Dive-Monster Rhoody

I am pretty much emotional about the happening off the shores of Batangas, for those who are not in the PI or follow the news about several happenings, fishermen slaughtered a six meter Whale Shark.

The slaughtered Whale Shark was caught and his fins cut off. That all is covered by the Bantay Dagat of this area who is actually in charge for the protection of this creatures. According to that guy fishermen tried to free the Whale Shark entangled in a net… well, as you can see on the pictures they had the right tools to cut the fins in a very clean way.

Here the first report I found in the Philippine Daily Inquirer early this week:

BATANGAS CITY—A dead whale shark without fins and a tail was buried on the shores of Tingloy Island on Tuesday morning, inscribing a sad epilogue to a Manila conference of 50 nations for the protection of the endangered fish species.

Locally known as “butanding,” the juvenile whale shark (Rhincodon typus) was found at 9:30 a.m. on Monday by a group of foreign and local divers in Barangay Maricaban on the island, 44 kilometers from this city.

It was still alive but “very weak” when the group left it at 5 p.m., said Rey Manalo, head of the Bantay-Dagat (sea patrol) in Tingloy.

Manalo said the whale shark, measuring 18 feet, could have gotten accidentally entangled in a net laid out by a group of island fishermen who were catching fish nearby.

They must have tried to rescue the creature with their bare hands but could not do so without cutting its fins and tail, he said.

Since it could no longer swim, the hapless giant fish was placed in cool waters with Bantay-Dagat personnel watching over it, Manalo said. Unfortunately, it died on Monday night and was buried on the shore the next morning, he said.

Gimme a fucking break…..they cut the fins with their bare hands ???

Here another report from the GMANews.tv:

An international group seeking the protection of endangered species condemned the attack on a whale shark (locally called the butanding) found off the shores of Tingloy Island in Batangas province last Monday.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the World Wildlife Fund voiced concern over the possible slaughter of the shark, whose fins were sliced off.

“WWF condemns the perpetrators of this illegal act. This is a real eye opener, for it proves that the slaughter of endangered species – even one as big as a butanding – can still take place if we let our guards down,” said WWF Philippines Conservation Programs vice president Joel Palma.

Divers found the shark last Monday. It was later taken near the Caban Cove where volunteers from Bantay Dagat, a civilian fisheries patrol in the country’s coastal areas, tried to attend to the shark.

“Sadly, its wounds were too great – and the shark, nicknamed Tingloy Baby, died the next day (Tuesday)… and was laid to rest in Caban Cove,” the World Wildlife Fund said.

The statement quoted Bantay Dagat members as saying that its members and local police recently found fishing vessels with strobe lights operating on Mabini town’s shores.

The fishermen were asked to leave, but they later transferred to Tingloy town. The incident prompted WWF and Bantay Dagat to allege that the fishermen could be the possible culprits of the incident.

Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources director Malcolm Sarmiento also said the agency would investigate the possible slaughter of the whale shark.

In the Philippines, whale sharks have been hunted in the waters off Bohol, Misamis Oriental and Sorsogon, the WWF said.

“Shark fins and meat are usually exported to China, Hongkong and Taiwan. Whale shark flesh, called ‘Tofu meat’ sells for roughly $8 (P360) per kilogram, while dried shark fins are valued a hundred times more – approximately $800 (P36,000) per kilogram,” it said.

Citing BFAR data, the WWF said about 200 whale sharks were slaughtered in 1997 alone, prompting the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the BFAR to call for legal action to protect the whale shark.

Republic Act No. 8550 or the Fisheries Administrative Order prohibits the possession or slaughter of whale sharks. Violators are punished with four years in jail, a maximum fine of P10,000 and the cancellation of the violator’s fishing license.

Well, if you look at the numbers and know even only a tiny little bit about the attitude of 95% of the population of this country it is easy to understand that they go for the US$800 per kilo as the investigation will end where most things ending here … in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Finally there is a Diver on scubaboard.com who was actually involved in the rescue try. All the pictures are from him. Here is what he wrote (source: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/5052410-post17.html )

I was one of the group of divers who found the Whale Shark in Anilao. Judging by the rope marks around the tail and damage to the underside of the fish, this magnificent creature had been roped up and pulled onto a boat to be finned before being discarded into the ocean.

