Dive-Monster Rhoody

I know it might be boring for you ar I make now the second article about my cheap chinese bike, but I actually don’t really care. I am sure it will look great. Like I assumed it is not finished today, but I can see big progress and most likely I have it mid-week and can place my big Lubut on it.

As all the electric is chinese, I don’t expect that the direction lights are working longer than a week, but it does not really matter. Direction lights in the Philippines??? At least not in Dumaguete…

It is way more important that your horn is loud, Headlights are also OK.

… and I promise I don’t post anything about my Dayang anymore until it is really finished.

cheers

Rhoody

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Like mentioned earlier, there was a Typhoon warning and that tail of it hit Dumaguete City with full force. When we reached the divesite big waves were rolling in and the visibility was less than one meter in shallow water. A strong surge was present and pushed us with each wave some meters to the left and pulled us back with the outgoing water. We rushed to get below 5 meter where the visibility was acceptable and no strong surge anymore. We rushed through the skills and headed down to 18 meter, the maximum of Open Water dive 3. With the “little” work out on our way out we reached quickly half tank and made our way back. Due to the decreasing visibility and increasing surge we surfaced quite a distance from the shore and the waves helped us to push us in.

During our surface interval the wind increased dramatically and out changing area was totally under water. This place is usually such a peaceful spot where locals meet to have a great BBQ and to chill out on a lovely beach. Not today…. The place was flooded and the ocean showed his force. I wanted to skip the dive but Mike told me he wanna finish even with a short 20 minute dive. So we geared up and try to enter the water. This was very clear against Neptun or Poseidons plan. A huge wave grabbed us and spitted us out back on the beach, or what was left of it.

Mike didn’t wanna give up and after 10 minutes of catching breath we gave it another try. I was counting the waves, height and strength the whole time and figured out a rhythm when it’s the best going through them. We helped each other through the breaking waves and swam out as far as necessary to descend into a brown soup. I could not see the end of my own arm and we were holding each other until we hit the ground. Again, we rushed to go deeper but even on 12 meters the visibility was below one meter. Deeper at 16 meters we had about 3 meters, enough to let each other go. The surge was still there and even the Clownfish were all over the place, but not in the Anemone, where they usually belong. The underwater navigation was even for a UPS Pilot a drama but finally done. We decided quickly to return and get back to shore. Somehow we managed to get out of the water… not without the help of some locals, thanks for that. We quickly disassembled and rinsed before we were heading back to Dumaguete for a hot shower and a cold beer. If somebody can dive in this condition he can dive everywhere. Great Job Mike !!!!

Typhoon Frank hit the Philippines badly and left huge damage and plenty of victims behind. We were lucky ones this time to “catch” only the tail of it. Everybody says that the Central Visayas and the area around Dumaguete is safe and very protected, but who does really know ???  If the nature wants you it will get you.

all the best

Rhoody

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Food is a big thing in the Philippine Islands. During the last few years I tasted a lot of strange things. Many dishes were over delicious. I never found a list if local dishes and even the following is for sure not complete. It gives a rough overview about the local philippino street-cuisine.

The spelling is also different from region to region, my research is more based in the Visayas and Luzon. I will update the list from time to time when I get more stuff through my stomach. You can find this stuff at many local restaurants and street kitchens.

