pete created a
culinary masterpiece yesterday morning – a most fabulous Spanish soufflé
omelette thingy, with many delicious flavours and ingredients. A bit of a miracle considering we really
don’t have much food on board at the moment at all… A frittata with a twist, in Masterchef-speak.
I love the way the
boats here in Coron are tethered to the houses.
The dinghies are very appealing too, with their matching outriggers.
Pete took me to
lunch, at the Seadive Restaurant. We had
a cat companion, fast asleep but hoping for crumbs…(The cat, I think, complements the beautiful floor boards, laid
by Jim’s team 21 years ago.)
After lunch we
looked for a nice tricycle to take us around Coron. I was hoping to find the bright pink one I
had seen the other day, called Regina,
but it was nowhere to be seen. We
were, however, lucky with our trike choice.
Jerome, the
driver, was very kind and very obliging.
He tootled us hither and yon, letting Pete get in and out every time he
saw a (hardware) shop which took his fancy.
We were with him for nearly two hours and it cost us…300 pesos…
($7.20. And NO we did not haggle!) While Pete was at the ATM – yes there are
ATMs in Coron; also in Tay Tay – we had been told otherwise – I asked Jerome
why his tricycle didn’t have a name emblazoned across the front. The trikes are mostly named quite grandly – Mother’s Love; God Be With You; Desperado;
Esmeralda – and he sighed deeply. He
is saving to be able to pay a signwriter.
I asked him why he didn’t do it himself, and he said, I did try… Apparently it was all too dreadful and had to
be painted over. And what would he call
his trike?? It would be named after his
children…Jennika (4) and Reg (1).
Fuel is sold in
soft drink bottles, as it is in Indonesia and Malaysia. These trikes go a long way on just a small
bottle of coke…
 |
| A mercifully blurry photo... |
I asked Moses
whether there are monkeys on Busuanga Island and he was very enthusiastic. Would I like to take a photo of a
monkey? Well yes, always! So he went quite a long way out of his way to
drive us to the saddest little tethered monkey, with one arm missing… I did
take a photo, it was rude not to but…oh deary me…
On the way back to
the dinghy I caught sight of some little rafts we had seen previously, made out
of a few pieces of bamboo, a bit of string, maybe a bit of polystyrene.
These very young boys go out
a long way on their tiny wobbly home-made craft.
They were still
there as the sun went down, and they only paddled back home, with much energy,
when they could hardly see – or be seen – at all.
When we approached
the Seadive jetty, I was very taken with the restaurant next door, guarded by
beautiful, sturdy mermaids. I gushed a bit
and took a photo. Pete didn’t say much..
But guess where he
took me for my surprise birthday dinner?
Yes indeed, to La Serenita – recommended by Jim and Dolores. Close up the mermaids are even more awe-inspiring.
Nothing Disney about them at all – they are built out of concrete and they are
massive!
And as for the
food – well after an unpromising beginning – No have, sir, was the reply to our first choices (this made Pete
very cross; he had wanted BirthdayGirl to have everything she wanted, even if
it was something as exotic as the Greek salad, temptingly pictured on the colourful
menu.) But what they did have was just
wonderful! Simple grilled fish with
potato wedges and a perfectly nice salad (which would have been Greek if they
had had olives and feta…). And the fish
was perfectly cooked. Pete had a very
fiery manga salsa with his, and I was very grateful that my choice was for a delicate
watercress aioli.
A lovely day, with
many messages from all around the world…long-lost cousins, new friends, old friends,
family. (Plus, as I said before, a very personal
message from my MacBook Air.)
Last night at
midnight there was a whole lot of hooting and engine noise. I barely stirred but Pete looked out and saw
what he thought was a big cruise ship.
At 5am there was no cruise ship…had he been dreaming? We asked Jerome and he said Oh yes, a very
big cruise ship came in during the night – The World! I am seriously annoyed to have missed seeing
The World! She was on her way to Manila;
surely she could have stayed for me to take a photo, next to 2XS??
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