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christmas at sea

Posted on December 31, 2009 @ 10:50 am by massimo | Filed under: blog,books,fear,sailing,travel

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The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;
The decks were like a slide, where a seamen scarce could stand;
The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;
And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;
But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.
We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,
And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;
All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;
All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,
For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

split tongued spirit

Posted on May 24, 2008 @ 4:28 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog,fear,philippines,sailing,swimming

paraw boracay aynaku illustration travel

Swimming in open sea is my favourite sport: yet it scares me a little. As soon as I jump into the water, some sort of split tongued spirit talks and says out of the vast sea: “maybe you could sink and die”. When the spirit talks louder my worries can’t be denied. But alas, I never gave up. On the contrary I keep my eyes wide open, looking for some potential danger…
The waters out of Boracay’s beach are always damn crowded by fast boats cruising at any time of the day. It is a real hassle, since local pilots seem to care absolutely nothing of swimmers, nor to understand how fragile a floating man is. It’s hard for me to forget the time when a fast paraw nearly broke me down…The reckless driver simply couldn’t see me, I guess because of the dusk…

Illustration Friday’s topic is: worry

Thai dental clinic

Posted on October 6, 2007 @ 10:30 am by massimo | Filed under: blog,fear,travel,wordpress

thai dental clinic aynaku travel illustration

“Please, open your mouth again”-the Thai dentist whispered-” finish, finish already!”
He was working efficiently and silently on my rotten tooth since twenty minutes at least.
Thai dentists are notoriously skilful and inexpensive, and that was not my first time. I never had a problem with them, and thought that time too, it was going over quite good… But the devil beats his drum, so to say, and suddenly the power ran out: dark! The little black room found me with my mouth wide open and my yes wide shut. The whispering doctor lit a candle, and carelessly stated that he was going to finish the job by the fair candle light: “keep cool” he said, “no problem”.
A bit struck by terror, I too whispered: “ok”, but felt deep inside that something painful was going to happen to me…A few seconds later, some bloody instrument he was handling, touched my gum for a moment, just a flash indeed, painful enough for made me jumping and running away to the outer and welcoming sunny world…

Illustration Friday’s topic is: open

stonefish

Posted on June 23, 2007 @ 6:28 pm by massimo | Filed under: animals,blog,diving,fear,wordpress

Many fish use camouflage to blend into their surroundings. Camouflage has two purposes: it helps fish avoid being eaten and allows them to make sneak …among them stonefish are found in the tropical waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans. Averaging about 30 centimeters in length, their subdued …

crash

Posted on February 10, 2007 @ 11:08 am by massimo | Filed under: blog,fear,philippines,wordpress

I always like stormy weather and perhaps I am a hopeless romantic. A few days after I got the island of Boracay were I was about to spend such a long time, in a low-season windy night I went to …

a ghostly place…

Posted on October 22, 2006 @ 11:43 am by massimo | Filed under: blog,fear,philippines,travel,wordpress

I once visited the ancient burial caves in the village of Sagada located in Northen Luzon’s Central Cordillera.
The area is home of the ancient Ifugao tribe, a former head hunters population who made -2000 …

stingray

Posted on April 16, 2006 @ 11:36 am by massimo | Filed under: animals,blog,diving,fear,philippines,wordpress

Stingrays are a triangular flat shape with conspicuous spots on a light brown disc; the spots are well-spaced in young but crowded to form reticulated pattern in adult. White ventrally with a …

habagat

Posted on September 25, 2005 @ 12:31 pm by massimo | Filed under: blog,fear,philippines,travel,wordpress

Wet Monsoon blows in the Indian Ocean from South West, from April to October. The rainy season which comes with it, turns out to be a bit oppressive. Further East, in Hong Kong, Taiwan …

hammerheads

Posted on July 22, 2005 @ 2:59 pm by massimo | Filed under: animals,blog,diving,fear,philippines,wordpress

Hammerheads are terrific and mighty creatures! I came across them only once, diving into the waters of Pescador Island, a well known tiny and rocky islet, just off the coast of Moal Boal, the Philippines.
I was thirty meters deep when …