It was still alive when we found it, though only just. The muscles around its fins were still trying to move them and eyes still alert.

The guys from the Acacia Dive Resort called out the Marine Police who arrived within the hour and reporters from the local and national news. Footage from one of our divers - Pete was aired the same day on the local news and the following day on the national news.

I understand that media pressure in the Philippines brought an end to the slaughter of Thresher Sharks last year (is this true?) and hope the same will come out of this senseless act. I fear though that this slaughter will continue while there is a demand and whilst the authorities appear to cover up what appears to me to clearly be a blatant capture and finning.

Of course the fisherman who perpetrated this act should be pursued but it is the demand that also needs to be stopped and how does one do that?

I wish my first encounter with these magnificent creatures had been much more pleasant experience but hope these photos and videos can be put to good use to help bring an end to the destruction of these gentle giants of the oceans!

While I write this and look at the pictures I am more than angry, I am shaking shaking shaking, got tears in my eyes, desperate …fucking assholes …

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I just came back from a quick Trip to Bohol where I visited my friend Kim and his lovely family. The Day was originally planned as a lazy day with the feet in the sand and a beer in the hand (wow, that is almost poetry…).

The Bohol-trip was exclusively organized by two tour-manager who did an awesome job in fixing messed up bookings, while the return trip was flnucked up by my lovely personal assistant. ( I promised Kim, Frank and Rechel not to mention their names as it would be unfair as they really did a fantastic make-up job… )

Anyway, the beer needed to wait a bit cause after my arrival was Lunch scheduled at the Bohol-Bee Farm. I have been there a few times and always enjoyed the small tour through the Facility of the Bohol Bee Farm.

We arrived there just ready for lunch and after some table and chair adjustment for our big group we made a kind of bulk order. When we having lunch or dinner in a group it usually ends up that we are ordering way to much food for everybody, put it in the middle of the table and everybody grasps what he wants to eat.

So here is the (I think not complete) order for 10 people (including 2 Kids):

Yoga Salad (Family Size)
Fish Sticks with herb dip
Halang Halang Soup (family size)
Vegetarian Pasta
Seafood Pasta with Coconutmilk
Fresh Herb Pasta

Tropical Pasta
Spaghetti Packages
Buko Pasta
Spaghetti with Shrimp and Tomatoes
Meat Pasta
Curried Pasta

Curried Pasta with Vegetables
Curried Pasta with Chicken
Curried Pasta with Seafood
Honey glazed Chicken
Pizza

Well, that was a kind of enough food with that much left over that the staff at the Bohol Bee Farm staff had a great Fiesta after closing time. One thing which was a little bit irritating for me is the fact that each dish was decorated with flowers. Everybody tried to convince me to eat them, but I just didn’t wanna eat something like that. Later during our tour the guide explained that they are edible cause the bees don’t die from them … and 5 other reasons…. Hmmm my cat eats mice and flies shi…. YAKS. They don’t die, does that mean it is also healthy for me… no flnucking way. Of course I was a butterfly in my past life at teenager times but I do not need to taste each flower which is passing by, nicely prepared on a plate or not…

….unless of course it looks like this beautiful tasty Oyster, but sadly they did not have this type at the Bohol Bee Farm :

Anyway, the food at the Bohol-Bee-Farm was very delicious and I can recommend it to everybody to stop by there when visiting Bohol. My hot tip is to get some glasses of the Pesto-Spread, it is just too delicious and in the unlikely event there are also flowers in it, at least I couldn’t identify them…

Cheers

Rhoody

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I met the boys at Wendys and definitely had no intention to eat another Burger after the 1,5 and a half a few hours earlier in Burgerking. Well, that changed pretty quickly and who can say “NO” to a juicy looking “Baconator”. The Baconator at Wendys was the highlight that far and tasted almost like the picture promised.