Dictionary of Philippine street food

Abnoy - unhatched incubated duck egg or bugok which is mixed with flour and water and cooked like pancakes
Adidas - chicken feet, marinated and grilled or cooked adobo style
Arroz caldo - rice porridge or congee cooked with chicken and kasubha; see also Lugaw
Atay - grilled chicken liver
Baga - pig’s or cow’s lungs grilled or deep-fried and served with barbeque condiments
Balat ng manok - see Chicken skin and Chicharon manok
Balun-balunan - grilled chicken gizzard
Balut - hard-boiled duck egg with fetus
Banana cue - deep-fried saba (banana) covered with caramelized brown sugar
Barbeque - marinated pork or chicken pieces grilled on skewers
Batchoy - miki noodle soup garnished with pork innards (liver, kidney and heart), chicharon (pork skin cracklings), chicken breast, vegetables and topped with a raw egg; origin traced to La Paz, Iloilo
Betamax - curdled chicken or pork blood, cubed and grilled
Bibingka - glutinous rice flour pancakes grilled with charcoal above and below in a special clay pot
Biko (also Bico) - glutinous rice cake with grated coconut topping
Binatog - boiled white corn kernels, sugar, grated coconut and milk
Bopis - minced pig’s heart and lungs sauteed with garlic and onion and seasoned with laurel, oregano, bell pepper and vinegar
Botsi - chicken esophagus, deep-fried or grilled
Calamares - deep-fried squid in batter
Calamay (also Kalamay) - glutinous rice cakes; varieties all over the country
Camote cue - deep-fried camote (sweet potato) covered with caramelized brown sugar
Carioca (also Karyoka, Karioka) - deep-fried glutinous rice flour cakes served on skewers
Cheese sticks - deep-fried cheese wrapped in lumpia (spring roll) wrapper
Chicharon baboy - pork skin cracklings, made from pork rind boiled and seasoned, sun-dried and deep-fried
Chicharon bituka - pork or chicken intestine boiled, seasoned and deep-fried
Chicharon bulaklak - pork omentum boiled, seasoned and deep-fried
Chicharon manok - chicken skin cracklings
Chicken balls - balls made with chicken meat, deep fried and served in skewers with a sweet, sour or spicy sauce
Chicken skin - chicken skin battered and deep fried
Cutchinta - see Kutsinta
Day-old chicks - literally day-old chicks deep-fried to a crisp, served with sauce or vinegar
Empanada (Batac) - pork longganiza, egg and grated green papaya in a rice flour shell, deep-fried and served with vinegar
Fishballs - balls made with fish meat, most often from pollock, deep fried and served in skewers with a sweet, sour or spicy sauce
Goto - rice porridge or congee cooked with beef tripe
Halo-halo - translated as “a mix of many things” or “an assortment,” it is a dessert topped with shaved ice that may contain sweetened saba (banana), camote, macapuno (young coconut), kaong, nata de coco, pinipig (rice crispies), gulaman (agar), sago (tapioca balls), brown and white beans, garbanzos, ube (purple yam), and leche flan (creme brulee), with milk and sugar
Helmet - grilled chicken head
Hepalog (also Toknonong) - hard-boiled duck eggs dipped in orange batter and deep-fried
Isaw - collective term for different types of grilled chicken and pork innards; varieties include isaw manok, isaw baboy, atay, goto, botsi, balun-balunan, and tenga ng baboy
Isaw baboy - grilled or deep-fried pork intestines on a skewer, served with sweet, sour or spicy sauce
Isaw manok (aslo IUD) - grilled or deep-fried chicken intestines on a skewer, served with sweet, sour or spicy sauce; also referred to as IUD because it resembles an intra-uterine device
Iskrambol (also Scrambol) - frostees; shaved ice, diced gulaman, sago and condensed milk
IUD - see Isaw manok
Kakanin - collective term for snacks made with kanin (rice), particularly malagkit (glutinous) rice; varieties include puto, kutsinta, calamay, sapin-sapin, suman, palitaw, biko or sinukmani, and espasol among many others
Kalamay - see Kalamay
Kamote cue - see Camote cue
Kikiam - the special ones are made of ground pork and vegetables wrapped in bean curd sheets, deep-fried and served with sweet, sour or spicy sauce; those in the street are seafood-based, usually made of fish meat and cuttlefish
Kudil - deep-fried pork skin
Kutsinta - steamed bahaw (boiled rice) with lye and brown sugar; has a gelatinous consistency
Kwek kwek - see Quek quek
Lomi - noodle soup made with thick fresh egg noodles or lomi
Langoniza - pork sausage grilled or fried on a skewer
