Spring Break!

Like most kids in the US, many of the kids at Faith Academy long to go to the beach for Spring Break. Fortunately, we are surrounded by beaches here in the Philippines. We have been on Spring Break for the last week (In actual fact it is summer from now until the end of May) and we took our first trip to a Filipino beach. We decided on Puerto Galera on the Island of Mindoro. This is a popular place with a lot of the missionaries who live near us because it is 1.somewhat close and easy to get to and 2.relatively inexpensive. We left home at 5 am last Tuesday to drive to Batangas. In Batangas we caught a banka(boat) to Talipanan Beach in Puerto Galera. Talipanan Beach is quiet cove with a few "hotels" and 3 restaurants. These are not high rises or condos, but each has 10 or so rooms. We stayed at the Bamboo House. A very tropical looking place. We enjoyed eating on the porch and swinging in the hammock. Our room was nothing spectacular. Definitely not a 4 star place- I'm not sure it was even 1 star. Probably not the accommodations we would take our parents to. We had 2 small beds and a bathroom with cold water. The shower was a shower head that wet the whole bathroom and with the sink next to it, it was the water source for both shower and sink. Since we didn't spend much time in our room I guess this was OK especially since the price was only $10 a night.
Outside was a gorgeous beach filled with smooth rocks and blue green waters similar to the beaches off Destin, FL. Behind us the land was lush and green and became mountainous. With just a few hotels, we felt very isolated in our own little paradise. This meant we had to eat all our meals at the 3 restaurants and we were tired of their fare by weeks end, but we did enjoy pizza at the authentic Italian place run by an real Italian--Luka.
The ocean water was clear and not too rough so the kids enjoyed frolicking in the surf. This is the South China Sea and surprisingly a little nippy. Just off shore, there were a couple of rocks home to some tropical fish. We made our first ventures into snorkeling there. On Wednesday, we went with another family by small banka to snorkel on a large coral reef. It was like swimming with the cast of "Finding Nemo". We saw clown fish, blue tangs, striped angel fish, Moorish idol fish, butterfly fish, and many others that we don't know the names of, plus anemones and coral. Some of the highlights were: a baby octopus, an eel, a snake, a couple of different starfish including a blue starfish. We decided we love snorkeling. I knew Em would like it, but the snorkeling award goes to Will who took to snorkeling like a duck takes to water. He caught on to breathing through the snorkel quickly and we had to watch him like a hawk as he showed no fear in following wherever the fish led--even out to the deep sea.
There were many other families from Faith there so the kids enjoyed having friends to swim and play with. Emily's teacher was also there and Em enjoyed talking and swimming with him outside of school. We returned home Saturday very tired and not too pink. We learned the first day that our regular plan for sun protection would have to be stepped up a notch. At 13 degrees above the equator, the sun is much more brutal than in Georgia. We learned quickly to reapply sunscreen often to our pasty white bodies. Still everyone has a patch of burn in strange places that were overlooked or rubbed off on day 1. After the first day we also took to staying inside or in the shade from 11:00 until 2:00 or 3:00. All in all it was a great trip. If you would like to see more pictures, you can check them out on our website at http://www.philippinemission.com/SpringBreak2006.html
Ginger