Whaleshark Party Oslob Philippines

I went to Cebu for a couple of days in the last week of May 2012 to dive at Moalboal and Oslob. The resort - Quo Vadis (Visaya Divers) was very pleasant; it has a very good house reef where we found Mandarin fishes breeding, blue ring octopus etc.. However the lack of a jetty or boat means that you have to walk all the way back to shore - and hopefully you won't step on a sea urchin or crown of thorns (oh joy not). I found the DM and staff very helpful and friendly.

I much prefered the diving at Pescador Island which is about 30mins boat ride from Moalboal. Beautiful reef dives, magnificent wall dives, plenty of marine life, soft corals in abundance, just simply awesome.

Unfortunately, the waters had quite a lot of jellyfish on the surface - and most of us got stung. I got it in the face and have the tentacle scar as a very painful and dubious souvenir. The DM says that by June and July and jellyfish bloom is over.

The food from the Maya Mexican restaurant was superb. There are actually quite a number of good restaurants around the area. Best to choose this option rather than being tied down to the resort food; the service was rather slow at times.

The highlight of the trip was of course the dive at Oslob with the whalesharks. There were about 7 in the area at any one time. First dive got a bit boring as the ws were too busy feeding - so they were practically vertical throughout that hour. It was noisy and chaotic as the fishing "feeding" boats charged in and out dumping swimmers and snorkelers near or on top of the sharks. The 2nd dive got a bit more interesting as the whales went out into deeper waters. Maybe they had enough of snorkelers kicking them in the face or maybe they had eaten their fill. So we had a great time swimming with them at depth for a 30+ mins while they played with our bubbles. Awesome. The journey back home took 2 hours.

If you do plan to go to Oslob - whatever you do - avoid going there on a weekend, school holiday, or religious holiday - we went there on a Monday and it was crowded - I'd imagine it'd be 10 times as worse during a public holiday.

Layang Layang

Went diving at Layang Layang, a small island north of Sabah. It was a very good trip. We managed to see hammerhead sharks a few times, a Manta Ray circled our group occasionally. And I swam with a Marlin Sailfish otherwise known as the Spearfish on account of its unusual nose. Haven't had time yet to organize the photos, pardon me if some of the photos are bad.

Text Message Love

She writes,
and her words dance across my screen
Shimmering text, that gleam magically, tenderly.
A world away, an ocean apart, her small little fonts touch my heart (in my cold room on this cold winter night.)

(A female friend sent me a small innocuous message. It was just a minor thing. But in my mind I saw her smile and it made me smile too. Drawing me out of my gloom. My room was freezing that night.)

Gambling addicts

I'm tired of living with a gambling addict - to a person who thinks its acceptable to spend a month's wages or the entire years budget in a day, week or couple of hours at the casino.

If I was king, I'd have it so that - a family member can alert the authorities if one of their members  is suspected of being a casino addict - and that person would be watched - and then barred from all casino or gambling areas.

I just got a call from (a close relative) and she's enraged that she doesn't have any more money in her bank account because she spent it at the pokies - and demands that I top it up.

When I tried to explain to her that money doesn't grow from trees - and that she has a gambling addiction - she screamed at me to shut up and stop lecturing her as I had no right.

Usually she gets like this when she gets depressed. And when she's depressed and sad - everyone has to be depressed and sad. No one else has the right to be happy or joyful.

"I'm unhappy - you have to cry as well."

There may come a day when I grow too tired of this bullshit. I'll pack up my bags and leave for good. And I'll write a short note to her and say, "Goodbye. I love you but I can't be with you anymore."

I'd send her the occasional postcard. And it will always be the same words.

"Wish you were sane"

I love sunsets

I walked out to the car park after evening Church service. And I saw the sunset. Wow. Simply wow.

The horizon was a beautiful blue, grey, and pinkish red hue. It took my breath away. And I sat and watched it, mesmerized by its beauty.

A day is like a living person. It was conceived in darkness and it will perish in darkness.

I was the only one gazing at the sunset. The others weren't interested, preferring the comfort of the building. Even those people who came outside to get into their cars did not give it a glance.

No point telling the people inside about the beautiful sunset - they wouldn't care. Or complain about the cold and then stare at me oddly.

I think its sometimes a curse to not enjoy the things that they enjoy, to like the things that they see - but I cannot help being what I am.

And so I stood outside watching the sunset alone.

It was so beautiful.

(This is the 2nd time I'm writing this blog out-  thanks to a RSS script error)

Ranunculus 2012 - Planting Time

OK so I purchased 1,200 Ranunculus corms off Garden Express to plant in the garden. Note: this garden is in the Southern Hemisphere so planting conditions/months are different than USA and UK.

They corms came in January but they have to get a cold start if you wish to have them flowering in June/July and not in September (Spring).

I placed them in the fridge for 4 weeks as recommended by one New Zealand website. Another site recommended 8 weeks minimum. I chose the former.

I thought that by planting early in mid February - the ranunculus would have the benefit of the extra sunny conditions . On 2nd thoughts this is probably a mistake because mid-Feb is still Summer and the days can approach the high 30Cs. Apparently if the weather gets too hot, the corms fall backwards into dormancy.

I pulled them out of the fridge on 16th Feb and planted 200 of them in the garden bed opposite my study room. During that week the temperature rose to the high 30s for a few days. (Its roughly 2+weeks, 20 days, and I can see two of them sprouting.)

Because the weather was so hot, I decided to return the rest of the remaining ranunculus corms (1,000 of them) back into the fridge.


The hesitancy to plant may have had more fatal consequences for the rest of the stock.

When I took them out on the 28th Feb, they had a slightly pungent odor. I noticed that white moss (like cotton wool threads) was wrapped around some of the corms.

I placed them in a bucket of water to "plump" them up before planting. Some advice 14 hours - so I kept them overnight. I did not drown them in water - but did give them a good soaking.

The next day they were all fat like bananas. I planted half of them but didn't have time to do the rest.

When I checked them the day after they stank and a thick layer of white moss covered the top layer.

I suspect it was the hot and humid conditions - plus the fact that they were all wet that encouraged the fungus to thrive.

DAMN IT.

I soaked them in a white vinegar solution - half vinegar, half water - to try and kill that damn white fungus. And dried them out for a day.

They might be all dead. But might as well give it a try. What do I have to lose now?

By now, I'm running out of garden space to plant them - they only like sunny positions, sloped positions in the garden. They do not like shade so that excludes a large portion of the garden nearer the house which gets a fair bit of shade.

I planted the rest on the top garden bed - which was the original site where I first planted the ranunculus way back in 2002.

The fact that some of the 1st batch have sprouted - despite the appalling hot conditions - does give me some hope.

I don't know whether the white mold has killed the rest - only time can tell, ie. 2 to 3 weeks.

(Postscript - yes, I think virtually all of them didn't make it)

At the moment, we are getting plenty of rain so that's good. But we need to have more sunny days to encourage growth.

In the future, it will be much safer if I plant the corms on the 1st week of March - after storing them for 1+ month in the fridge (Jan-Feb). Planting them in mid-Feb was too risky due to the very hot days.

And it might be better to store than in a bar fridge or a fridge which I'm not using for daily use. The constant opening and closing is bound to affect the poor buggers.

Soaking them in water does help - but I'll be more careful to only soak the ones that I intend to plant on that day only. No point soaking the entire batch if only 200 can be planted at one time.

S

Sun, dawn, Sky, rain
Bring my friend back to me again