on nearby Cotivas island where SURVIVOR was having a shoot and I gathered he was
working with a team in-charge of logistics that shuttled the speedboat, at that
time restrained on the beach, back and forth for crew supplies and food. Later, Ramil
sighed to apprise us of the situation that we cannot proceed, much less get near,
Cotivas until the shoot was over past 2 PM - to which I responded nonchalantly.
Spread like a dog bone north to south, 10 kilometers in length and some 3 kilometers at its widest girth, Lahuy is the largest among the ten principal islands and, understandably, the most populated. But still sparsely populated relative to the mainland, I should say. Endowed with a lengthy stretch of white sand beach, Lahuy exceptionally abounds with dried kelp that gets cast ashore through time by the unending tide. Large quantities of these brown laminariales lining in successive indents resembling dark ripples along the coast seem to suggest the presence of lush underwater forests of the algae offshore that may provide enough volume of sodium carbonate or soda ash to sustain full-scale production of either detergent or glass. But apparently, it had been overlooked or perhaps, disregarded at the outset, having been overshadowed by the more lucrative and gleaming prospect of gold
mining. A business outfit named Treasure Island Mine operated on
the island from 1936-1941 extracting and processing
the precious metal at 3.5
kilos per day from two veins running down as deep as 1100 feet. It closed the 1400-hectare
facility at the start of WWII. Then in the 1980s, dormancy ended with locals resuming
operations with small-scale mining for the malleable and highly ductile aurum.
The same way as yesterday, the midday sun came up intensely and the open expanse of
white sand all the more made it ferociously hot, taking some relief from an occasional
puff of sea breeze.
I got the camping gas-burner prepared and soon the wifey gets preoccupied with cooking the catch
of four groupers into sinigang bought
earlier from passing fishermen. 
Having donned their swimsuits, kids darted for the beachfront as I decided to walk the stretch and explore à la Robinson Crusoe in pursuit of other subjects of interest the island may offer for photography - minus the cannibals. It slipped my mind, having ventured out alone too long along the beach for nearly an hour, to realize that it would take almost the same time going back, thus setting my arms to a near-toast despite wearing a wide-brim hat on. Alluding to Daniel Defoe’s castaway hero being in worse predicament with a smaller headgear, I believe he would have difficulty surviving a whole summer on his island on those terms.
Ella called out from afar yelling that lunch was already prepared as she came running up to meet me on my way back. I was not really hungry but the sight of cold drinking water made me grab the canister instantaneously. The family had been
feasting on sinigang and adobo when confirmation was received
through CB radio that the Cotivas shoot would definitely end by 2 PM.
Being filled-up and quite bloated afterwards (not because of food but more of the quenching water), the warm blowing air from the sea made me
crave for a nap on my seat. Unyielding, I struggled and made every effort to make some small talk with Ramil and his cousin about life on the islands. But the insistent whirling of vision through my eyes was
so overpowering, I eventually succumbed into a doze.
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My other blogs:
Jou San! Sham Shui Po
Traditional Hong Kong Herbal Tea House
Where Is Josephine Bracken?
My other blogs:
Jou San! Sham Shui Po
Traditional Hong Kong Herbal Tea House
Where Is Josephine Bracken?
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