Multiple Post update, part the second

Merry Ramadan everyone! (Today is a national holiday here in observance of the last day of Ramadan.)
A few months ago I set Yoshi up with a trip to the Philippines using my frequent flyer miles.
So basically the week after the dive trip, Yoshi landed in Manila and I took a few days off to show him around the islands. Of course most of was a spurned on by a self-centered and pressing need to escape Manila and go relax on a beach somewhere.
The first weekend he was here we flew out to Boracay. During my last trip to Boracay I got nearly drunk with two of my future bosses and set a co-workers leg on fire. Needless to say, the trip with Yoshi was planned to be slightly less career threatening.
Unfortuately, I forgot about the whole "rainy season" thing. In my defense, I've since asked a few locals and have never recieved the same answer twice. There are only 12 months in the year which makes for only 133 distinct sequential month combinations but I don't yet know 134 filipinos well enough to ask a stupid question to satisly my mathematical curiosity. (That's a lie... I go to rediculous extents to prove a mathematical point... for instance, counting all the distinct sequential month combinations)
Back to the story: Yoshi and I flew to Boracay in the midst of a tropical depression. Officailly that doesn't violate my rule concerning travelling during a Typhoon. So the first day on the beach was spent walking the length of the island in a torrential downpour. Now, you probably do not know how much fun that is because you've never been in a torrential downpour. Imagine millions of warm marble-sized water drops stricking you with such force you can't imagine it lasting more than 5 minutes. Then imagine the same thing that continues for more than an hour. This country never ceases to amaze.
The next day was overcast and a bit drizzly. Regardless, we grabbed a boat and went out for a snorkling trip around to Crocadile Island. No jellyfish this time around but we got hit by a rippin' current.
Our last day we rented motorbikes and toured the interior of the island. We visited the bat cave where we were not greeted by Bruce Wayne or a Batmobile (not even the one with the foam tail fins that would fall off on every sharp turn). At the bottom of the cave we were greated by deafening screeches, disgusting auromas and one nice image.
The pool is actually the ocean that works it way up into the cave forming that nice picturesque pool.

After escaping the cave we climbed to the highest point of the island where I took a 360 panoramic. And now Blogger wont let me upload it, I'll try again later.
Shortly thereafter we were winging our way back to Manila for the next big adventure. (I have all my cliff hangers written by Franklin W. Dixon.)

Kind readers

Wow... the dashboard on the right says that I missed posting in July, August, and most of September. I didn't go on hiatus or even die... I just stopped posting for no particular reason. So to my dedicated (and now possibly non-existent) readers, I'm sorry.
I've so much to cover I'll have to make this a multiple post. But that may mean I'll finish it some time around Christmas. Fortunately for me, Christmas has already started. Yes I'm still in the Philippines and am now entering my second year here.
On the anniversary (plus or minus a month) I went out for a few dives at my local dive haunt. Thomas and I did the infamous "The Canyons" dive which was a wicked strong drift dive. Basically the current that runs the length of western-Luzon coast runs pretty shallow right next to Puerta Galero. So we dive it to see the big ocean fish passing through. But we can only dive it when the ebb tide couteracts the prevailing current. At a mere 20% power, my mask was in iminent danger of being ripped off my face each time I grabbed a rock and looked upstream. Needless to say, I rarely repeated that maneauver. We were going at a pretty good clip and by the time the 45 minute dive was over, we were in the deep blue and very alone.
Later we hiked the length of White Beach to visit the famous "Lucas" reastaurant on the last spit of land on Mindoro. That the restaurant on the far right, Thomas in the foreground, Pauline in the center, and White Beach visible on the left.

Obviously I fell in love with the panoramic feature on my camera. You're going to see a lot more of those in the next few posts. The size seems small but on my origianls you can zoom way in and see the people. I want to take these and see how big I can get them printed and framed. Some should be half a wall sized.
The only other decent picture from that trip, I took at 5am on the way back to work on Monday morning.
That's it for now but I promise to get more posted in a bit!