Andrew was an Australian I met in Boracay. He lived in General Luna, Siargao Island main town, fronting the pacific Ocean. Andrew owned a paraw and he used to go sailing in the Siargao sea, among  unpolluted and enchanting islands: Dinagat, Dako, Anahwan, La Januza. “An obsession!” he claimed. His tales were so enthusiastic that Gino and I could nothing but leave Boracay, go to General Luna, rent a paraw, and go sailing togheter with Andrew. In a nut shell,  there is a special feeling when you realise that you are sailing the immense and powerful Pacific Ocean on board a paraw: such a tiny boat,  a sort of unravel threat! And really our last navigation was threatening. In the late afternoon we found ourselves a mile off La Januza; we decided to head back to General Luna, at a distance of around ten  nautical miles. The wind was dropping; we tacked upwind but I suddenly  realised that the rudder blade was off the hull: its precarious tin pintles had given up. Meanwhile the gentle and constant wind pushed us towards the open sea! No wonder that we felt lost and panicked: no water or food on board, no compass, nothing but a piece of rope to bind ourselves to the mast. In the sunset light we saw Andrew’s paraw sailing home fast, getting far, while on the opposite side the unreachable La Januza looked a mirage. But, hurra! Neptune and Eolus themselves woke up togheter to save us: after a 20 minutes long hopeless drifting, the wind changed and we finally managed to land in the dusk  in La Januza beach. The island people who had previously noticed our drifiting were waiting for us. Perhaps I spent my life dearest night inside a rented room on that remote little island. The next day as soon as we had the rudder repaired, we sailed back to General Luna where an amazed Andrew was waiting for us. What else can I say? For sure our short tour had not been  a cheap package holidays!

Illustration Friday topic is: obsession

I like to edit again an old post written on November the 22, 2006…this fellow had a totally anti-routine life…it’s worth taking a look at his “biography” that my friend Gino edited recently in his blog.
Enjoy!

Among the strange people that I met, Max Maxwell is certainly the most unfathomable. I firstly met Max in Boracay Island in 1990. Max came from Bombay and belongs to the Parsee upper-class.
At that time he was a fit, middle aged man who enjoyed beach-tennis, wind surfing and excellent Italian food. He basically travelled between Boracay, Koh Lanta, Laddak and Hong Kong, making his earn out of fashionable batik-shirts, rattan-bags, Tibetan amulets and first rate (yet fake) Ray-Ban sunglasses. Max had an enormous ego, he was desperately scornful and selfish and, for some reason, he always surprised me. He had seen the World, that was the fact! When some harmless tourist, tried to approach him by asking silly questions such us “have you been…?”, Max’s provocative answer simply was: “thanks for not talking to me!”. And that was all. As I said Max loved food and he was among Gino’s selected acquaintances.
At that time Gino ran the cosiest restaurant in Boracay -according to Max’s parameters- and one day at Gino’s, for some unpredictable reason, Max allowed himself to talk to me! Max abhorred “stupid talks” but, after a good beer (he used to sip beer always by the same special glass that he-himself carried in a bag), Gino and I had the chance of glancing over his wonderful life. Finally Max decided to present Gino his photocopied “biography“. The document (his masterpiece) stated the man “born in Bombay during a devastating cyclone” and amazingly went on with Max ”making friends with Miles Davis, art-directing Vogue Magazine, etc”. I still have the rattan-bag that he sold me and still I wear those fake Ray-Ban sunglasses;  Gino and I still disputed about his reliability, his clever scorn and puzzling behaviour, until on December 8, 2006 we  received a stunning report:

BREAKING NEWS:
MAX MAXWELL DIES IN GOA AFTER COMMITTING SUICIDE. HE LEFT A NOTE IN WICH HE SAYS :
“DON’T BE SORRY FOR ME. I’M THE ONE TO DECIDE MY TIME WAS OVER”

Illustration Friday ’s topic is: routine

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 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

Lightnings are electrical discharges, giant sparks of electricity, from mature storms. Lightnings cause a lot of electric current to pass through water; wooden boats are not safe at all since the vast majority of lightning injuries and deaths occur on small boats with no cabin…
The short sea passage between Gili Trawangan and Gili Air found me on board a small local boat without a cabin. It is always crucial to listen to the weather on a small aquatic vessel: during that early afternoon at sea, the sky was threatening, thunderstorms were forecast and lightnings too…
When the first powerful strike came and the air filled with static electricity on a giant scale, the anxious boatman pumped up the engine, trying to get the boat fast, trying to get to land and find a safe shelter: actually it was raining and pouring! The storm went on for half an hour and our navigation turned out to be very uncomfortable…
When we got Gili Air’s sandy beach at last, everything was over: off course!

