19th April - Malapascua day

Sunday 19^th April 2015

Very sad to be leaving lovely Malapascua…

Last night – a mild little rainstorm, and some sensational rainbows over the island.

Yesterday morning Pete found strange whirlpools under the boat – divers below!  Not sure why they were diving right here…I have swum all over the area and about the least interesting part is…under 2XS.  Nothing but sand!  All of the beautiful coral is…elsewhere!

At midday we set off for shore – time to explore the island!  There is a small guard post on the little beach.  This morning, it was being supervised by a very careful, watchful dog.

When we came back at 4pm the dog was asleep and there was a kindly young man with a big shotgun.  He put down his gun and helped us lift the dinghy over the rocks and into the sea, along with another helpful chap who appeared out of nowhere.  We were very grateful – no way in the world I could have lifted my half of the dinghy over those ragged rocks!  We would have been stuck until the tide came in again, many hours later…

And yes we did know the tide was going out but we didn't know about the rocks!

Malapascua is 2.5 kilometres long.  We were anchored right at the tip end; easy, we thought, to walk down to the little town at the southern end, visible from 2XS.

It was all very interesting, walking through a few fairly shabby little villages.

Malapascua was very badly hit by Cyclone Yolanda.  Every single building lost its roof, and the palms were very badly battered.  Nobody was killed, amazingly.

Many beautiful little beaches

Water is obviously at a premium here.  

Woman with trolley full of jerrycans

There are quite a few wells, and there are people at each one, pulling water up painstakingly by the bucket, and wheeling jerrycans home over the bumpy pathways.

In every village men and women were tending to the fishing lines, a laborious, painstaking business. 

The lines have to be untangled and the hooks re-attached, and then baited with small smelly fish heads.

We walked and walked…

Lots of tiny fish, drying ton racks

Past a very interesting outdoor living room, with TV as the centrepiece.

Past a home-made pool table, very popular with the boys.

It was very hot…

A lovely BigSister, riding along n the heat

We came to an intersection, with an interesting sign, pointing the way to Thresher Cove Resort.  I was very tickled by the fact that prices for a room started at ZERO Philippine pesos!  The map confused us just a bit but we strode on, with the beach to our right, and came to the resort, which was very nice, and…we kept on going.

And then we came to a very interesting outdoor living room, with TV as the centerpiece…a home made pool table…

Déjà vu

We had walked and walked a full circle and had ended up where we started without ever getting to the little town at the southern end.  In fact we had crossed over, niftily, to the other side of the island without even noticing…

Déjà vu AGAIN!!!

A nice young bloke with a motorbike had seen us, coming and going, and he offered to take us to town on his bike.  Both of us, squished up behind him…

He dropped us off at a beachfront café where we subsided very happily under a fan in the shade.

Cats under the table…I loved them; Pete didn't

I looked like Mrs TomatoHead!!

Pete didn’t look much better but he had the sun behind him and his photo is not as revealing!

Please note - his finger is still splinted!

Pete was very interested in the construction of a beautiful big banka, built right on the beach, not far off being ready for launching.

Some little girls accosted me while he was watching the application of some sort of epoxy skin, with a spatula.  They wanted to sell me some souvenirs.  I thanked them for showing me, but said I didn’t need any trinkets.  “You’re welcome,” they said, very politely, and off they went.

When Pete came to join me, they offered to sell him the same trinkets.  He liked the look of the little girls, so polite and reticent, but said, “No thanks…but would you like an ice-cream??”  The elderly ice-cream vendor, who had been lugging a very heavy eski up and down the beach, was thrilled to bits and shook hands with both of us.  Everyone went away happy from this transaction!