Home Sweet Siargao

We are a week in to our three-month stint in the Philippines. We have decided to stay the month on Siargao Island. It’s a relaxed place with few amenities. The small town of General Luna is a short motorcycle ride away, but the only thing in town worth doing is buying a few mangos and a bag of chips and watching the fishermen bring in their bizarre catches. We thought about renting a house, and though rent is extremely cheap, the logistics of setting up house and buying groceries seemed daunting, so we have made a deal with the owner of our resort to set up a month-long deal. So home for the next few weeks is Oceans 101, owned by an Australian surfer and his Siargao native wife. Most of the visitors to the island are surfers, mostly Australian, but right now our fellow guests are also from Japan, Latvia, and England.

It is the end of the rainy season, so every evening brings dark rain clouds from over the sea, meaning we get the stunning colors of the setting sun to the left and a rainbow to the right almost every night. A dramatic downpour wakes us up early every morning, but the days are comfortable with alternating sun and shade and a breeze off the ocean.

Most of the surfing around here is the big league, best left to professionals or hardcores, There’s a small break in front of our resort, but the current is strong and the paddling is quickly exhausting. Peter has been surfing with the big boys, going with the Australians to an island called Stimpy’s, impressively braving 5-8 foot waves even though he is still a beginner. This is how we will continue. Peter surfing and me writing every day. A mango shake for breakfast, fried rice for lunch, and a fish burrito for dinner. A few games of pool and a beer after dinner. Watching the fireflies and the giant fruit bats before retiring early for bed. We wake up around 7:30 every morning and do it all over again. It is a nice routine, calming and steady. We plan our day around the tides and hardly ever look at a clock. We are just above the equator and the sun is up and down around 6:30 with little fanfare. Suddenly light and suddenly dark. Twilight is maybe the thing I miss the most from my northern latitude life, but I can’t say that’s much of a complaint.