My Childhood in England! (Part 1)

This is  the first part of my story about my journey which eventually brought me from the mundane existence of Bradford in Northern England a big Industrial City all the way to General Santos City here in the Philippines! There were more than a few diversions on the way!

I was born on the 26 th August 1951 in St Luke’s Hospital in Bradford to non too wealthy parents, my Dad worked in the Textile Industry as a Cloth Dyer and my mum was a Nurse! I had one older sister Christine and one much older half brother David who was the son of my mum from a previous marriage but unfortunately my mum’s first husband was killed in WW2! This was I suppose a bit of good luck for me or I would probably not been born at all! Life as I remember it in my early days was OK, we always had food on the table, some of it courtesy of the Government Food Ration Program from the War but on some items it was still in effect! We lived in a small Terrace House which was rented from the local Council but it was OK! When I was very young the Gas Lighting was replaced by Electricity so we were really modern even though the toilet was still out in the back garden! As I grew up I remember a few landmarks in my life! At the age of about 5 I got an Electric Train Set for Christmas! At around 7 we got a television, BBC only with broadcasts of about 4 hours per day in black and white! We got a Portable Transistor Radio which was much more useful than the huge piece of furniture one that was in the living room! At about 7 years old both of these items were fantastic to me and my sister! I ever got big brother Davids Bicycle and learned rather painfully how to ride it in a single day!

When I was still young, my dad and a friend bought a car between them, an old Wolsey so then we used to go off on Camping Holidays up in the Lake District which was a very picturesque area of Northern England! Also on some weekends we would go to Blackpool which was a famous Beach Resort for our area, it even had a tower like the one in France! With the car we could travel all over and marvel at even the basic sights as we never saw anything like them in Bradford! Eventually my dad got his own car so we were really independent!

When I went to School I was very lucky because St Mathews Church, had Infants and Junior School attached and they were only just across the road about 50 yards from our house but at that school, we had to walk for lunch at another school canteen which was about a mile away so we had a good walk in columns of two under the supervision of at least one teacher both ways every day come rain, snow or shine! I was also Baptized in St Mathews Church, it was as most of England’s Religious Parishes was at that time, Protestant! Up to the age of 11 I went to Church nearly every Sunday but when I changed school to the senior level I stopped attending!

With the family not being too wealthy we got a small weekly allowance from dad but I always had some form of work from a very early age, my first job was a Newspaper Delivery Boy’s Assistant and for about 3 years I did this until I took over the complete paper round as the main paper boy left school and went to work! My sister had a paper round also! Every day after school I would pick up the papers from the Post office and deliver them door to door! It was a heavy job but it gave me some cash in pocket and I could buy things that I wanted or needed without having to ask my parents! When I was about 12 I got a better job offer working on the Chicken Farm of one of my dads friends looking after about 2,000 egg laying chickens kept in Battery Cages, each day I would feed and water them, collect and record the eggs and clean out in general! I tried to keep both jobs going but It was too much so I quit the Newspaper Round! Also on the Chicken Farm I learned how to kill, pluck and dress chickens and turkeys for which I got paid extra especially at Christmas time so I had lots of money, maybe on a good week I would clear over a pound which was a lot at that time for a kid! I could even keep the cracked, miss shaped or soft shelled eggs so this was an extra bonus in the family kitchen!

When I went to Wyke Manor High School I had to travel about 4 miles each way by bus and at the beginning as it was a new school there were only 2 Indian Boys, Singh 1 and Singh 2 there and unfortunately they got a very hard time from the English pupils! Some 4 years later when I left that school there were more like 600 Indian and Pakistani Students to less than 100 English Students but they were all good students and very decent people unlike most of the English Students! When it came to Language Class I was interested in Learning German but I was put into the French Class so I took no interest in it what so ever and a few years later when I was in the Army I was posted to Germany! My main interests at school were Wood and Metal Work and Rugby and Swimming, I was never good at sports but I was enthusiastic and made the Rugby team on a Saturday! I also spent a lot of evenings at the swimming pool as I was in the Swimming Club and earned myself a lot of medals for my effort, not as many as my sister though as she was a much better swimmer than me! School for me was not an important part of my life at that time unfortunately as I enjoyed making my small amounts of money working so I was very happy when at the age of 14 I left school and secured an apprenticeship in a motor works as an Apprentice Panel Beater or Car Body Repairer and was looking forward to making the big bucks! Looking back now I think that this was partially a mistake to leave school so soon but not a total mistake! I left school at 14 but could not officially start work until I was 15 so I enjoyed most of the summer break from school with all my mates who had all finished school also!

