26th September - Ocean View marina, Davao (Samal Island)

26^th September 2105

Ocean View is in Fortress Mode.  Big towers, a new surrounding perimeter fence.  Maybe a moat with crocodiles… We are VERY safe here!

But oh dear our poor hostage friends…our hearts ache for them.

So what have I been doing… Well nothing which will ensure their early release!  But I have been using my lovely new birthday GoPro…

How happy do I look, thanking the angels in heaven, maybe

Trying to learn how to get optimum results.  (Help help brother Pete Harmsen!!)  Going for a long swim is always good for my shaky nerves.  (Shaky not for fear of my own lucky lucky life…I am 100% anxious for the hostages.)  And today I had my GoPro at the ready.  I thought I would be taking photos – yesterday it was videos.  But no… It was still videos… I paused at the end of the (fortress) wall and took what I thought were photos of some pretty coral formations.  One of the coral formations looked back up at me…a darling turtle! 

I went clickety CLICK and off it went, not too alarmed.

I don’t know how to get photos off my videos so I took a photo off the computerscreen; not so good…but here is my TurtleFriend Of The Day!

And in the afternoon…back to the market to buy more veggies, and some chicken for tomorrow.  A large spirale/vegetable dish awaits us, in the oven.  I now have lots of market friends in Babac.  They are meticulous with their measuring and weighing and giving me correct change.

They also keep a stern eye on the seagypsy beggar children who follow me around.  Oh deary me these poor children…I asked one of the stallholders to tell the children NOT to follow me and fondle my bag (with possibly an eye on the main chance of getting into the money pockets…) as I walk around buying potatoes.  They could meet me at the bakery and I would buy them a treat.  In the wink of an eye they vanished and there they were, at the bakery, pointing happily at sugary fatty treats.  No I didn’t get a photo of them; they are feral little kids, they don’t hang around to say thank you, or for a photo opp.  And they are HUNGRY!  Last time I bought them fried chicken, a portion for each of them, and they inhaled the food so greedily…

Back I went to my waiting station, waiting for Dondon and the marina van to whisk me back to my privileged life.

I have been trying for ages to get a photo of a big load of people on a motorbike and today was my lucky day!  Six!  Eddy Huybs (SV Helena) swears he has a photo of NINE on a bike but…I have yet to see it…