Anilao Dive Log

2009-01-20.

My family went on six dives spread out over three days but I only went on two of those dives on the second day, opting to keep Amy company at the resort on the first and third days.

Dive #85

Date: 1 Jan 2009

Location: Sepok Wall

Maximum depth: 85 ft

Dive time: 50 minutes

Air used: 2500 psi

Off the northwest tip of Maricaban Island, Sepok Wall starts as a flat reef at 20 feet, from where the gently sloping sea floor forks off and descends down to 80-100 feet, forming a wall teeming with coral and fish. There’s usually a moderate current in the area (my first time there, I was swept off the reef by a fairly strong flow) but that day it was mild, and cancelled out in the shallows by surface swell. I got to see a baby banded sea snake, a moray eel, and a mantis shrimp.

One equipment issue plagued me later in the dive — I had not used enough weight. As my air ran out I found myself tending to float upwards even when fully exhaled, and had to fight more and more to stay down, expending more air in the process. Towards the end of the dive, out of air and unable to maintain neutral buoyancy, I had no choice but to shoot up through my safety stop and fin back to the banca to rest. The really painful thing about this is that it means I’ve gotten fatter since last year, when I used the same amount of weight.

Dive #86

Date: 1 Jan 2009

Location: Koala

Maximum depth: 45 ft

Dive time: 55 minutes

Air used: 2000 psi

After a surface interval with lunch, hiking, and snorkeling with Amy (her first time!) at Sepok Beach, we left Maricaban Island and crossed the channel back to the Batangas area, where we dove Koala, a beginner-friendly reef. Koala is easy and shallow, but fairly well-populated with wildlife: lots of anemones with clownfish, and this dive featured a high concentration of lionfish. My brother Javi also found a strange, cross-shaped starfish, its arms possibly mutilated in an altercation with other local fauna.

I carried enough weight this time, but failed to spit enough into my mask, so it fogged up far too often, necessitating frequent floods and purges — meaning further air expenditure. Still, I lasted longer than I did at Sepok, and managed a safety stop this time. (Koala is so shallow that most of the dive is practically a safety stop anyway.)

In retrospect I should have gone on the next day’s dives as well; as evidenced by the latter half of the above video, that was when the fish came out to play.

Eagle Point Resort

2009-01-19.

Anilao (in Mabini, Batangas) has always been my family’s go-to spot for diving, ever since my parents’ scuba heyday in the 1960s. When I was a kid we had a nipa-and-bamboo house at a ramshackle, sparsely-amenitied bungalow resort called Seafari, from where we could launch a speedboat or hire a banca to take us to area dive spots. Today, Seafari is gone, and Mom wisely decided instead to book a resort which provided both diving and other non-scuba activities for Amy and my brothers’ significant others. So she picked Eagle Point Resort.

Somewhat isolated from the Anilao resort strip, the approach to Eagle Point starts in the hills of Bagalangit, further down Batangas Bay, branching off the main road to a narrow, winding jungle driveway leading to a parking lot, just the midpoint from where an Isuzu Elf shuttle takes you to the resort. From there, a clubhouse and open-air restaurant (called the Main Core) sits between two sections: the older cabana-and-cottage resort, and the more conventional Terrace Hotel, where we stayed.

Eagle Point has a dive shop and staging area with concrete boat dock and equipment rental office, three swimming pools (two connected by water slide), a small aviary of native birds, and a a walled-in saltwater habitat by the bay, for snorkelers to look at coral, groupers, baby sharks, and other wildlife. The habitat is somewhat necessary for non-divers who want to get in the water and experience some of the local marine life, as the beach by Eagle Point is rather rocky and difficult to swim or snorkel from.

Our hotel rooms were furnished heavily with bamboo, large and clean, featuring open balconies facing the sea. I noted that some bed headboards fitted badly around building supports jutting from the wall, such that the headboards leaned awkwardly over the beds, but this was no great trouble. Housekeeping came to clean every morning, leaving two complimentary bottles of distilled water per room each day. A few cable channels come through via satellite, and there was even free wifi in the Main Core, though cloudy days tend to degrade signal. Bathrooms had hot water and a nice big shower area, which was very nice.