When My real work started I had to stop working on the Chicken Farm as my work was over a 30 minute bus ride away and I just could not manage to two jobs at the same time! The work was good but unfortunately being the youngest apprentice it was my job to serve up the tea and go shopping for lunch etc so more than half of my working day was spent this way but not being put down I spent as much time as I could not only repairing cars and trucks but learning how to Weld, Repair Engines and Hydraulic Systems, Auto Electrics, Paint Spraying and any other thing that I could learn and get paid for learning! I did well at my work and even changed companies a couple of times but was getting very disillusioned with this kind of work as to be an apprentice for 5 years means that you are a very low paid and over worked individual and even with 3 years under my belt and with a lot of overtime I was only taking home 8 pounds a week which for about 80 hours work was not very good pay to say the least! In order to get to work easier than using public transport I bought myself a Norton Jubilee 250 Twin Cylinder Motor Cycle which as it turned out was OK but I was never really too interested in Bikes and the winter weather in Northern England really put me off Motor Bikes for good and I soon sold it again preferring the warmth of the bus rather than face the elements of the winter on the bike!

My parents were pretty good to me as I was never charged anything from my salary towards the food even so all on my money was for me! My last job was working in a small company not far from where I lived, it was better paid but still poor and conditions in the old workshop were pretty grim!  After about a week of going to work in the snow, sometimes walking as the bus could not get down the road and having arrived at work I had to get under damage snow packed cars and repair the damage was really getting on my nerves so one morning I set off for work as I usually did but for some reason not even known to myself  on that day, I took another bus which was traveling in the opposite direction and went into Bradford and joined the British Army, Corps of Royal Engineers but that’s another story!

On Cambridge Farm there were some cows!

In 1990 when Ellie was working on the construction of our building, she kept on getting all kinds of offers to buy thing at good prices from people who needed money pretty quick! She got a small Jeep for around p40,000 which really got abused and overloaded but did the job it was asked asked to do! The best buy I think was a small herd of cows consisting of about 35 heads for a really good price! This was from a very dear relation, Joe Deonoso who at that time had well over 1,000 cows and he said that he did not need this particular herd but really, as he was not short of money I really think that he was just being a good relation and wanted Ellie to get into the cattle business for a while!

All the cows were mostly the local variety of White Brahma, a few had other colors on them! Some were mothers and calves, some were yearlings and one was a good size bull who was kept busy with the lady cows! The was also a cowboy with them so we took him on also! We did not actually keep them at Cambridge Farm as it was too small so we kept them in a pen opposite Tropicana Beach Resort which was a very good location with plenty of water to be had from a borehole which was on the land! To graze the cows, the cowboy took them out to the hills every day, the hills were right at the back of the pen anyway so that made the job a lot easier! The pen was actually on a grazing leased piece of land so like everything else here it was not free as we had to pay the guy who held the lease one calf in three which was the standard going rate! We did try to get our own lease but all the areas which were available were well up on the hills with no roads and more importantly, no water so we accepted the place where the cows were, that way the cows knew where they lived anyway! Basically we were in a good location and had no real reason to move!

When I got back to General Santos on a leave period, I was asked to think about a brand for the cows so I did a few simple designs but unfortunately when we had them checked in the Cattle Brand Registration Office all were rejected as they were already in use or were very similar to existing brands so it was time to put brain in deep thought mode and the perfect brand appeared to me! Being British gave me the idea, the sign for the British Currency, the Pound Sign £! This design was approved and a local Brand Maker soon made up two different sizes, one for the large animals and one for the young ones!

Once we had the Branding Irons ready we decided on a day to brand the herd so as usual the food and drink was prepared and it was a family day out to do the deed then on to the beach! The cowboy did not take the Cattle out on that morning so as we arrived, a fire was built to cook the Branding Irons and the cattle were driven into a special trap with a strong gate on each end so that only one cow at a time could be penned and branded! A couple of other cowboys were assisting with the process so there was no real problem except for a couple of the calves who were not happy about being separated from their mums for the first time and the mums were not too happy hearing their babies shouting for them especially when they got their first kiss with the Branding Iron!

