Fun day on the boat!

I had a great day today. I went on a boat trip with Starla and her parents and Lois. Starla's parents have been in the Philippines for a little less then a week visiting her. Starla really wanted them to experience a boat trip while they were here, so they rented a boat. Luckily I wasn't working so I was also able to go. This is a picture of Starla, Lois, and I. Starla and Lois are both students here at Newlife.
While we were waiting to depart the wharf, we had a lot of filipino salespeople board our boat trying to sell us their products. We first had a lady selling bags of oranges, then a another with peanuts, then water and chips. The best one though was the guy with sunglasses. None of us had sunglasses. It is common for people to sell fake raybans on the street here, and that is what the guy had to offer. So we each bought a pair for the trip. We are sporting them in the picture above. Once leaving the harbor it takes about 45 min to get to our destination which is called the coral gardens. It is a reef off the island of Talikod. We spent a couple hours there exploring the reef. Then we headed to the beach for lunch. Below is a picture of the beach and little huts you can eat under. For lunch we brought peanut butter and jellly sandwitches, fruit, and some of my special stash of smoked salmon and duck jerky from home.


While on the beach we were approached by guy wanting to sell us pearls. I wasn't too interested in them untill I found out that the guy selling pearls (Lando) was the son of Pastor Joseph. Pastor Joseph is the pastor of a Bajao church here in Davao. The Bajao people are a group of sea gypsies that live on huts over the water. While my mother was here visiting me in December I took her to Pastor Joseph's church. It was an amazing experience neither of us will soon forget. I was excited to have that connection with Lando.

Picture above is Lando, Starla, Lois, then the friend of Lando

After talking for a while Lando and his friend wanted to toss the football. So Lois, Starla, Lando and his buddy tossed the football for a while. Football is not something that play here. I once had the football in a coffee shop cause I was needing to bring it to a later engagement. One of the guys that worked there thought that the football was my purse. They just don't know what it is. It was really great seeing the joy on the guys faces as they were figuring out how to toss it around. It was so great to get to do that with them.

After football Lando wanted to take us for a ride in his little fishing boat so we one by one went out for rides. First Starla went. She came back soaking wet from the waves splashing. Lando wanted Lois and I to wear life jackets just incase. So to make him feel more secure we suited up. I was to go next.

They pulled the boat close enough to the shore to make it easy to get in. I was really excited for the experience. I sat in the bottom of the boat and then off we went. The waves were pretty choppy at that point so getting out into the water took some time. Every wave would splash into the boat. Lando kept appologizing. It was pretty funny. So once we got out to a certian point we were able to go fast! It was a lot of fun.

Lando's boat has written on the side, "GOD PEOPLE," also he has the name of his wife written on it, "KIRISSA." He testifies to everyone who sees him.

So one of the more comical events of the day was my fake raybans I purchased before the boat trip. The frames were a brown plastic. For some reason the paint stained my face around my nose and eyebrows. The picture below doesn't really do it justice.

Below is a picture of Lois after she went on her boat ride. After every ride Lando would have to empty water out of the bottom of the boat from the waves splashing in during the ride. That is what he is doing in the picture below. After we finished the rides we offered them peanut butter and jelly sandwitches. Peanut butter and jelly is a very foreign food to them, we were curious to see if they would like them. They ate the sandwitches, I don't know how much they enjoyed them though. I also offered some duck jerky. Lando tried it but didn't like it at all. We all had a good laugh about it.

After chatting with they guys a little longer we headed back to the boat and went back to the coral gardens for our afternoon dip. By this time we all pretty much had our fair share of sun but back in the water we went. I discovered something that I have never done when snorkeling before. I would go down about 20 ft or so and then turn over and face up toward the sky and just let myself float to the surface slowly. It is so amazing! I felt as if I was in another world, weightless and just being, looking up toward the brightness. I couldn't get enough of it, I had to keep diving back down.

This is a picture of the coral garden.

So by the end of it we were well spent. Lois (above) had decided enough was enough. No more sun for her. The guy sitting behing Starla and Lois was the captian on our boat.

So here we are at the end of the day heading back to Davao in the way distance. All in all it was a great day.