The resort has a divemaster and advisory dive instructor on staff, both old scuba veterans of the area. For experienced divers there were no stringent requirements; the divemasters checked certifications, gave recommendations, and helped out with boat and equipment rentals. Otherwise we were free to dive without need for supervision — a requirement we have run into at other times.

In addition to the main resort, Eagle Point has acquired Sepok Beach on neighboring Maricaban Island, where they’ve built a “beach center.” This location, about a thirty minute banca ride from Anilao and within view of nearby Sombrero Island, provides the sandy beach venue missing from the main resort. The area also features a few picturesque walking paths through light seaside jungle to other rocky beaches on the peninsula, punctuated by the ruins of earlier resort moorings.

We stayed for four days through New Year 2009. I tend to hate New Year in the Philippines, and this was no exception. Let’s just say that when you set up firecrackers and bottle rockets at a beach resort, common sense dictates that you point them out to sea for safety, not at the resort so the guests can see the explosions better.

Aside from that that and the somewhat gloomy weather through our stay, Amy and I enjoyed ourselves immensely. Lots to do for divers and non-divers alike, courteous staff, well-maintained pool, excellent food, and some very engaging birds at the aviary. Here, for example, are some toucans:

Greenhills Elan Hotel

2009-01-17.

While in Manila we stayed at Greenhills Elan Hotel Modern, which had rooms for P3400/night (about $70/night at the current exchange rate). One of the taller buildings on Annapolis Street facing towards Greenhills Shopping Center, Elan is actually a mixed residential building, consisting mostly of condos, with guest rooms on three of its thirty-eight floors set up for hotel use. You wouldn’t know it from the lobby, restaurant, and 24 hour front desk though — and really, three large floors is a decent size for a hotel.

This was much better than last year’s condotel experience, in which we were effectively subletting a room without any additional services. Elan was an actual hotel, with housekeeping, minibar, air conditioning, cable TV, breakfast buffet, roof-deck swimming pool, and actual hot running water in the shower. The bed was just right, with a nice, thick comforter-like blanket.

On the down side, the breakfast buffet was occasionally marred by various insects appearing on plates, in milk, or in coffee; and the the tub was a bit small, awkwardly sloped, and rather high up off the floor so one had to step down quite a ways to get out while simultaneously avoiding slipping on the sloping tub wall. First time I’ve had to use those bathroom wall bars meant for the elderly and disabled. Lights in the room were a bit dim, too, but that wasn’t too much of a problem. We had some rather annoying keycard problems the first two nights, too, but those were eventually fixed.

Other than that, the service was great, the room nice and clean, the staff courteous and helpful, and the location perfect for our needs. Right across the street is the daytime gate to Greenhills Shopping Center, form which you can go left to Promenade or right to V~~irra~~ Mall. There are two laundromats in the immediate area (cheaper than the hotel laundry service), and a 7-11 and two Asian food markets right nearby, not to mention all the restaurants right across the street in Promenade.

And the southwest-facing view from our 37th floor room was exquisite, covering Greenhills, Wack Wack, Makati, and right up to Manila Bay.

Definitely a keeper, for a good price.

Stuff We Did in Manila

2009-01-14.

We took it easy for most of this trip: lots of rest, no day tours, more time spent with family. (Sorry to all the friends with whom we skipped meetups, maybe next time.) We went down to the family’s farm in Laguna to try and swim in my uncle’s geothermal pool, but didn’t get to swim since my dad’s company Christmas party was in view of the pool area and that would have been uncomfortable. (But I did get to sample some of my uncle’s most excellent scotch upstairs. Oh yes.) We lunched with Dad at Polo Club and with Mom at Club Filipino, and did some shopping at the Greenhills tiangge and department stores at Megamall and Shangri-La — which they are apparently calling “Shang” now. Amy got pearls and shirts, and I got a ton of bargain-priced black underwear. We also got to see an exhibit of Chinese-Filipino portraits by Fernando Amorsolo at the Yuchengco Museum, part of an ongoing Amorsolo retrospective. And of course our last days were spent in reunion with relatives at Tito Cesar’s wake.