The actual Branding was very interesting to me because I had seen it in movies before but had never actually seen it done live before! The cowboy was very skillful at Branding as he knew when the Branding Iron was the correct temperature, if it was too hot it would burn through the hide and could possibly cause infection, if too cold then the Brand would not be permanent! Also when applying the Brand he kept the contact time very short, just long enough to leave a permanent mark! Once the work was finished we all feasted in the normal Philippino Style at Tropicana Beach Resort and went swimming etc, the cowboy on the other hand after eating took the newly branded cows up the hills to graze! They all seemed non the worse for their Branding Adventure and some still had several other brands on them from previous owners!

Now as the Branding was going on we had to fill out new papers for each cow so that we could register the New Brands with the correct office! The registration form was basically a single page with two cow pictures on it, one right and one left side and a few lines for details! On the cow drawings we had to put the distinguishing marks of each animal meaning the different Brand, colors etc, also you can guess what we had to draw to signify a bull! Once the paperwork was completed it was submitted and stamped at the office and we had our official copy! These copies came in handy a while later when I was doing my permanent residency as I added then into the requirements to show my wealth!

Once the herd was all registered we really had nothing to do with them as the cowboy looked after them, all we had to do was check on them once in a while and we had a couple of relations who worked in the cattle business so they checked up on them also! The Bull did his job well and kept the cows pregnant all the time, any who did not get pregnant was destined for slaughter! We had a couple of young calves run down by trucks on the road but the meat was good so we ate them anyway so It was no real loss!

We had several young Bulls which we were told needed to be castrated so again a day was set, the food and drink prepared and again it was family day at the beach also! Once again I had never seen this done live before and I thought that the cowboy would use a knife on the unwanted parts but I could not have been more wrong! The cowboy had a piece of equipment called a Burdizzo, this looked very much like a Vice Grip for holding pipes, it was designed to go over the testicles and had a flat bar on each end of the vice piece and was clamped onto the poor unsuspecting bull so that the skin, blood supply and nerves were compressed into the thickness of a piece of paper! The testicles then basically died and was reabsorbed into the body leaving the once Bull to be a eunuch! Ouch! One thing, when the Burdizzo was applied, the unlucky animal did not move a muscle or even breath until the clamp was removed a few seconds later, job finished!

All this was the interesting part of being a part of a cattle owner, paying the salary of the cowboy every month, buying medication and inoculations and other stuff cost quite a lot per year! We also had a couple of cows stolen but we kept the herd for several years and it increased in numbers until we had 55 heads but the joy of owning cattle was gone really and after getting a very good offer for the herd we decided to sell it and do something else with the money!

If we had lived out where we had the cattle then I am sure that we would have kept them all but its really not a good idea to have expensive livestock out in a place where you cannot actually keep an eye on them yourself!

Cambridge as an Actual Farm!

In 1990 Ellie moved back to General Santos City from England, I was still employed in Africa at the time so I could only join her during my break periods! Once she had renovated the existing dilapidated house into a livable domicile she moved onto the land so that she could be on top of the construction all the time!

Some of the local people asked her if she would like to continue with the Rice Farm and if so they would assist her, for a price of course so she agreed as the land was doing nothing anyway so she decided to try to make a little extra cash from it! The local Farmers moved in with their Carabao Powered Equipment and started plowing the land, removing the weeds, constructing the Dyke’s, flooding the rice fields and plowing and leveling until they were satisfied that all was good and once they were happy they sewed the rice seed into the prepared fields! It did not take very long for the new rice shoots to break the surface of the water and when they did the color of green was really fantastic, it was a new life green and very satisfying to see!

As the Rice grew there were other thing to do as fertilizer had to be applied to the plants to make them grow healthy and commercial pesticide were added in order to stop the insects from eating the shoots! Weeds were also a problem as they would strangle the plants if they were not removed so periodically we would hire the traveling gang of female weeders who were very hard working and skillful at what they did! They also captured plenty of Rice Frogs as they worked and they would cook them up for their snacks! These Rice Frogs were only small but very delicious!

The only real problem that we had with growing rice came from a very mean Farmer who lived near by, his nick name was Saddam and it was a very suitable name for him! He would cut off our irrigation water and divert it to his own rice fields even if they were over flowing, he had no consideration for anybody else and was not very popular with anyone in the community! His action was a pain in the butt really but we would just keep on sending one man to stand by the irrigation to make sure that he did not dry us out!