Stuffed like a turkey on thanksgiving I rolled the 5 Minutes to the I-MAX to watch “AVATAR”. A few words to that, I am absolutely not into Science Fiction and Fantasy and before I watch stuff like Lord of the Rings I would eat a Fishhead-Balut-Pizza.

Our seats were central in row 7 and the screen is just huge. To my very own surprise I had a great experience watching that movie in 3-D. The world created in the movie is a lot of stuff I see under water and is just breathtaking. The story is nice and the 3D effects great. The 2.5 hour movie was not 1 minute boring and at the end of the day I was glad to join the guys for the movie. I actually don’t know if I would enjoy the movie on a normal screen but after that experience I don’t wanna find out and won’t watch it again. I don’t wanna destroy or question that experience.

I did destroy this movie illusions already many times, I am sure plenty of my reader did the same. Remember when we were all young and watched “Karate Kid” and similar movies 15 – 20 years back, great movies, diba? Well did you ever watch that movie in the last 2 years and were wondering where the excitement has gone ? They were great movies at that time but well, that time is over. All Chuck Norris movies, Rambo and Rocky belong to the same kind… RIP.

Anyway our driver picked us up and we were on the way back to AC, of course not without another stop-over at Burger King and the peer-pressure forced me to have another BBQ-Burger. One of the BIG Boys had another for take out plus a extra large “Blizzard” from Dairy Queen. An hour before midnight I entered the holy halls of Kim and Tom and counted the Burgers the last 36 hours not without promising myself never to repeat that again.

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So after this absolute bad Hooters Experience we walked through the Mall of Asia, bought our survival-kit (underwear, toothpaste etc.) jumped into a Taxi and drove to Malate where our Hotel - the Executive Plaza - was located.

The Hotel was 1.900 Peso what was actually a ok-deal compared to their published rates and or short-term booking. The room was OK, the water-pressure high so I took a loooong shower. One thing I did not like, there was almost no cell-signal in the room, well, there are worse things in the world, one of it are TV’s which show you after switching it on 98 channels to select from. I canned through the list and wanted to watch some news, when selecting the channel the only thing I saw was “snow”, well ok, let’s try another one. . . same snow just a different shade of gray…  at  the end I had about 13 available channels, 6 Filipino selling-whatever channels, one with showing a list 98 available channels and 4 with different cameras showing live the traffic on EDSA. …

Around 7:00pm  the 3.5 big long-noses met again in the lobby to head out for some cold beverages. Kim guided us to a place called “Blue Room”. The Blue Room is a great warm-up or hangout place. Nice seating, good snacks and relatively cheap drinks (considering the location).

They played very interesting (sometimes as bit disturbing) music. I would call it a kind of smooth Jazz and it was easy to listen and not too loud. The disturbing part was, that all songs were Jazzy versions of famous songs, and welcome to the Jungle by Gun ‘n Roses in smooth Jazz just sounds wrong. Still, the Blue Room was is a place I will go again when in Manila if I ever can find that again.

At around 11 we headed to the EDSA Entertainment Complex. First thing the guard took away my little camera as they have a no-photo policy. The EDSA Entertainment Complex houses several bars kept in different themes. We had about one drink in each Bar but didn’t get into a party mood. At around 3:00am we made our way back to the Hotel of course not without heading to McDonald’s first to have a small Take-out Snack existing of 2 Quarter Pounder Meals. Pretty much stuffed I felt asleep about 4 am.

Five hours later a woke up and it was impossible to go back to the land of dreams and the spy cams on EDSA-channels lost my interests after about 3,5 seconds, so I texted Kim from the Hotel-Lobby who was already out for Breakfast in Robinsons which is just located around the corner in 2 Minutes walking distance.