Illustration Friday’s topic is: elettricity

In the Philippines, the western wind is called Habagat and the rainy season comes with it. The rains in Boracay were usually a bit oppressive to me, as the dullness went on for weeks, driving my mood to absolute lethargy; moreover I was running out of money quickly. All of us were waiting for new tourists to come, and waiting for their money too: finally art rescued me.
Silk-screen printing became an exciting activity, really more than a hobby! I bought good white cotton T-shirts and printed them with my own design…
Tourists, I reckoned, ought to like and buy my home printed T-shirts!
With no shop to run, I gave my multiple masterpieces to a local vendor who stuck them up his shop’s wall and said: “I’ll let you know…“
Nothing else to do but wait; I went back to my bungalow and kept on listening as usual, to the radio’s old sweetie American love-songs…

Illustration Friday’s topic is: multiple

Red groupers typically have a stout body and a large mouth. They are not built for long-distance fast swimming. They can be quite large, usually largest fish of the grouper family, and their body, soft dorsal and anal fins, are covered with scales and thick skin.
Lapu Lapu is the Pilipino name for red grouper. In the archipelago they are important food fish.
As most other fish species which are sold in the market (talipapa) groupers are generally sold very fresh and, sometimes almost alive…The flesh is snowy white and can be cooked either as filets cut thin or as steaks cut thick.

Illustration Friday’s topic is: scales

No much time to post this week: I’m rather busy with the Cuprarte Art Festival opening, next Saturday. So I have drawn myself wearing a sarong. Sarongs are large sheet of fabric, wrapped around the waist and worn as a skirt by men and women throughout much of southeast Asia, parts of Africa, and on many Pacific islands. The fabric is often brightly coloured and printed with intricate, geometric patterns. In hot climates there is nothing better than wearing a sarong and I can’t give up the habit now and here, during a really warm Italian summertime. The members of a lovely African family living in the house opposite mine, watch me benevontely from their windows, and smile a lot…

Illustration Friady’s topic is: suit

Here are three interesting links on last week’s topic: Flossy-p ; Pookha ; Asafaga .

Calamansi, is easy to spell, hard to forget, and adds zing when you least expect it! Calamansi is the most commonly grown backyard tree in the Philippines, among the citrus species. It is a small tree with a height of about 2 meters, with broad egg-shaped, dark green leaves. The fruit is round, about 2 cm in diameter, and greenish – yellow in color. Filipinos can have a year-round supply of this versatile citrus fruits by growing the plant right in their front yards or backyards or even in big boxes. Its juice is nutritious and traditionally made into a fruit drink that helps prevent respiratory diseases. It is also used as an additive in various food preparations. With its alkalinizing effect, calamansi helps circulate blood evenly and facilitates normal digestion…

Illustration Friday’s topic is: citrus

With no internet, fax, telephone, even electricity, communications with the outer world was not that easy in Boracay in the early 90’s.
The tiny island was actually set apart fairly and that was its very charm to me, at last. Yet the small concrete-building at one end of the island, the Post office, was a great attraction among the few foreigners who happily enjoyed their exotic self-exile. They went there and checked the mail at Poste Restante at least once a week: as a matter of fact, that was the only possible linkage with friends and relatives around the world. This little office was ran by invaluable Carlito, the daring post-master who, regardless of heavy rains, choppy sea, blowing typhoon, was always to be found comfortably sitting at his desk. And every time I got into the little room, the man invariably welcomed me with his cool and reckless manner, his somehow pompous conversation, his combed hair and thin moustaches, sometimes lighting a cigarette before checking the incoming mail for me, if any. This was a time-consuming process mainly because the desk was overloaded by letters, postcards and parcels just arrived from some remote country such as Switzerland, Japan, England or Italy. But upon Carlito’s chaotic counter, the visitor never failed to notice a very peculiar piece of furniture: it was a kind of marbled sculpture representing a pair of horns, perhaps bull-horns, mounted on a sound block of dark-greenish marble in which the name “Carlito” was carved. yes, I always wished to meet the brilliant sculptor who conceived that piece and pat him on the back, but never had the chance.

Illustration Friday’s topic is: communication

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,  I went to the local disco, a place called Bazura, in a low-season windy night, to have a beer or two and a little dancing. I was so excited: dancing barefoot under the stormy black sky really pulled me up! I kept on dancing, gazing at the wild swinging of the coconut trees and making friends with local beauties. Late at night the wind had increased surprisingly hard and it seemed right to quit the place and gett home before the coming storm would make it impossible. With my empty bottle of beer in hand -a souvenir almost- and my mind full of happy nonsense, I recklessly started moving. All I had to do was to follow the palm fringed pathway at whose dark end my little bungalow was. But the hard confounding wind, blowing against my nose and my dizzy thoughts, let me do just a few quick steps in the dark before crashing painfully against the trunk of an apparently invisible coconut tree. Gosh! I felt clearly the crack of my eye-glasses lens breaking, closed my eyes instinctively and so avoided some more serious trouble. What a night…

Illustration Friday’s topic is: crash

Six weird things about me

Thanks Lu and Pati for tagging me. The ones who know me say I run an uncommon life; I fear it is my DNA. Anyways here are six hints:
1. I do not orientate myself that much, both with situations or surroundings. I might get lost even in my
hometown.
2. I like very dim lights and would push back into the shadows the things that come forward too clearly.
3. I always feel embarrassed by wearing a brand new, polished pair of shoes: they are so inelegant to me…
4. I always remember plainly the dream I dreamt the night before, and every night I have a dream.
5. Please don’t ask me to drive a car unless absolutely needed! (But I’m a good driver then.)
6. I never owned a guidebook.