Once the rice was fully grown, the irrigation water was stopped and the fields allowed to dry out, this was the cause of the next problem which was totally natural! As the rice dried, swarms of small sparrows arrived in order to get their share of the harvest but this was a problem I was expecting as even back in England I made ready for a bit of farming and purchased a state of the art electronic machine which was guaranteed to keep birds away for an area of 10 Hectares and more but unfortunately no body told the local birds about this, it did not work on them at all so really it was a complete waste of money so we reverted to the local time tested method of getting a gang of kids with tin cans on a strings to scare the birds away! Strangely enough, the stupid bird eliminating machine worked very well on swarms of grasshopper! They never mentioned that in the handbook!

When the rice was dry and ready to harvest it was all hands on deck to get the harvest in before the birds got too much but once it was all in along came a man with the machine towed by his carabao which separated the rice from the stalks! For this service it was a share deal, for every so many cans of Rice or Palai as it is called his share would be one can of rice! I cannot remember the share but it was OK! Once the machine guy and the harvesters each got their share we took our rice to a nearby mill to have the hulls removed and the rice polished, once again the payment for this was a share and at last we could actually see our total share of the harvest which was good for us as we did not have to buy rice for quite some time!

After a couple of harvests of rice we were advised to grow Corn or Maize as its locally known by so once again, in came the Carabao guys to plow the fields, remove any weeds and get the land ready to plant! The planting was done by everyone in order to make it quick so even children followed the men who made holes with sticks for the seeds to be dropped into then the soil was pushed back into the hole with a workers foot to cover the seeds! As the Maize sprouted and was growing, Fertilizer and Pesticides were applied as required and plowing was done in between the rows by Carabao Plow without destroying a single plant! Growing maize was much easier than Rice as it was much less labor intensive and also the water requirements for Maize was much less than Rice!

When it came to harvesting the Maize there was a group of people who specialized in this work and would clear the whole field on a share basis as usual so we did not really have much to do with the harvest except to keep an eye on the people doing the harvest! Once all the heads were gathered in, all the outer leaves were stripped off by hand and the heads and seeds were dried out in the sun! Once dry, the machine guy once again appeared and removed the seeds from the head and again got paid by share! One thing with a Maize Harvest was the fact that you could see your harvest immediately unlike Rice where there was still another step to finishing the final product! Some of the harvest we kept for animal feeds and some for our own use while the rest we sold in the market! The stalks were cut down and taken away by by people to feed their livestock then Cattle and Carabau were put into the fields to clear the stubble a bit more and also do a bit of organic fertilization for free!

The problem in a way for growing both Rice and Maize was that we had to pay people to do every step of the work which reduced our profit quite considerably, also our land was a bit small having only about 1.5 hectares to farm where 4 hectares would have been much better! For a local farming family who does all the work themselves the profits are larger but usually after they have paid off their credit to everyone they are really no better of than we managed!

As this was going on, Ellie was playing with the seeds which we had shipped out in our container from England but this was not too successful! The Tulips and Daffodils we brought out were planted but without a bit of cold weather to activate them they never woke up! The other flowers grew but were not at all like they should have been! Short border type flowers grew about 3 feet high and had tiny flowers and the taller flowers grew normally but again with tiny flowers! Even Roses produced only small flowers! The vegetables fared no better as the local insects had a field day with them so we gave up on the imported seeds and tried the local varieties which grew no problem but unfortunately when ours were ripe for the picking so was the harvest of everyone else in the area so the bottom fell out of the market and there was no profit to be made!

One thing that did grow easily was Aubergine or Egg Plant! Ellie grew a lot of this to feed the workers so we all had Egg Plant fried in egg with breakfast, also for lunch and dinner was an Egg Plant recipe, even at break times many times we had an Egg Plant something or other! After a while of the Egg Plant diet something mysterious happened and many of the mother plants died off, I am sure that the workers contributed to this problem somewhere along the line!

Also on our farm we had a mixture of Animals and Birds: Cows, Carabao, Pigs, Goats, Sheep, Rabbits, Turkeys, Geese, Ducks, Chickens, Fighting Cocks, Bantams plus Dogs and Cats, even a pet Crow! These were mostly to make it look more like a working farm and were not really for profit but many of them made very good eating! Unfortunately, once the Hotel business got going we had to remove most of our livestock as the guests did not appreciate being woken up by the squealing of hungry Pigs or the Fighting Cocks going off at any time of day or night! The Geese used to chase people around the car park and Toto the Billy Goat found great amusement by sneaking up behind people and butting them from behind! I will tell you more about the Cambridge Livestock but that’s another story!