Breakfast with Kim and BigC at Burger King as Kim needed to charge his cellphone and this service is available in that fastfood chain… it turned out to be a bit bigger meal than planned. The original order was  Western – BBQ-Burger-double and while I was waiting Kim looked at his order to find out it was the wrong Burger so he gave it to me to shorten my waiting time. Well half way through that Burger Mine arrived. It was actually pretty good and it took about 60% of the burger to find out it is just a single and not double like ordered. So back to the counter complaining and waiting for my real order… It finally came correct and after 1,5 and a half burgers I was ready to roll to the Mall of Asia for some shopping before meeting the guys again for watching Avatar. Well, of course not without having “lunch” with another burger at Wendys…

Cheers

Rhoody

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DON SHIRLEY SURVIVED that day, but he didn’t walk away unscathed. He emerged from the recompression chamber at Bushman’s, which was pressurized to a depth of 98 feet to shrink the helium bubble in his head, after seven hours, disoriented and barely able to stand. He was so weak that Herbst dragged a mattress over from the police camp so Shirley could sleep right there. Over the next two weeks, he endured ten more chamber sessions, for a total of 27 hours of treatment. It was more than a month before he could think clearly or walk down a crowded street without his perception and balance running haywire. “When I first saw him, I got a hell of a shock,” Andre Shirley says. “He could not walk without support, and his thinking patterns had been affected. He would sound sane, but two minutes later he would forget what he’d said.”

Shirley has improved with time, but the helium bend left him with permanent damage that has impaired his balance. In May he went diving again for the first time, with Peter Herbst hovering protectively alongside. He closed his eyes, turned somersaults, and with relief discovered that the Big Dive had not taken one of the things he loves most. “A cave is a place where I live,” Shirley says.

A week after Shaw died, Gordon Hiles brought the video to a guest house in Pretoria, where Shirley was staying while undergoing recompression treatment at the Eugene Marais Hospital, and Shirley finally watched it. “It was difficult to see, but I really wanted to know firsthand what went on,” he says. Later that day, Shirley took the video to the hospital, where he met with Herbst and Dr. Frans Cronje, medical director of Divers Alert Network Southern Africa, who was overseeing Shirley’s treatment and assisting with the official accident investigation. They watched the video on a large screen and spent hours poring over every detail.

Shirley was so focused on what he was watching that he started mimicking Shaw’s breathing. Then, determined to “see for myself what happened,” Shirley volunteered for an unusual experiment. As Cronje carefully observed, Shirley sat with a CO2 monitor in his mouth and headphones on his ears, watching the video one more time. Every time Shaw breathed, Shirley breathed. Eventually Shirley was huffing through 36 shallow, extremely rapid breaths a minute.

“There was extreme hyperventilation,” Cronje says. “On a rebreather at that depth, it would have been very ineffective.” Shirley’s breathing became so distorted that by the time Shaw faded to just six breaths per minute and then lost consciousness, Shirley was also on the verge of blacking out. His hands were weak and he could barely move. Cronje concluded that Shaw had passed out from carbon dioxide buildup and eventually drowned.

It took Shirley a full half-hour to bring his breathing back under control.

“I actually died with Dave,” he says.

NUNO GOMES is the last person alive today who knows what it’s like to dive to the bottom of Bushman’s Hole, and he understands why Shaw had trouble reacting to a body that was suddenly floating instead of anchored. “You don’t think of a new plan while you are down there. It doesn’t work. Your mind is clouded. You cannot do it,” Gomes says. But he also wonders whether Shaw should have done more buildup dives to increase his tolerance for narcosis—much the way a climber will try to acclimatize to altitude—and his ability to recognize when it reaches dangerous levels. “When he started putting the body in the bag and it didn’t work, he should have immediately turned around and left,” Gomes says.

Gomes is an open-circuit diver, and his priority is setting records. (In June, he reclaimed the world depth record, reaching 1,044 feet in the Red Sea.) “I didn’t think it was worth the risk of a diver losing his life to recover the remains of Deon Dreyer,” he says flatly. Even so, Gomes honors Shaw as a fallen comrade. “It was a noble dive, a heroic dive. He did what he believed in, and I’ve got to say he had a lot of courage,” Gomes says. “At the end of the day, he achieved what he wanted to achieve, even though he paid for it with his life.”

