#20 29th. October 2001

Moalboal November 2001, mail #20

Hello People!!

Things are really happening out there in the real world, but here on
the beach, our life goes on in a normal slow way. Moalboal is very
anthrax safe.
Now days you can get satellite TV fairly cheap, so we do get some news
from the outside world. You hardly see Coos out anymore, he just
watches TV.

The stock market hit a 10 year low this week and the peso is edging
it's way down to 52 to the $

In the Sun Star you could read that the Cebu chamber of commerce and
industry has urged all tourist businesses to review their rates in
attempt to save the tourist industry.

WEATHER:
Rainy season just started, surprise surprise. It should have been here
in July but.........maybe it's on Philipino time!?! It's not bad
though, a few showers in the afternoon and then it clears up. The
bougainvillea that Regula gave me before they left really looks nice
now.

ACTIVITIES:

The motorcycle trip to Toledo is still on. We will start outside
nelsons dive shop 09:33. If you are low on air I will fill it for you
there. Max 50 Km/h, max one beer / h. If you want to go faster maybe I
can get Jean Luca to form a kamikaze group. No, I will not help you
rent a motorcycle. E-mail Jean Luca or some friend on the beach. You
can find E-mail addresses on Simons Moalboal home page.

BIRTHS, SOCIAL AND GOSSIP:

Marco has sold bulldog to Tommie a Swiss guy that has come down from
Malpascua with his friends. We had a nice little party during the hand
over ceremony.

Remy, Neptune, is working hard at making a surfing kite. I have bet
him a case of beer if he can arrive at the same point of the reef as
he starts from. Not only that, he has started a paragliding center
above Badian. Last time we were there we had 25 spectators and he
actually flew almost 2 meters. Good on ya mate.

Islacom is planning to install a landline to the beach next year. That
would really improve internet connection speed. And if some of you are
interested in opening an internet cafe on the beach, that would be the
time.

A USA sponsored research project called: Coastal Resource Project
together with the Sulu Fund Marine Conservation Foundation Inc. was
here and made a reef count on the sanctuary after white beach and
Pescador. Nelsons, Globe divers, Sub Maldives, Visaya, Sea Explorer,
Sea quest, Neptune and Ravenala all sent volunteers to help with the
count. We checked for what kind of corals, percentage of dead / live
and so on. We had a nice two days learning what to look for and
diving. The preliminary result is that Pescador actually has more live
coral now than 20 years ago.

Nick threw a nice party the other day; He had brought some nice fleish
speck, cheese and wurst from Austria. Greg really liked the Beer AND
Gin AND Tonic AND Red Wine. Next day Greg didn't feel to good riding
the liberando towards the big city. Well, that's usually not a problem
but this time Greg found out that you can not open the windows on the
new air con bus. Needless to say; Greg was not the most popular guy on
the bus

Malapascua used to have a thresher shark-spotting guarantee, no shark
no pay. People all over the world, including Discovery Channel went to
the island to have a look at the sharks. The fishermen picked up on
this and soon found out where to find them. So: now no more thresher
sharks and no more guarantee.

ARRIVING SOON:

Marc Kolly, Jessfil, Didier and Roland

WHALE SHARK SIGHTINGS:

Mario at Sea Quest saw one Oct 25th at Kasai wall

LETTERS FROM ABROAD:

Roland Guisy writes:
Marc Kolly and Jessfil got married Sept 12th in civil official with
witness, family and cameraman (me).
On October 5th, Marc and Jess organized a big party. About 50 people
came, included some friends of Panagsama as Simon and Regula,
Didier, Thomy & Neneng, their daughters Maryse and Myra, Pierre (ex
Neptune DM), Denis & Elisabeth.

Well done Marc, let's have an even bigger party when you arrive
Marc??red

ACCORDING TO NELSON (our inside man into politics here):
The last 800 meters on the road to Moalboal should be finished early
next year.

YA GOTTO LOVE THIS COUNTRY!
They are soon finished with a four lane highway from Naga to Cebu, but
the outer lanes are used for parking so there is still only two lanes
available.

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.