Now we do not attempt any form of farming now as the area was officially changed from Agricultural to Residential and the land we have is now pretty well covered with things like the Hotel, Dive Shop, Pool, Cottages, Car Park while all other areas are covered with Plants and Trees! We do get good Seasonal Fruits as we do have trees and plants which give edible foods like: Mango, Avocado, Jack-Fruit, Papaya, Star Apple, Calabash, Noni, Cami-as both sweet and sour, Malungai, Banana’s, Giobano, Coconuts, Chico, Cashew, Breadfruit, Chillies and of course Aubergine! Please excuse my local spelling of some of these fruits if it is not correct!

All in all we had a good time playing at being farmers but when you have to pay for every aspect then the profits which could be made are cut back considerably but it was fun doing it! I will recommend anyone to try to do a bit of Farming if you have a bit of spare cash but if you have to employ people to do all the work for you then do not expect to make a fortune at it but rest assured, you will have fun!

The Lifeguards Association of General Santos City!

The training consisted of 2 parts! Part 1 consisted of Standard First Aid with  AR,( Artificial Respiration) and CPR, (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) which took 7 days to complete. Part 2 consisted of  Water Safety and Rescue which was all in water activities both in the pool and in the ocean! This part was a long 6 days, more like boot camp! I had done this kind of training myself many years earlier both as a civilian and in the Army but I still decided to once again show that someone of my age could still complete with the younger students and in the August of 97 we started the training!

The First Aid training was good but the PNRC are very old fashioned in their methods of Training as its more like the Boy Scouts as you have to do correct kinds of bandaging for different kinds of injuries tied with the correct knots etc! The AR and CPR was interesting for most as they had never done it before but by the end of the training week all were quite good and competent to perform on real victims if and when required!

The Water Safety and Rescue Training was another story as this consisted of plenty of stamina training which meant lots of swimming in the pool, a mile a day was nothing, swim swim swim, there are 10 Lifeguard Swimming Strokes and we had to get them all correct even though most would never be used but we all cracked on and mastered them! We learned how to use different methods to assist and rescue people and for our graduation we were taken out 1 mile into Sarangani Bay and told to swim back into Makar Wharf! At the end of this Training we had a great feeling of achievement, the 23 of us who completed the course that was!

All the others on the course worked at swimming areas as Lifeguards and within the first few days of the newly trained Lifeguards going back on duty, several successful rescues took place and the Lifeguards were on top of the world! We decided then to form an association so we had a meeting to iron out the details and elect officers and lo and behold, the white guy (me) became President! During the next couple of weeks we had several more meetings and designed uniforms and a banner of course with our new logo on it and I went to see the Mayor and she agreed that a City Ordinance was called for instructing that all Swimming Areas within the City Boundaries were to employ PNRC Trained Lifeguards! This was great as some of the Resort Owners were not interested in having Lifeguards as they said that they did not have problems, several Resort Owners were soon to change their minds very quickly when they had incidents within their areas and were asking me to supply Lifeguards to them! During the last 4 months of 1997 there were only another 6 fatalities in the swimming areas so everyone was very pleased at the initial results so I decided that in late January 1998 I decided that it would be time for another training as not all Resorts had Lifeguards and others needed more!

I sent out letters of invitation to all Swimming Resorts but was very disappointed that by the Christmas of 1997 I had only got back 6 answers from Resorts who wanted to have people trained! On New Years Day 1998 I was at my lounge when I was called to the pool to address an emergency, a 3 year old girl was not breathing as she had been in the water in between her parents who were feeding her apple! They were talking to their friends and did not notice their daughter slip below the surface! When I arrived, people were wailing and preying but I quickly took charge of the situation and checked the girl for breathing and heartbeat, unfortunately their were neither so I immediately tried to give a rescue breath in order to get Oxygen into her but nothing went in! I looked in her mouth to check her airway and could see a blockage, luckily, with her being small I used a finger to hook out the blockage which was a large piece of apple! I once gain tried AR and CPR on her and after just a couple of rounds she started coughing a bit so I gave her a good nip on the top of her leg and she gave out a loud scream and once again she was back in action! That scream was indeed a wonderful sound and more prayer was given and after checking that the child was OK I picked her up and then her bowels opened and she got revenge on me for nipping her! Some say it was a blessing but I know that it was really a great ending for what was nearly a tragedy even though I had a brown stain down the front of me! I instructed the parents to take the girl to St Elizabeth Hospital and tell them that she had a near drowning incident and should be put on oxygen for 30 minutes which they did! About 5 years later the Mother brought her daughter back to the hotel and the little girl thanked me for what I did! It was a very touching moment for me! Later on that same 1997 New Years Day there was a double drowning at London Beach but unfortunately non of the victims survived! When the next Lifeguard Training Course started there were 57 participants so something good had come out of tragedy!

