A Boat Ride, A Floating Restaurant and a Fish Sanctuary

Before tales of what we did today, a layout share:

THE BOYS BEAUTIFUL
A rare photo of the boys in the family all together.

Credits: kit - In Short Supply Too by Royanna Fritschmann at Divine Digital; vintage photo frame - by Katie Pertiet; doodles - Flower Doodles 2 by Janette Padley (Dragon Lair Designs) at Divine Digital; tear - by Kim Hill; photo filter - CGE Vintage Actions by Kim Hill; fonts - Rusted Plastic, Stamped DSG, Arial Narrow

Woke up early and and had breakfast at Shangri La's Tides coffeeshop. It was very crowded, but the food was plentiful. We had a leisurely meal, and Raine enjoyed her breakfast :)

Then we were off to the Beach House to ride a big banca, a wooden boat with outriggers on both sides. There were 22 of us, including the kids. After a half hour or so, we arrived at a restaurant set in the middle of the ocean. Literally in the MIDDLE of the ocean. On cement stilts, but in the middle of this great expanse of water. This was where we were going to have lunch.

Our Banca

When we disembarked from our banca, mom, lola, Tita Nonie, Bang and Elizza headed to the middle of the restaurant where there were set up a series of huge basins with LIVE fish, squid, clams, mussells, crabs and some other shellfish. The girls (excepting me of course, me who knows NOTHING of cooking!) poked, pointed, chose and decided on our menu for lunch. Me? I was happy just taking photos and wandering around the floating restaurant.

After a delicious lunch which we all enjoyed, we all trooped back into the banca and headed to the Fish Sanctuary. Again somewhere in the middle of the ocean. I was expecting a building of some sort....but all we were headed toward was a few cluster of boats "parked" in the middle of the water.

The boats were full of scuba divers, getting ready for a dive....into the fish sanctuary: the ocean! Hehehe. We didn't have scuba gear, we didn't know how to dive. Japa had his snorkelling gear ready though and he jumped right into the water. He said he saw a lot of pretty fish and that the water was nice and cool.

By this time, we were all sweating from the unbearable heat and the lure of the cool water was too good to resist. I also knew that Japa was a "sinker" (as opposed to a floater, which I was) and was slightly worried that he would actually sink in the water :) So I jumped in the water and could barely contain a scream --- it was COLD!!!! But a nice, refreshing cold, especially after being so HOT the past few hours!

After a few minutes, Rod, Boydee, Bang and Zhar joined us. Pretty soon, the kids were all clamoring to see the fish and get in the water too. Although the were strong swimmers, they were still too small and light for the pretty strong current. We told them they could get in the water only if they wore life vests. Rogan was the first one to jump. And he LOVED it! His enthusiasm was catching and the other kids wanted in on the fun as well, even Ranger!

So one by one, a few kids at a time went down and jumped into the water. We adults spread ourselves out over an outrigger so that we could fence the kids into one area of the ocean. Not an easy feat with 6 adults and 8 kids including a 2-year old on floaters, NOT a life vest!

And if you read my post a few days back, you'd know that Rogan and Ranger both had asthma when we went to Cebu. Superstition has it that a dip in the salt water of the ocean will help relieve a lot of things, asthma included. I figured it wouldn't hurt, and the boys certainly enjoyed their time in the ocean! Of course, I was crossing my fingers that they'd be fine and that the dip in the ocean wouldn't aggravate their asthma. It didn't. Whew! *smiling with relief*


We got back to the Beach House and found the rented Jet Skis waiting for us. Since it was low tide, the boat couldn't get too close to the shore. So the jet skis were put to work. Yes, even Lola Nene in all her 87-year old glory, rode the jet ski! Hehehe. So did Tita Nonie and Dad. What a site! The only thing was, we weren't able to take photos of this glorious, one-and-only time that they'd be riding the jet skis! Dang! We let the "oldies" have the first chance of getting back to shore, so those of us who had cameras were still on the boat and we didn't think of taking them out because we were figuring out who was going to go next.

I did go with Dad though. I didn't trust Alex to be able to hold him if something happened, but I knew that I could do something, whatever it was :). Anyway, Dad was sandwiched between the jet ski driver and me; I hung on to the jacket of the driver and told him to go. After a few seconds, I asked Dad if he was ok, and he nodded yes. I then told the driver to go faster and started shouting "wheeeeee!". I could tell that Dad was smiling and was having a blast feeling the wind on his face; I saw the sides of his face turn up. Too bad he declined going for another spin on the jet ski though.

I took my turn for a little bit with Rogan on board the jet ski. He totally enjoyed the ride, he stayed on for the longest time riding with either Rodney or Boydee or Mom. The rest of us swam in the pool the whole time.

Another fun-filled day!

TTFN!