None of the divers who were with Shaw in Bushman’s Hole think the dive was reckless. As support diver Mark Andrews puts it, “If you asked me about the chances before the dive, I’d have said there is a 99 percent chance of success, and a 1 percent chance he’ll have to leave the body. And zero percent that Dave wasn’t coming back.”

Verna van Schaik, who is used to people telling her she is pushing too deep, is sorry Shaw died but not sorry for him. “Dave was going to go back,” she says. “The fact that Deon was there just made it more interesting and more exciting. Dave knew the risks. They were his risks, and he took them.”

Every diver there that day will keep diving, and instead of second-guessing Shaw, they say they are proud of him. “Dave took rebreather diving where it has never been before. People never knew about [rebreathers] until he died showing what can be done,” Peter Herbst says. “Two hundred meters [656 feet] was a damned deep dive on a rebreather. This guy went half as deep again. He made the envelope bigger.”

Ten days after Bushman’s Hole gave the bodies back, Theo and Marie Dreyer went to see their son. When the morgue attendant asked them to step in, Marie wasn’t sure what to expect. When she saw a fully fleshed-out body, her tears stopped, and she felt happy. There was no head, but lying in front of her was her boy. Theo marveled that Deon’s legs still held their athletic shape. Marie couldn’t believe he was still in his Jockey underwear. “We saw him,” she explains, her eyes shining. Overwhelmed, she stepped forward and took her dead son in her arms.

Ann Shaw had hoped her husband would rest forever in Bushman’s Hole. When Herbst called to tell her that his body had been recovered, she was completely unnerved. After some anguish, she decided Shaw’s ashes should be scattered in South Africa, the place he had come to love so much. Ann continues to live and work in Hong Kong. Every once in a while, when she has a problem with the computer, or needs help in the kitchen, she finds herself thinking, Why did you do this to me? Because now I have to do everything. But it’s not anger she feels, just loss. “He needed to dive, and I accepted that,” she says. “I wasn’t about to change him or to tie him down.”

Lisa Shaw, in a eulogy for her father, wrote, “I know having faced death before that my father was unafraid and was completely at peace with the prospect. I know and he knew that the Lord would be right there ready to take him on to new adventures. I am also at peace because he died doing something he loved; very few of us will ever get that privilege.” Steven Shaw, who is 23 and is studying for a master’s degree at the Melbourne College of Divinity, finds some solace that his father died helping others. “But now I’m feeling more just sad that Dad’s gone,” he says.

Shirley misses Shaw, too, and has a picture of himself with Shaw, peering out of a recompression chamber, on his computer’s screen saver. “Dave died exploring and trying to achieve something he wanted to do,” Shirley says. “That to me is better than dying in a car crash.” Still, every day Shirley thinks, Ah, I’ve got to tell Dave that—only to remember that he can’t.

Shaw is not far, though. On a beautiful evening in May, Don and Andre Shirley took a bottle of wine and a small wooden box to the summit of a mountain a short drive from their home. Below them, the rich, pungent grasslands of Mpumalanga swept all the way to the distant horizon, and the Komati River glinted in the golden light. Next to a wild fig tree, the couple raised their glasses in a quiet toast. As the sun dipped low, they opened the box and threw Shaw’s ashes into the air. The ashes hung for an instant, a cloud of a man. Then the African earth took them, and Dave Shaw was gone.

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That is the continuation of the IMAX – Experience story below and I admit that Manila Burger Run is a kind of strange title, but after reading it I am sure you will understand that there can’t be any different name for that article. So let’s start where the other one was ending…

So here they stand the 3.5 fat long-noses at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon holding tickets for “Avatar” in 3D at the IMAX for the next day at 4:50 pm. First thing was to find a Hotel what was not a big issue as the guys have countless connections and a few txt later all bookings were done. Time for lunch.

We decided to try Hooters which is actually not located in the Mall but a half marathon away from the Mall of Asia… Hooters is a well known Burgers Chain in the US, pretty famous for OK Burger but more famous for the waitresses with Bigger Boobs then Brains. That is actually identical with Hooters behind the Mall of Asia.

