Subic Bay on a Good Day

A pleasant morning view of Subic Bay:

click to enlarge

Fortunately, what you can't see is the large pile of Mcdonalds rubbish left on the beach near the shoreline by a group of people from the night before.  This is despite rubbish bins being provided close by.

I can't fathom the mindset of people that go to a scenic place to enjoy the view then just leave all their rubbish behind to trash it for others.  It's the ultimate selfish act.  

Who?

There was a knock at the door to our office, which happens to be a rented house on a quiet back street between Olongapo and Baretto so visitors are usually treated with suspicion.

I opened the door and there was a woman stood there holding what looked like a barn owl (it was white) by the wing tips pinched together in her hand. She started talking to me in the local lingo and so I called our accountant to come and translate.  

Apparently, the owl had been found with its legs broken.  How this happened is anyone's guess.  I've no idea why they decided to bring it to our office when there were plenty of other houses in and around the area, but she seemed to have no idea what to do with the sick bird.

I knew there was a wildlife rescue place in Subic Bay but I wasn't sure what its role was exactly and whether they took in wounded owls, but they seemed like the best choice under the circumstances.

So I told the finder of the owl to place it in a cardboard box and I'd take it over myself to see if it could be put on the road to recovery. When she duly returned she had packed the owl in a box so small that she would have had to break its legs to get it in there if they weren't already broken.

Actually, this was a better result than the owl I discovered living in an abandoned water tower we were about to renovate in Ghana back in '95.  The owl, again pure white in colour, was flying around between the old timber scaffolding when we went inside (it was a big, elevated tank).  If you've never been around an owl when it's flying the amazing thing that strikes you is it is completely silent in flight, no flapping sound of the wings at all.  I gave strict instructions to the workers to seal off the tank at night when I assumed the owl would be out hunting, thereby excluding it from the tank forcing it to find somewhere else to roost allowing us to on with the task of fixing up the tank.

The next morning when I went back to site and asked the foreman, Michael, if everything went smoothly last night. 'Yes boss, no problem' he told me.  As I walked across the site I noticed white feathers scattered about the place so I asked Michael what happened to the owl.  'Plenty good chop', he said (chop meaning food).  I was aghast and asked him what happened.  I learnt that a crew of the workers had gone into the tank and sealed the opening so the owl couldn't escape and then proceeded to chase it and batter it to death with lumps of wood and then promptly cooked it over a fire and ate it. Utterly barbaric.

Back to the Philippines, I guess it was the owl's lucky day because I'd been told at a conservation centre in Panay that Hornbills were endangered because the locals had a propensity to eating them and I don't see they would have been largely fussed if it was an owl instead.

I jumped in the car and went to the Wildlife in Need (WIN) Centre in Subic Bay.  I'd passed the place several time before and never really gave it much thought as to what they did.  I walked into the place with the boxed owl and handed it over explaining where I picked it up from.  At the entrance to the place there was a cage of rescued cats and kittens, which the WIN centre neuter so I'm hoping that's where all my cats at my previous house had disappeared to.  

Inside the centre and in the pens in the compound there were lizards and snakes confiscated from errant owners; rescued macaque monkeys that were part of a re-release in to the wild scheme (I see so many of these monkeys in the wild with missing limbs which I assume they lose in snares or traps); stray dogs; fruit bats, kites, Serpent and Fish Eagles, and a variety of other small forest mammals (civet cats primarily, which also seem to end up as neglected pets).

If you happen to find yourself in Subic Bay go and pay them a visit as they do some wonderful work and if you agree make a donation that will be gratefully received. 

Camp JEST Is Not A Joke

As mentioned in my previous post, the bird park came with a free Camp JEST introduction.  Being as cynical as I am, I reckoned this was going to be some sort of naff, badly done gimmick designed to extract even more money from me so when we'd finished out tour of the bird park I tried to side-step the guy who was clearly assigned to do the free demo.  However, not wanting to be rude or to steal the guy's thunder I reluctantly allowed myself to be roped into the demonstration area.

