Where's Scott?

Seb and Mabel finally have it out over the house project… since nothing was prepared ahead of time (despite Seb’s efforts to organize the project for 3 months!), itemizing of the parts, pricing, and ordering is just starting 6 days after our arrival… and Seb has had enough of Basud, and wants to move on to Malapascua – where he had planned to spend all but a couple days of the Philippines trip.

The tension is finally broken when Mabel relents, and the family makes plans to head to Malapascua the next morning. Next morning we pile into the truck and head for the dock. In the Philippines, it appears, when there’s a trip, everyone goes, parents, uncles, kids (school? jobs? can’t seem to get a straight answer, but I appears all are put on hold w/o notice). Immediately, there’s new tension – Seb hadn’t expected everyone to go, and he knows the implications: he’ll need to transport, house and feed the entire extended family for as long as we’re on the island, and Seb’s pissed that he wasn’t asked (or even told!) about it. In addition, our cash reserves are limited since we’re still 2hrs plus from the closest ATM, and we’ll be out of cash in a hurry with such a large posse

We load on the “large” variation of the standard canoe-with-stabilizers (_all_ the boats here use the same blueprint, from 8ft single man paddlers to 60ft diesel monsters – two bamboo stabilizers on arms parallel to a narrow, open hull, tarp sunbreak optional). The trip to Malapascua is about an hour, and I spend the time blogging perched up in front of the captains cabin while Seb spots dolphins (only 1 week behind at this point!). Our trip’s a “special,” which means we’re dumped at the closest point on the island to the boat’s continuing voyage to Maya. We wade ashore and into a little cemetery full of Mabel’s relatives – did I mention that Mabel has about 500 Pepito relatives on the island? Ah, well, basically she can identify everyone on the island, “my uncle’s sister’s husband’s aunt, and her kids…” etc etc.

Bikes! The taxis here are proper motorcycles, you pickup your bags, hop on back, and they whisk you the 2km length of the island for 10 pesos (20c) a head – providing you can avoid the low branches and being burned by the tailpipe (Noel’s got an exceptionally impressive scar from one such burn!). After a quick candle-prayer in the church, the family makes the trip to the far side of the island, and is soon comfortably lounging on a bamboo platform under a shade tree on a pristine, postcard white sand beach – I can’t fathom why Mabel’s family doesn’t live here, true paradise… we have to just take a load off and let it soak in.