marinegirl

Last August I took this photo of a petrol station on Siquijor and posted it to my flickr account. I recently received the following comment from Ablejon, updating me on the current petrol situation.

Technically speaking, we do still sell petrol with soft drinks bottles like Pepsi and Coke. But now, we have 2 gasoline refilling stations in the island with Petron; 1 in Nonoc, Larena and 1 in Pangi, Siquijor.

He also pointed me towards the Pangi Gasoline Station website.

I was fortunate enough to see the Pangi Station for myself this week as I was back on Siquijor for more fish counting, but sadly didn’t get the opportunity to top up there. We stayed at a little place called The Norwegian Dream Beach Resort just up the road. The staff were incredibly helpful, making sure there was a big pot of brewed coffee on the table for breakfast every morning, and even went as far as arranging some Norwegian weather for us. For four days we shivered in the rain, were thrown around on the surface in waves bigger than our little boat and underwater by unpredictable currents. One day it was so bad our boat couldn’t make it back to the Norwegian Dream, so Rich and I had to try and catch a jeepney back across the island in our wetsuits! I was cold and had had enough, so decided to end the trip a day early and come back to Dumaguete first thing Sunday morning. We woke up to the first blue sky all week and a flat sea - aaaargh!

I always love going to Siquijor - it’s a gorgeous island away from the city grime, the people are incredibly friendly and the diving is fab. The only downside to working on the island is that there’s a really wide, shallow seagrass flat that stretches out to the reef. So we’re standing on the beach, looking at our dive boat which is stuck several hundred meters out by the reef. Every morning and afternoon we had a fun game of paddling a kayak borrowed from the resort out to the boat, then paddling both the kayak and the little bangka from the dive boat back to the beach, and then the bangka back to the boat (we couldn’t convince the resort to let us keep the kayak all day).

After a couple of days of this, we asked our boat boys if we couldn’t fit three of us in the little bangka to go back to the beach, since we were leaving all our gear on the boat. It was pretty low in the water, and required a certain degree of balancing, but it seemed to be working fine. About half way, minds firmly fixed on a hot shower and sundowners at the bar, there was an almighty creaking noise and the bamboo outrigger snapped in half, sending us all flying! It was pretty funny after I had managed to swim back to the beach and pull the urchin spines out of my foot (calamansi/lime works a treat!), but I did feel bad about the boat!

The next day we managed to persuade Coral Cay to launch their bangka to ferry us to and from the reef. Luckily it was made of sterner stuff.

After three days diving/working, we took a day off and hired a motorbike to explore the island a bit. At first the plan was for me to learn to ride the bike, but we ended up with such a monster that I don’t think I would have been able to reach the peddles, so I just clung on for dear life.

Siquijor has one main road that runs around the island. It’s a beautiful ride, and we stopped off at old convents and stunning beaches along the way. After lunch we decided that we needed a bit more adventure, and turned off onto a smaller road to head up through the hills to San Antonio - a village that apparently practices the witchcraft Siquijor is infamous for.

I’m not sure that we ever made it to San Antonio… a rash decision at a cross roads led us to ever deteriorating roads (sometimes I think we were riding along a river bed) and ever smaller and more rural communities. People starting running from their houses to wave hello to us. Clearly foreigners had not been in these parts in a long time. Worryingly, people became unsure of which direction to point us in when we asked for directions, to the third largest town on the island. By this stage I was pretty glad we had the big bike, and not the little scooter thing I was after! Eventually, aching from the bumpy non-roads and just as the sun was setting, we made it back to the main road and our resort. It was a great adventure though - we’re going back for more exploring over holy week!

Two weeks home for Christmas and New Year was a complete blur - rushing up and down the country seeing friends and family, frantically buying warm clothes and trying to fit in all the food that I can’t find in Phils and Oz. It was a lot of fun, and great to catch up with (nearly) everyone, but not an entirely relaxing break… I feel like I need a holiday now to recover. Here’s a few photos, since I haven’t had time to write anything.

Tomorrow I begin my epic journey home… Dumaguete to Manila, Manila to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Heathrow and Heathrow to home. Not counting the weird going back in time thing, it will take me around 30 hours of travelling door to door! (I had to leave plenty of layover time in Manila and HK to allow for the Cebu Pacific effect - think Asian EasyJet)

I’m excited about seeing everyone, drinking pints of beer, cheese (as opposed to Cheeez), food from Waitrose and shopping in London. I’m less excited about the temperature difference… according to my weather widget, on Sunday Sheffield will reach a sunny high of 7˙C compared to 29˙C in Dumaguete. I can’t imagine what 7˙C feels like! I’m not sure my fridge here even gets that cold. I had to go on an emergency mission yesterday to buy trainers and jeans.

The uni area of Dumaguete is always covered in banners like these, announcing lectures, congratulating students who have won awards or graduated, welcoming guests etc. Garry had just been made an adjunct professor at Silliman University, so yesterday he gave a professorial lecture, worthy of a banner of his own. It was the most unbelievably formal lecture I’ve ever been to! In addition to the lengthy and profuse introductions, we had to stand for the Philippine National Anthem and then a prayer, and after the lecture we stood again to sing the Silliman song, which was a toe-tapping anthem straight out of the ’50s.

Loyal will we be to Silliman,
Here’s a cheer, boys, three times three:
Silliman our Alma Mater,
Silliman beside the sea…

Hilarious. Garry gave the same lecture in Townsville, and there we just had a free bar and nibbles. Ma’am Emily asked if he would like the JCU hymn to be included in the programme… so we’ve been having a lot of fun trying to imagine how that might go!