www.Betsy and Terry.fun

Friday-Monday November 25-28

Leaving the polluted city behind!

We left early on Friday for our flight to Boracay, a wonderful island with beautiful white beaches. Our goal was to rest, relax, and breath fresh air. We did all those things in addition to going on a wild sailing, snorkeling adventure and a great Jet ski race on the ocean which none of us had done before. Both of our excursions were completely wet and we were unable to record anything with our cameras so hopefully my memory will serve me well here!

We landed in Catlican at about 9 AM Friday morning and promptly boarded a van that took us to a banca boat which ferried us about 30 minutes across the sea to Boracay. We checked into Fridays our island paradise resort. Terry and I stayed here last summer, but this time we were able to get newer rooms which were high on a hill and very large, comfortable, and posh! The architecture and design are very much Frank Lloyd Wright meets South East Asia which is totally delightful for me! Lots of beautiful stone, sleek wood floors and beams in circular rooms with paned windows. Bamboo is used as background wall covering and shells hung from the doorway to the bathroom. I did get pictures of this!

Clean air and the island of Boracay! The difference an hour makes!

We spent Friday settling in and enjoying the beach. Then we had a nice buffet dinner.

On Saturday, we tried to get a boat to go snorkeling in the morning, but the water was too rough so we walked into town for some shopping. When we returned it had calmed down enough for our snorkeling trip. We boarded a small Paraw, which is a banca sail boat which has no seats, only some netting stretched between the cross arms. This was not exactly what we were expecting, but we went for it. We soon found out that the water hadn't really calmed down enough and soon we were all being lashed with huge waves which had us hanging on to the netting. We lost our drinking cups and Katie's sunglasses to a really big wave that had us all gasping for breath! Good thing our cameras had been stashed away in the small compartment of the boat.

The first stop had us all saying NO WAY can we snorkel here! The waves were tossing the boat around and we told the crew to move on to calmer waters! They found us a spot with some neat coral and fish, nothing as pretty as we saw in Coral Gardens, Puerto Galera, but it was nice. So much of the reef had been damaged by dynamite or cyanide fishing, but it is now protected and we could see the reef coming back to life and that is exciting to see.

See the small netting between the side cross bars with square end? That is where we sat, 2 on each side of the boat. You see the crew poised on top of the small center section which is about a foot wide at the center of the boat tapering out to the points.

We were quite tired after our great adventure on the water so we had a calm dinner at the hotel and turned in early.

They really do comb the sand here!

We awoke to rain on Sunday morning which quickly cleared up, so after breakfast we went to the beach and waited for a speed boat to pick us up and take us to a floating barge where the Jet skis are floating. We all got our own Jet ski and raced each other around the ocean for about 30 minutes. The waves definitely helped us get some air and the experience was very different from the lakes we are used to. Katie had never been on a Jet ski so this was really a new experience for her. Great Fun! We decided to try a different restaurant for dinner and got directions to the highly recommended Bamboo Lounge. We gave the directions to our tricycle driver who had no clue where it was and dropped us at the far end of the island. We walked a few miles back down the beach and kept asking people for directions. Finally we found a nice guy who literally walked with us to the restaurant. We weren't too far from where we started when we finally sat down to eat! The food was delicious and worth waiting and walking for, but again we were too tired to go out for the night life and all went back to turn in early.

Major rain storms raged all night long, but once again by about 9 AM all was clear and beautiful. We opted for shopping over the beach, because we were all a little sun kissed by this time. No bad burns thank goodness. When we finished our shopping, it was time to pack and head back to our banca boat and our trip to the airport and home again. We had a great weekend adventure filled with fresh air, blue sky, and beautiful sunsets!




November 24, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving! We celebrated with a group of 16 people in our little apartment. We ate a feast of turkey, dressing, ham, mashed potatoes, squash casserole, green beans, fried corn, artichoke-crab dip, apple cake, and pumpkin pie. It was a delicious comfort to all of us who are so far away from home. We really missed hosting our family gathering this year, but our dear friends helped us not to feel so lonely! Here are a few of us before the turkey was carved, we forgot to take any more pictures once everyone arrived, sorry!

Mark, Ryan, Jules, Allison, Diane, Katie, B, Betsy, Terry. Not pictured Dave, Efren, Judy, Patrick, Alan, Jett, Julianne.