20th. June 2000

Moalboal June 2000

Hello People!!

Here comes another update about what is going on in good ole Moalboal. As you all know it's not Simon that is writing this letter anymore. My name is Lars Starner and I will try to be at least half as good as Simon at writing and keeping you updated. I'm from Sweden so you will have to live with my grammar and spelling mistakes, hahaha.

I thought I should start with introducing my self. I'm 36 years old and came to Moalboal 1990 for the first time. Greg at Savedra was my instructor for adv and rescue and I got hooked on diving. Before that all I had done was cold water diving back home, and THAT was not what you would call relaxed nice diving.

I left Moalboal in the beginning of 1992 after having worked as an instructor for a year at Nelsons. When I left I knew that I wanted to come back and settle down, just wanted to do and see some stuff first. January 1999 I came back but was a bit disappointed the first 2 weeks. To many buildings, it was even hard to see the sea. Very few backpackers, the majority were 1-2 week tourists. No Calypso, No Dolores beer garden. But then I realized that Moalboal was still the place to stay at. Many foreigners that I met before was still here (most now married). The San Miguel (papa San) still cold, Dolores giving massage, house reef really good, cockfights and fiestas.

Now I am in the process of building a house and retire. I have 14 guys employed so the second house should be finished sometime this fall. It's amazing how fast things can go wrong in this country when having that many guys employed. Many are the times we have torn everything down and started again.

Nelsons is still my dive shop of choice so there might be a lot of news coming from there unless you other dive shop owners/divers send me some updates from your shop.

WEATHER:

About 29 degrees with sunshine and blue skies every day. You should come and visit.

BIRTHS AND SOCIAL:

We are still waiting for news from Santander and the coming of a little Nykvist. We all hope for the sake of the kid that it will look a lot more like Lebeth than Jesper. It would be horrible if the poor thing came out with long hair and a snus under his lip.

We now have more action stuff here in Moalboal. Not only Tricycle riding and Liberandoing but also ÿgo to Taboo and dodge the bullet,ÿ guaranteed to get your adrenaline pumping. Well, the security guard shoot a fellow country man there the other week so now there is no more Taboo for 4 weeks.

Greg got worms.

Simon and Regula left and it feels empty without them. 'Puter nerd Simon was last seen backing up all his data 23:00 the night before he left (early in the morning), now that's dedication. Moalboal town and many dive shop owners owe them big thanks for creating and running the web page. But why leave paradise where it is nice and warm with little work to do and move to Switzerland? Maybe it's fun to learn to joodle, wear lederhosen, freeze your ass off and pay 10US for a bier. Simon, please keep us updated on your progress in learning deutch. I think they manage to sell most of their stuff before they left. It was fun to watch fifteen Filipinos trying to get the big 'puter cupboard down from the balcony.

Greg's worm was a happy worm 99, a 'puter virus. Itÿs strange to see Instructors with cell phones, laptops and other gadgets talking MP3 and gigabytes now, when 10 years ago we did not even have running water on the beach.

Herman, DM at Nelsons, is now officially married to Bebe (Babe). He can talk for hours about all the problems he has had with his marriage papers. It took me two days to get rid of the hangover from his 2 lechon wedding party.

Diving now is really good, the water warm, good viz and no divers.

GOSSIP:

Elli, Greg's son, drifted all the way to Ronda before he got picked up with his windsurfer. Record??

Big Kris wife, Grease (bad spelling) now has her meat business up and running. Really nice sausages and choice cuts of meat. Just order from Whispering palms.

Lars, Neptune, will probably leave us in August. He's been accepted to university, marine biology.

Magnusson left a souvenir (no NOT vd) to someone before he left. The rumor is that heÿll be back in November.

Tommy, Neptune is going back to Switzerland on Wednesday, time to go home and work. He wants all you Swiss ppl to organize a party for him.

Lee, Koan bar, has been told that he has to pay the rent ONE YEAR in advance to Virgie. Now he is thinking about closing shop in September.

The mailman paid 500 pesos for the kid he adopted.

* 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.

Best regards,

Lars Starner,
starner [at] hotmail.com