The small difference is that the Boobs of the local Hooters waitresses didn’t fill a Cup-A Bra, so don’t ask for the brain…  Accordingly went our try to order… if there wouldn’t be typhoons and flooding in the Philippines, I would describe the “order and what got delivered”-procedure as a mild disaster. Well don’t blame the girls there, they just stick to the company – outlines, remember: “Bigger Boobs then Brains”. They still look better then the average burger sales lady in Germany.

So our first starter came of course together with the main course, the second starter did not show up, but after a reminder it was served when all other dishes were eaten,  the side dishes came after that. That all would be normal in a low-standard restaurant in Dumaguete but not for that price-class…that is simply annoying.

What made the Hooters experience to a real unforgettable event was simply the quality of the dishes. I am not a gourmet but that was simply disgusting… the fried shrimps had still the shells on under the breading and after the first bite lead to a small cut my gums I skipped on that.. The Burger I ordered looked a kind of Yummy, but that is as far the culinary delight went. First bite and BLEHHHH … Filipino Sweet Burger Buns. What the F… is going on here. Ok I am hungry so somehow a Gallon Hot Sauce and Heinz fixed the weird taste.

To pretend staying a kind of healthy we also ordered some vegetable side dish, just to discover another outstanding surprise. Hooters must have an employee whose job is to soak carrots in old kitchen oil and/or somehow injects it also… I am very aware that this sounds a bit strange, as was my experience after 39 years wandering around on this planet eating minimum 3 times daily.

That I was only able to have my bottomless drink refilled once in about 1.5 hours was only another adding experience.

Well , the bill was just over 100 US$ !!!! for a pile of  crappy  burgers, boob-less waitresses and oily carrots. I definitely will put Hooters on my “been there, done that, but never again”-List.

So we were more than ready to leave that place and back to the mall, to buy some clothes and stuff needed for the unplanned overnight-stay in Manila.

Enough for now…. The Manila Burger Run continues…

cheers

Rhoody

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I am on my traditional Angeles City visit at new Year to see two of my absolute best friends here, Kim and Tom. After spending a couple of days with them they told me there are plans to drive to Manila with another friend to watch the most expensive movie ever made – Avatar- in the I-MAX movie theater.

Well I am not into that Fantasy thingy but hey, getting on a nice trip with great friends watching a supposing to be great in 3-D in one of the absolute High End cinemas of this planet, no way I will pass on that.

So here we start the trip on a Sunday around noon time at the house in Angeles City with 4 BIIIIGGG boys, actually 3,5 big boys, looking at them I am pretty tiny… hehe . Kim spend the whole night and Sunday morning praying Rosemary to make the aircon in the Van working but the result was not really worth his effort, so he should not forget to light some candles too.

As the highway is almost empty, opening the windows is enough to cool down the van to a acceptable temperature all the way to Manila until you hit the famous Manila traffic. We 3.5 fat guys were lucky, as the traffic was not really that bad for Manila, but still enough to make me sweating and almost melting on the backseat like butter on a hot toast. Kim’s prayers were not completely useless as about 5 minutes from the Mall of Asia (where the I-MAX is located) the aircon started to spit out some cool breeze, cool in consideration of the temperature in the van which was close to boiling point.

We floated out of the van and entered the Mall of Asia on the search of the I-MAX. After about a 5-12 km walk through one of the worlds biggest shopping Malls (by the way, an ice-scating – thingy in the Philippines is still a kind of disturbing for me) we arrived at the movie theater to find out that all shows for that day were sold out.

Yeah, of course…  3.5 fat long-nosed smartasses going on a Sunday afternoon without tickets or reservation to a Cinema to watch one of THAT movies. I hope nobody of them was surprised that it was sold out. That’s what is called proper planning. I guess we simple lost the right to complain when things with Filipinos in charge are not working out that well….

As we do not have a proper job, we made the decision buy tickets for the next day and stay over night in a Hotel somewhere in Manila.  But that’s gonna be another story coming up soon, I already have the title… “The Manila Burger Run”. Stay tuned…

Cheers

Rhoody

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