Lugaw - rice porridge or congee; varieties include arroz caldo (with chicken and kasubha) and goto (with beef tripe)
Lumpia - spring rolls; varieties include lumpiang basa; lumpiang hubad - fresh spring rolls wothout the wrapper; lumpiang prito; lumpiang sariwa - fresh srping rolls; lumpiang shanghai; lumpiang ubod; and turon
Mais - boiled sweet corn seasoned with salt, butter or margarine
Mais con yelo - sweet corn, milk and sugar topped with shaved ice
Mami - noodle soup
Manggang hilaw - green mango served with bagoong (shrimp paste)
Mani - peanuts either boiled, roasted or deep-fried and seasoned with garlic and salt
Maruya - banana fritters
Nilupak - mashed kamoteng kahoy (cassava) or kamote (sweet potato) with brown sugar and served with butter or margarine
Palitaw - glutinous rice flour pancakes topped with grated young coconut, sugar and roasted sesame seeds
Panara - deep-fried crab and grated green papaya empanda sold in Pampanga during Christmas season
Pancit - noodles; varieties are batchoy (Iloilo) - see Batchoy; batil patung (Tuguegarao) - local noodles topped with hot dogs, chicharon, ground meat, fried egg, and vegetables; pancit bihon; pancit canton - a kind of pancit guisado flavored with ginger and soy sauce; pancit guisado, pancit habhab (Lucban) - sautéed miki noodles served on and eaten straight from banana leaf sans utensils; pancit lomi - see Lomi; pansit luglog (Pampanga and Tagalog Region) - it has a distinct orange shrimp-achuete sauce and is topped with chicharon, tinapa, wansoy and shrimp; pancit malabon (Malabon) - made with thick rice noodles tossed in shrimp-achuete oil topped with shelled oysters, squid rings, suaje or hipong puti and wansoy; pancit molo (Iloilo) - clear chicken broth with wonton, garlic and crushed chorizo; pancit palabok; pancit puti (Manila); and pancit sotanghon among many others
Pandesal (also Pan de sal) - breakfast roll; rounded bread
Pares - translated as “pair,” means the pairing of rice with beef; beef pares is characterized by very tender meat, usually with a lot of litid (ligaments)
Penoy - hard-boiled duck egg without fetus
Proven - hard portion of chicken entrails that is either marinated and grilled, battered and fried or cooked adobo style
Pusit - squid grilled on skewer
Puto - steamed rice cake
Puto bumbong - purple glutinous rice snack cooked in a special steamer
Quikiam - see Kikiam
Quek quek (also Toknanay) - hard boiled chicken eggs dipped in orange batter and deep-fried; also used for quail eggs but some say the correct term for the quail egg version is tokneneng; the balut version is sometimes referred to as hepalog
Sapin-sapin - layered glutinous rice and coconut milk cake usually topped with grated coconut and latik (residue from coconut oil extraction); different flavor per layer such as ube (purple yam), macapuno (young coconut), kutsinta and langka (jackfruit)
Scrambol - see Iskrambol
Sinukmani - see Biko
Siomai - steamed pork dumplings
Siopao - steamed pork buns
Sisig - roasted pig’s head, chicken liver, onions and chili, chopped and flavored with calamansi served on a hot metal plate
Sorbetes (also Dirty ice cream) - street ice cream made with local fruits and ingredients; common flavors include ube (purple yam), mango, avocado, queso (cheese), chocolate, langka (jackfruit), buko or macapuno (coconut); strawberry is common in Baguio City
Squid balls - balls made with squid or cuttlefish meat, deep fried and served in skewers with a sweet, sour or spicy sauce
Suman - glutinous rice snack steamed in banana or coconut leaves; varieties include binagol (Leyte) made with glutinous rice, gabi (taro), coconut milk and chocolate; budbod sa kabog (Tanjay, Negros Oriental) which uses millet instead of glutinous rice; Taho - bean curd snack topped with arnibal (liquefied raw sugar similar to molasses) and sago (tapioca balls)
Tenga ng baboy (also Walkman) - marinated pig’s ears grilled on skewers; see also Kudil
Toknanay - see Quek quek
Tokneneng - hard boiled quail eggs dipped in orange batter and deep-fried; also called kwek kwek by others
Toknonong - see Hepalog
Tupig (also Itemtem) - glutinous rice, grated mature coconut, coconut milk and molasses rolled in banana leaves and grilled; varieties in Pangasinan, Ilocos Norte (Batac) and Isabela
Turon - saba (banana) with with sugar and sometimes langka (jackfruit) wrapped in lumpia (spring roll) wrapper and deep-fried
Walkman - see Tenga ng Baboy

