Palm Beach on Mactan Island - Feb 2005

The week passed by very fast and soon it was the last day of the holiday season. Though the Malazarte family has Chinese blood in the maternal grandmother (Yong), they do not celebrate the spring festival. Chu told me that it was long time ago they observed the Chinese New Year but it was no longer significant. Being a staunch Roman Catholic family living in a Catholic country the main holidays were on Christmas, Easter, and the holy week of Good Friday. So there were no visitations to do and we spent most of our time indoors with the occasional visit to SM city to have a family dim sum dinner and also to top up on grocery. We also visited the pet shop twice to top up Meiden’s puppy food and to buy play things for the dogs.
On the last Sunday the brothers were back visiting and someone suggested going to the beach. As the weather was too hot to stay in door comfortably, we unanimously agreed. We packed up our lunches, brought along two crates of beer, coca colas and bundled the kids and the three dogs into the van and drove away to Mactan Island.
The island called Mactan was landed by the first Westerner called Ferdinand Magellan and since then Cebu was colonized by the Spanish for 400 years until the Americans came in the 20th century. It remained a beautiful island until the recent years when local fishermen started to use dynamite for fishing and in no time destroyed most of the coral reefs that lined the southern part of the coast. With government intervention and the imposition of a diving fee to view the beautiful reefs did the underwater living organisms slowly came back. More developments came with the growth of the tourism industry and the southern part of the island was designated as a tourist park. Here the beaches were privatized and walled up so that they became the haven of paid tourists who patronized the hotels lining the south. In between the hotels part of the beaches were opened to the public who came in swarms during the weekends to enjoy the clear crystallized waters.



It was in one of these public beaches that we arrived at one o’clock in the hot afternoon. We promptly set about renting a chalet, preparing the lunches for the hungry children. While they devoured their lunches Chu and I took a walk along the beach. We could see that many Cebuanos have the same idea that day as families were happily swimming in the cool water. The beach front was about 150 metres long and at the both ends of the stretch of sand were walls running from the land into the sea clearly demarcating where private property started. On the left of the beach and beyond the wall was the privilege beach of the tourists from Plantation Bay Resort and on the right that of Rendezvous Hotel. We were on Palm Beach and we paid five hundred pesos (S$16) for the chalet. The rest is free.
The cool swim in the water was very refreshing. The crystal clear water allowed us to see the bottom and we could pick up shells as we walked along. Someone was pushing a little boat in the water and in the centre of the boat was a container of marine fishes. We were offered fifteen pesos for a plastic bag full of fishes, one of which I remembered was called Nemo in the movie. Soon it was time to familiarize the dogs to the sea and as nature has it, the dogs took to the water like fishes. Meiden, Richie and Lucky were soon swimming laps after laps. Of course they were not that adventurous and I have to carry them to the sea and let them swam their way to the shore. For that I received countless scratches on my back from the bunch of panicking first timers.




We rested, ate more food, and took photographs and videos until the sun started setting in the horizon. We cleaned up and reluctantly make our way back home.
It was a great time at the beach and also soon after as we enjoyed a nice dinner on the garden at home sipping red wine and eating roast chicken. When the clock strikes twelve, I kissed Chu wishing her Happy Valentine’s Day and we exchanged gifts and cards. Before we knew it we were heading for the airport to catch my flight back to Singapore. I thoroughly enjoyed my Chinese New Year holidays in Cebu with the family. I am glad I have that break for when I reached Singapore I knew it would be a hectic month with trips lined up for me to go to Batam, Shanghai and Bangkok.