marinegirl

500g rolled oats
100g almonds, roughly chopped
A few handfuls of sunflower seeds
Some dried cranberries
A small pot of clear honey

1. Mix the dry ingredients (not the cranberries) together in a bowl.
2. Warm the honey till it’s nice and runny. Do this in a bowl if your housemates are worried that you will melt the plastic bear.
3. Stir the honey into the dry ingredients.
4. Spread the mixture onto a baking tray and bake in the oven at 180 C until golden. Stir occasionally.
5. Allow to cool and mix in cranberries.

Gorgeous with ice cold milk or yoghurt, with or without additional fresh fruit!

Just come back from doing some surveys in Zamboanga del Norte (in Mindanao, but don’t tell the FCO!). My regular dive buddy has gone back to the UK, so I was diving with some guys who work for the fisheries office in Dapitan. They fixed a very Filipino lunch for us - fresh barbecued parrotfish and pork wrapped in banana leaves with saw-sawan (a make-it-yourself sauce with vinegar, soy sauce, calamansis and chillis) and of course, lots of rice. Yum.

The diving was great, but the weather was miserable - cold and rainy all week, and it’s supposed to be summer here!

This morning’s survey site was somewhat sand-and-no-fish, so we skipped school this afternoon and went for a fun dive in the reserve at Masaplod Norte in Dauin.

My survey sites for work were selected at random, so most are outside reserves, and its pretty much pot luck what we see. Sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised - last week the most unlikely looking site right next to the entrance of a port turned out to have a fantastic bit of reef - but we also get a lot of mediocre dives too. So I grabbed a rare opportunity to dive inside a well-enforced reserve today.

It always amazes me how effective these tiny little reserves are - as soon as we got into the sanctuary there were fish everywhere - not just little pretty ones, but big schools of juicy dinner fish too. It’s surprising how much the behaviour of the fish changes - inside reserves they’re much less afraid of divers, making it a lot easier to get up close and take photos.

I now feel ready to espouse the benefits of no-take marine reserves once more! 150 pesos well spent.

Amihan: the northeast monsoon
Habagat: the southwest monsoon

Apparently the Amihan winds have stopped, overnight, and we’re now in ’summer’, where the winds are light and the sun is strong. This should last until June, when, just as suddenly, the Habagat begins.

[I hope Mr Weatherman is right, as I’m due to be diving again next week]

I dropped my washing off at Wishy Washy this morning, and the girl behind the counter remembered my name and had already filled it in on the ticket for me, spelt correctly*. This is starting to become a pattern.

Stopping off for petrol at the Caltex on the way to Dauin: “Good morning Ma’am Rebecca!”

Walking through Malatapay in the evening, a voice out of the darkness:”Hi Ma’am Rebecca!”

Looking at some pigs in Candanay Norte, Siquijor: “These are my pigs! …various discussion about lechon and fiestas… “you should come to our fiesta, Ma’am Rebecca!”

Huh? How does everyone know who I am??

We’ve even heard people call out from the side of the road as we drive though town. Some of these people (petrol station girl, obviously Miss Wishy Washy) I know I’ve seen a few times before, others I simply have no idea who they are or where they know me from. It’s actually quite spooky.

I guess it’s a small town without many white girls! On Panglao, nobody knew my name. But by the end of the week the habal-habal (motorbikes-for-hire) guys knew us and where we wanted to go, and even the incessant “Chocolate hills tour tomorrow Ma’amSir?” guys had realised that we would never be interested.

As an aside, I’m writing this from my new-found internet cafe… chilled jazz music, peaceful, broadband and coffee. Except today the coffee machine s broken, so I’m drinking green tea. I feel very healthy.

*I had a great idea for a photo project - photographing all the people that come to meet me at airports / ports etc. holding a card with my name on. It would be a great way to remember travels, and the various spellings of my name are hilarious. Last time I was Rebeka Wiett. Sadly I always have to travel lugging tons of heavy dive bags behind me, so the camera is always packed.