enjoy your meal

Rhoody
 

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While doing some research for my diving-page Philippinen-tauchen.com  I came across a nice article about Verde Island on CDNN and I thought I should share it with you. Here is a part of it…

PUERTO GALERA, Philippines – Verde Island Passage south of Manila has been described as the “centre of the centre” of the world’s marine biodiversity in a joint study by America’s Smithsonian Institute.

Beneath the turquoise waves that funnel nutrients from the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea are spectacular reef formations of more than 300 species of coral and underwater rock canyons that host nearly 60 percent of the world’s known shorefish species.

“This area can be considered the marine counterpart to the Amazon River basin,” said Kent Carpenter of the World Conservation Union, co-author of the study which put the passage at the peak of the “Coral Triangle” that spans the Sulawesi and the Sulu Seas in the southern Philippines and nearby Indonesia….

see the full story here

The only thing I don’t like is the last part as it is just promotion for a dive-shop, but the rest is a interesting read.

cheers

Rhoody

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Finally… after the longest raining season since I life in the Philippines it looks like we finally left all the clouds rain and storms behind. In seven years I never experienced a rainy-season starting in late September and lasting until the middle of march.
The sun hit Dumaguete like a hammer. It is HOT.
As I moved to Dumaguete from Dauin in November I had the whole time no real change to work a bit in my own garden and that is exactly how it looked. Knee-deep grass was attacking me in the back of my house. Millions of leaves were laying on the ground, rotten Banana leaves were hanging down from the banana-trees… (is it a tree ???? after I cut one down it appears to me more like a “monster-grass”) By the way, I had some 50 plus bananas hanging up there, this was the reason why I cut it, as I had no idea how to bring them down in any other way.

With big help of  two  sweet helper I started to collect all the leaves on three different spots and burned them. The smoke of it raised that high in the sky that whole Dumaguete thought there is a new volcano in Batinguel. I guess my neighbors hate me for that now. I was more concerned to avoid burning down my house…

Unlike my daddy, I don’t give much about gardens but the hours yesterday were amazing for me. At lunchtime the sweat was floating in liters and we were completely exhausted. But I must admit that my first own harvested bananas were the best in my life so far. I guess it will be the same with the Papaya and the Mangos. Yes, all that stuff is just growing here in my little Paradise.

After the lunch-break we slowed down a little bit and played around with the water-hose, but even the water from my tank was almost to warm to help for refreshing. Finally we ended up doing exactly that what we should do in that heat….. Nothing !!!! Actually we were sitting in the grass and watching killer-spiders how they catch grasshoppers for their lunch. I found some “space-spiders”, tiny little creatures which are amazingly colorful. If they would be bigger they would scare the sh%@ out of me.

Around two o’clock we decided to go to the beach as it is better to lay in the ocean with an ice-cold coke-light and let the spiders and grasshoppers do their thing. I loved the day in the garden and it will not be my last, but I am sure that I will prefer my time under water much more, especially when it is hot like now… and there are no space and killer-spiders…

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I was just attending a PADI Member update for 2008. It was a two hour Seminar in the Waterfront-Hotel in Mactan,  Cebu. It was held by Jimmy Christrup, the PADI representative for the Philippines. Jimmy is an old friend of mine from Puerto Galera when I was working for ASIA DIVERS, the number one diveshop in Puerto Galera 4 years ago. The last four years he made all his way up to PADI Course Director and now an employee the biggest diving association in the world.