More photos here, including our New Year trip to Anilao, which I will write about later.

Tito Cesar

2009-01-13.

A fond farewell to my Tito Cesar Bautista, who passed away shortly after New Year’s Day. Husband to my dad’s sister Tita Menchu, he was an engineer and an entrepreneur, and a man with a big heart and a huge family.

In my childhood my parents when traveling would sometimes leave me and my brother with Tita Menchu and Tito Cesar. I was a confused little kid, and at some point during one of these childsitting stayovers I adopted my tito and tita as my own “Mama Mintsu and Papa Titay,” relegating my own parents to uncle/aunt status. Now, I love my parents, so remembering that is a bit of an embarassing matter to me today, but it’s an illustration of how loved and welcomed I felt in their house, a love that Tito Cesar shared with all through his life.

Tito Cesar leaves behind Tita Menchu, and a family of eight kids, all married with kids of their own, some kids with kids, so he had gotten to see some of his great-grandchildren. I was happy to hear that he got to spend one last Christmas with them, even getting out of his wheelchair to dance a bit with Tita Menchu. I hope to see him again some day at the resurrection, but for now, he rests, and we mourn, but also rejoice in that hope.

Timelapse: Flight

2008-12-30.

Series of time lapse videos taken through rather scratchy plane window, Boeing 747-400 en route from DTW to NRT over the lower Arctic. Music thrown together with Garageband loops.

On the Fly: EWR-DTW-NRT-MNL

2008-12-30.

Typed out in Notes on my iPod Touch through the course of the trip, formatted later with photos.

Dec 26, 6:30am EST

En route to Newark. Total travel time will be something like 30 hours, with three connections, the longest leg of the trip being Detroit to Tokyo: 16 hours and 30 minutes.

As we will not have window seats all the way, I have purchased seasons 1 and 2 of 30 Rock and synced as many episodes as possible to my iPod for entertainment. Thank you, Tina Fey.

Dec 26, 10:14am EST

Airbus A319, Newark to Detroit. Flight delayed an hour and a half due to bad weather in Detroit. Unless the connecting flight is delayed, we may miss our connection.

Dec 26, 10:45 am EST

Seated, row 14, gave Amy the window. She’s enjoying watching other people’s bags go up the luggage ramp.

Dec 26, 11:00am EST

Finally in the air, over the scenic New Jersey Meadowlands, with its lovely expanses of ice and brown grass. Then, hills and rivers and patchy fields of snow.

Dec 26, 11:45am EST

Halfway to Detroit, Amy and I listening to Weezer on her iPod through a splitter. The guy in the aisle seat has a Zune. A *Zune*. This is only the second time I’ve seen one in the wild.

Dec 26, 1:30pm EST

We landed in Detroit and were greeted on entering the terminal with a set of broken flight information screens, blank or buzzing with static. Another set of screens down the halls were working, however, and they confirmed our worst fear: we had missed NW 11, our connecting flight to Tokyo. The next flight out, NW 25, would be boarding in minutes.

I had gotten on the phone as soon as we had touched the ground, and was on hold with the Northwest International Reservations hotline as we took the airport tram, in case ground staff were unhelpful. It turned out to be unnecessary; gate agents for NW 25 were quickly able to assign us seats even as the final call for boarding was being made,, despite the flight being grossly oversold. The seats were in-between ones in different rows, but a quick trade with a kindly old Japanese lady got us together by a window.

My reservations call on hold turned into a query about the transfer of our bags to the new flight, and after an eight minute wait the NWA rep assured me that our bags would be loaded onto the new flight. We shall see how that bears out.

NW 25 took off with blessed punctuality despite the snow and ice plaguing the area. As an added bonus, it turns out the flight will be only 12 hours long rather than the 16 I had expected.

Dec 27, 1:00pm JST

Sometime around the halfway point time started going faster, with some help from 1st season episodes of 30 Rock and a few inflight movies: Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, Bottle Shock, and WALL-E.

