28th. December 1999

Written: 28-Dec-99

Hi all:

I was planning to get this one out before Christmas, but as usual too many things got in the way - mostly in small brown bottles - and it didn't seem to be possible. Sorry!

So . . . first things first. We hope that everyone had a good Christmas wherever they were. I think most everyone down here did. We're looking forward to a day or two of relaxation/recuperation followed by a storming New Year.

* The Weather

- Contrary to what we've been telling all friends abroad, Christmas weather this year wasn't so good - overcast, windy and with more than a little rain - however this just means that you have to keep partying to keep warm! Things were actually still good fun and now (27th.) the sun has come out, the sea is calm and all is right. Crossed fingers for a fine and clear 31st. so that we can enjoy the fireworks (of all types) that will welcome the New Year.

* Activities

- Jochen's Action Truck is on the road and has been raising eyebrows wherever he's taken it! Imagine a refugee from Mad Max III without the weapons and you've got it. The test runs have been a lot of fun though "shaken not stirred"!

- Lee at the The Koan Bar had a very successful replay of "FIFA 2000" in which Sweden in various incarnations took on the rest of the world. Ask Lee for the results, I've no idea about who won (but don't ask Patrik, he was so drunk that he couldn't even find his way to his bed at Mollies afterwards!!)

- I think the arrival of about 40 Swedes deserves to be put under the "Activities" heading rather than social, since it was quite an experience. Good to see Lars and Micke back here after their long absence and to meet some new friends. Christmas had a "herring" flavour in the middle part of the Beach and things only got a little out-of-hand once (though I did here that it *was* in a swimming pool!). I for one found the experience of listening to 40 drunk Swedes singing accompanied by one acoustic guitar far better than listening to Karaoke or any other music played at high volume which is what we normally get.

- Neptune has a dive safari leaving Moalboal for the southern Visayas on 10 Jan. for five days. Contact Neptune via info [at] neptunediving.com for details. There is a 10% discount on the normal price of USD90 per day all inclusive if you tell them you heard about it on this list.

* Births, social etc . . . .

- Jochen and Jinky Hanika had their third child - Sidonie - at the beginning of the month, a sister for Dominic and Kimberly. Sorry, I think she got forgotten in the last letter. Jinky and daughter are fine, Papa has got over the stress of it all as well!

- The football match against Barilli that was scheduled for last week went well, the only problem was that Barilli didn't seem to know that "the Boys" were turning up, so there was no team to face them. Better luck next time!

- Dave and Cheerees Whiteside are back in Moalboal for a couple of weeks and Roxy has been getting the benefit of Dave's "magic fingers" with some more spice to their live sound. Must get down there and listen to the updated version of Purple Haze, if Dave can remember it...!

- It's good to see Mike and Menang back for a while as well. Though I have to say that Emily has grown up quite a bit in the five years since they all left Moalboal to return to Sweden.

- Congratulations to Jessica and Mark who got married yesterday at Mollies. Best wishes from all here.

- The Awesome Dive Club from Japan are back in force to Moalboal as well, though I'm not sure that any of them have actually gone diving yet - seems to get longer and longer between dives every year (doesn't it Bob . . . !). Somehow, somewhere some of them will get in the water for the traditional New Year's Eve Midnight Dive. Funny how it never seems to be as many "on the day" as said would be there . . . .

- Happy birthday to Pierre who managed an extraordinarily drunken birthday party last night. We won't ask either how old he is or how his head is when he finally surfaces!

* Internet

- We do have a *sometimes* working public Internet setup at Cakes & Connections; before Christmas it was working quite well, since then though things have been so slow as to be almost unuseable. We've changed service providers which has helped a little, but . . . I think we have to wait until Cebu has returned to work and stopped clogging up the systems and Islacom finish their upgrading work on their wireless local loop system here before things return to something like normal.

* General

If anyone has any information that they think would be interesting for people on this list, please do let me know and I will add it in.

You may check the list web site - http://moalboal.listbot.com - to have a look at the message archives for this list or to subscribe and unsubscribe from this list.

You will find some of this information repeated on the "What's New" page of the Moalboal web site. I try to update this page every week or so rather than the every four weeks of this list, so keep an eye on the page. You can mark it with web-monitoring software which will mail you when the page changes. We don't have any adverts on our site so if it changes, it's because information on or the layout of the page(s) have been changed, not because an advert has changed!

Best regards,

Simon Wright