14th April - Romblon (Philippines) - marble - Marlin Bar

Tuesday 14^th April 2015

The marble here is very beautiful, many colours, interesting variegation.  It is quarried in huge blocks

and then gets chopped up into very small pieces…

to make teensy ornaments

or BIG … things …

Chester was very taken with this big dragon urn; I am inclined to agree with him!

I am being just a bit facetious; most of the marble is sliced up thinly to be used as tiles and veneer all over the Philippines.  It is probably exported as well, hence the need to slice up those fabulous big chunks.

Pete’s hand, where he had the large growth removed, with 26 stitches, on his right forefinger knuckle, isn’t healing properly.  It isn’t infected but it keeps breaking open every day because he bends his hand.  As you do!  So he has bodgied up a splint, and a covering made from one of the Royal Brunei Air first-class travel socks… I would prefer him to go to the local clinic, or even to see a pharmacist, but he is adamant that his home-made measures will be perfectly OK…

Last night Chester and Lorraine kindly invited us to dinner at the Marlin Bar, a bit further around the coast, on the other side of town.

We actually got there early, and spent a happy few hours there sitting in the cool breeze and using the internet.  (Today I seem to have managed to get my modem to work on 2XS – I noticed that we have line-of-sight to a tower from the roof, so that is where my modem is, poised jauntily aloft.)

We had delicious dinner, and met Henk, from Western Australasia, who has lived and sailed in the Philippines for twelve years.  He was a source of much information, and is very enthusiastic about this country.  He says that he has never had a single thing stolen, from his person or his boat.  His girlfriend, Joyce, has occasionally had her thongs (they call them slippers here) vanish.  He says nobody here would ever take his unless they wanted to use them as paddles for their boats; his feet are twice the size of a local person.

Before we found our way to the Marlin Bar, we wandered around town.  It was fiercely hot, and the only shade was in the market.

Everyone

and everything

seemed to be asleep!

One more day in Romblon, then we are setting off towards Cebu.

Today’s birthday
My friend Pauline Shelley!