My cynicism was misplaced. The start of the demonstration was an introduction to the history and background of the training camp, which was apparently established by the Americans to give jungle survival training for its troops during the Vietnam war.

This was then followed by an introduction to the country's smallest bats.  The demonstrator picked up a short length of bamboo and smacked it on the ground that left me thinking that if there were any bats in there, they're going to be stunned, if not dead. He then proceeded to remove a leaf stuck in the slot of the bamboo and out crawled a tiny bat.  And yes, it looked stunned.  Perhaps this was his method of ensuring they didn't fly away?

With those teeth, it looks like a vampire

After the bat the demonstration we were shown us how to find a source of water in the jungle.  This struck me as somewhat odd bearing in mind all around us was a rain (key word 'rain') forest and water should be reasonably plentiful.  He picked up a vine that looked as dry as an Arab's flip-flop and hacked a length off with his machete.  From the cut end came a steady trickle of fluid that he held over my mouth.  It had a slightly milky but not unpleasant taste to it.  It supposedly has medicinal properties that helps alleviate asthma. I asked how to recognise it in a jungle full of vines (just in case I get lost in the jungle or end up kidnapped by Abu Sayaff) and he pointed out it's the one that's a double vine that grows together.  I'll keep it in mind.

Drinking from a vine

Next up was utensils.  Using just his machete he hacked and chopped at a piece of bamboo until he had made a single item of cutlery that was a spoon at one end and a single pointy, stabbing fork at the other.  The remainder of the bamboo was converted into a rice/meat steamer.

Making utensils

Finally, and probably the most important was the how to make fire.  Again, a piece of dry bamboo was used and he lit a fire the old boy scout way, by rubbing two pieces together.  However, the real skill was in how the pieces were formed and used to generate the fire with such ease it would have put Bear Grylls to shame.

Fire in no time at all

I think what impressed me most was the almost casual ease and dexterity these items and demonstrations were carried out using just a machete and some bits of bamboo.  They do extended courses and I for one am sold on the idea and I'm going to sign up at the next opportunity.

Down, Down, Deeper & Down

Now that the bad weather has broken and we've started to see some sunshine, there are once again opportunities to go diving.  

There was also a suspension of diving following the unfortunate deaths of two divers last July (Diving Accident) but following a raft of new form filling and increased levels of bureaucracy the dive companies are operational again.

On board the dive boat Polaris

The company I use regularly for diving in Subic (Dive Shop Subic Bay) have moved from their previous mooring after it was destroyed by the recent typhoon - although a planned move was in the making due to blatant profiteering by the mooring company who decided to levy a Php1000 charge for each dive passenger using the jetty to board the dive boat, hence increasing the dive cost by over 30%. 

Dive Shop Subic Bay now have a mooring on the beach.  This means a short waist-deep wade out to the boat but if you're going diving, you're going to get wet anyway so it's no big deal.

North side of Subic Bay

We were out last Saturday, in somewhat overcast conditions but still very warm.  Our first dive was on the LST, which stands for Landing Ship Tank (follow the link for more information).  This is the deepest dive I've undertaken yet at around 34m (110ft) and diving at that depth did induce some pre-dive anxiety, although I seemed to have acquitted myself well as my air usage was very good for the dive.  

During the dive the visibility was very good and we saw plenty of Blue Spotted Rays, schools of Barracuda and huge Bat Fish (Bat Fish look like giant Angel Fish that you see in most aquaria) that just followed us around in groups of 4 or 5, staring at us.

Out second dive was in very shallow water on a reef at the end of Subic Bay Airport runway.  Up until recently this has been off limits but now, with the airport virtually non operational it seems that the reef has been opened up to divers.  It was nothing spectacular.  Some nice coral and colourful fish but not a huge amount of either.  We did see a sea snake, which was pretty impressive.

Only two dives that day and despite it being fairly overcast I ended the day looking like a Red Indian, as I was rather sunburnt (again).