Usually I fall asleep during these 2 hours, but trying to be respectful, I stood alive during the whole time. We got some numbers of the worldwide certifications and the status of PADI. PADI is the certifying agency for approximately 70% of all new certifications worldwide in over 180 countries. Overall there were 900.000 new certifications issued last year.

In 2007 in the Philippines were 18.500 divers certified.
11.700 at the entry level (Open Water Divers)

5.000 in continuing education level (Advanced Open Water Diver, Rescue Diver)

1.800 in Specialty Courses like NITROX, deep-diver or Under Water Naturalist.

The entry level numbers went down about 3.5% while the continuing education increased by 14.8%. The start 2008 is promising a good year.  In  the first 2 month of this years, as all 3 numbers increased significantly in that time. The entry level by almost 30% compared to 2007.

For all who are interested in diving but don’t wanna read books and study in their holiday, PADI has different options for everybody. The latest launched option is the eLearning. You can finish all academics including the exams online. In your holiday you make a quick review and the rest is water work. That is a great option for business travelers with only a few days at one location. As many waiting areas in Airports offering free WIFI they can make all the theory while they are traveling. The water work can be done in minimum 2 days, but this would be a quite tough schedule. I recommend 2.5 or 3 days.

The pictures are showing the hard way to become a professional diver.
1.)The Open Water Entry, quite simple test with a beer or two through a snorkel.
2.)Nitrox course: also easy, you just need to look like a idiot
3.) and 4.) The Divemaster mix is a bit harder, you get some wired stuff through the snorkel, including Tabasco, Rum, Beer, and everything what comes into your instructors mind.

The reactions of the new diving PRO are different.  At that time my DM-candidate was still able to sit. I have pictures where he is sleeping on the ground a few minutes later with three dogs in his arms

There are some levels between. I will put some details on the side soon.

More information about diving on www.philippinen-tauchen.com

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As most here know, I am part of the www.dumagueteinfo.com – Team. Next to hanging on the forum of DI to keep it free from spammers who wanna sell NOKIA and PLAYSTATION or deleting any kind of political religious or racial crap, I am in charge of our relationship with our local advertisers. Irwin Ramas-Uypitching called me some weeks ago to meet him at his family-owned Hotel Palwa. They want to be part of Dumagueteinfo.

While we met at the Hotel’s restaurant  we agreed on a hosted advertisement page. As no pictures were available I asked to come again to take some shots for the page. Adam, his brother welcomed me a few days later and kindly let me take pictures from each and everything I wanted to. The friendliness of the staff at Hotel Palwa is just overwhelming. The rooms were  spacious, clean and I felt a very warm enjoyable atmosphere.
After finishing the picture-taking, I could not help myself and hang around there at the frontdesk with the lovely ladies for another hour or so just chatting and laughing. Sad enough for me, that they are all married or engaged so I have to behave, that I don’t get in trouble with jealous husbands and boyfriends.

As the pictures on a DI page are limited, those here are some which did not make it to the advertising page but it shows the attitude of the staff there. ALL employees I met were a lot of fun.
As I was working the last five years in a dive-resort in the Philippines, I think I know the difference between artificial smile at work and when staff enjoys their working place.
So if you visit Dumaguete and need to stay in the city, have a look at Hotel Palwa.
The Hotel is in a central location and only minutes by foot away from shopping-centers, offices, hospitals, restaurants and the famous Boulevard with the mainpart of the Dumaguete nightlife.

Enough promotion, I just wanted to share my expierience on a routine working day as a part of the Dumagueteinfo.com team. I mean I also could have a job in a german factory and press the same button 8 hours a day and 6 days a week.
I will not get rich here, but nothing can take all the expierience I made here away from me.  

Moving to the Philippines was definitely one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.

For me it’s always enjoyable to make this part of the job after the daily online-routine to go out to meet great people and personalities in Dumaguete.

 All this pictures here are “stolen shots”. The smile and laughing everywhere in the Philippines is something what makes life here so enjoyable, as is is not posing, it is just part of everydays life here. I wish we “Long-noses” could adobt it only partially

Cheers

Rhoody

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