Amy has been enjoying the iPod Touch I gave her for Christmas, with a few free gaming apps to help pass the time. Out the window, a lovely Arctic landscape passes below, ice and tundra lit by the amber light of a sunset that never fades to night. I experimented a bit with a few time lapse videos of the sun and ice, but they came out a bit bumpy.

Dec 27, 2:53pm JST

Some fratboy type guy in an aisle seat keeps standing up in front if the screen to get stuff in his carryon and talk to his mates, casually blocking other passengers from watching WALL-E. The funny thing is, he fancies it rather stylish to wear his neck pilow while swaggering about the cabin, so he has a comical green yoke acting like some kind of over-swollen popped collar. It’s even funnier in silhouette against the screen.

Just a couple more hours to landing. “Breakfast” is about to be served. Outside, the sun is out again, and icebergs dot the sea below.

Dec 27, 9:00pm PHT

We had a good view of Mt. Fuji and the sunset while in a holding pattern on approach to Narita.

Transfer at Narita was painless, the security quick and the airport easy to navigate, even through the surreal daze following a long flight.

Now we are halfway between Narita and Manila, on a noisy, crowded plane with much more loud talking and baby screaming and snoring than any other leg of this trip. Dinner was fish of some sort. Really not looking forward to the arrival process at MNL.

Dec 27, 11:45pm PHT

MNL arrival was surprisingly painless. And our bags made it through! Just waiting for Mom to pick us up now.

Dec 28, 1:30am PHT

This is a really nice hotel room. Sleep time.

NJ Christmas 2008

2008-12-25.

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”

Merry Christmas, and blessings in Christ to all! We are currently visiting Amy’s family in New Jersey, where a thin layer of snow and ice gives me the first real snowy Christmas I’ve ever had, and a big fat Christmas tree fills up a good part of the living room. Last night we dined on baked ziti, antipasto, and chicken marsala at Amy’s uncle’s house, and today Amy’s mom is preparing a rib roast for tonight. I’m enjoying a very New Jersey Christmas — and that’s not a bad thing.

So far I have been gifted with an iPod Touch (2G) from my parents (an early gift which I can now use without early-opening guilt), the last two Futurama movies from Amy, an iTunes gift card from my brother-in-law, a huge load of pants, shirts, and sweaters from my parents-in-law, a little 3D cat puzzle and picture frame from Amy’s aunt and uncle, and a bit of cash from her grandma.

First thing tomorrow we hop on a plane out of Newark to the Philippines, where we will spend the next two weeks, with a few days in Tokyo on the way back.

Work and home and Amy’s recent pedestrian accident and life in general have kept me too busy and stressed to work much on this site, and I don’t expect much internet access while we’re off on vacation, so things on HNBP will be in stasis for a little while longer. Comments will be off and updates will be sparse, but my various other forms of internet presence — Twitter, Flickr, etc. — will be updated when possible. But otherwise, vacation.

A Merry Christmas again! Here is a chocolate snowman:

More photos here.

CSC LEF Second Life Mention

2008-12-18.

On CSC’s Leading Edge Forum, some of my comments about Second Life appear to have been included in a presentation on their Second Life work for NASA JPL. (PDF with notes here.) I (well, my avatar) attended the Mars Phoenix Landing Event there and found it thoroughly enjoyable, so I’m glad someone at CSC appreciated my appreciation.

The presentation even throws in a photo of me (my real life self, that is) with Pickles (my neighbor’s parakeet whom I occasionally petsit) on my shoulder. Cute, and a sign that whoever put this together knew to search for more of my material to add a more personal touch.

Santa Puts Me Back in the News

2008-12-15.

Who’d have thought writing about getting yelled at by the National Santa’s elves would land me back in the local news? This time, my WeLoveDC entry complaining about being stopped from photographing Santa’s Workshop at the National Christmas Tree got picked up in NBC Washington’s Around Town section.

(Cue, of course, the requisite “WELL PEOPLE WHO TAKE PHOTOS WHICH HAPPEN TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THEM ARE CREEPY TERRORIST PERVERTS” commenters. I don’t ask to get pulled into these rights arguments; I just want to snap a nice amateur photo without being harassed by security-theater-obsessed bullies.)

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