Now, the Association was doing very well and the annual death tole was reduced to just 2 or 3 per year, I was successful another 2 times resuscitating children! Most in water accidents were caused by people who were Over the limit with alcohol, had just eaten before swimming and choking on their own vomit, unsupervised children getting out of their depth and a couple of medical problems! With Lifeguards being deployed all was pretty good and safe at the beaches, this is when the problems started to happen!

For the years since 1979 to 2005 the City Licencing Office made all resort Owners come to me for a certification that they had PNRC Trained Lifeguards on their Staff, this for some reason stopped! For Lifeguard Training Cources the numbers were reducing with every course, in the end several Resorts did not employ Lifeguards at all! When I asked the Resort Owners why they did not have Lifeguards they said that they did not need them as there were no accidents happening! This was just Foolish Complacency on their part and the good luck could not last forever!

In 2006 I tried 3 times to get new Lifeguards Trained but to no avail as only 1 or 2 students turned up for training, much less than the minimum requirement for PNRC Training so I was now the President of nothing as the Resort Owners would only let what was left of the Lifeguards attend the monthly meetings in their own free time so even the meetings stopped! My letters to the Mayor never got answered and now I was really wondering what to do as I could not see a future at all for the Association as it stood!

The last straw came when one Resort Owner, who had always fought against having Lifeguards asked me to issue her a certification that she had Lifeguards employed which she did not so I refused! All the next night I got hate Texts from her, really disgusting stuff so the next morning I made a transcript of the texts and sent it along with my Resignation as Association President to the Mayor, again i never received an answer from his office!

For over 2 years now there has been no Lifeguard Training in the Gen San Area and only a handful of Lifeguards are left to assist the Swimming Public! As I said earlier its just Foolish Complacency on the part of the City and the Resort Owners which has created this problem! The Lifeguards Association of General Santos City was once a Showpiece and was advertised by the National office of the PNRC of how an Association should be run, what a shame that it no more exists! The most upsetting part of this story to me is the simple fact that there have been over 20 fatalities at the Swimming Resorts to August this year so the clock has been turned back to 1997 in regards to Water Safety in Gen San!

Maybe its because there is no profit to be made so no is interest is being shown!

Chriselle Snack Hauz and Fast Food!

In 1993, My wife was spending a lot of time away from the Hotel so I got to wondering what she was up to as I knew that she was doing something in secret so one day when a local builder friend came in to collect my ladder I just asked him how the project was going on and in good Filipino fashion he immediately told me all about it! There are no well kept secrets in the Philippines!

Now I knew what was going on, I jumped into the pick up and “just by chance” happened to stumble onto the secret! Ellie had got a very good deal from a relation to rent a small building right opposite the Yellow Bus Station on the National Highway in Gen San and was converting it into a small eatery as it was a prime site for such a venture even though it was the center building in a block of 5 similar businesses, all eateries! Ellie was quite surprised to see me and had no choice but to tell me her plan, I asked her why she had not told me about it and she said that she wanted to surprise me! She had succeeded in doing so I will admit!

Now that I was in the loop, I was put on the construction gang, I was doing the electrics, plumbing etc, The walls were being paneled  with the outer skin of the Coconut Tree, in order to save the men time, I brought my small electric Chain Saw down to the site and the workers were amazed of how fast I could trim the edges of each piece of skin in order to fit them together! We replaced the old toilet and fitted one with a flush, the floor was all concreted, the concrete walls were all painted! We fitted a raised section in the roof so that the smoke and fumes would go outside and the natural breeze would blow in! Several wall fans were installed and I fitted a cooker hood over the non-gas cooking area! I even fitted a 12 volt backup light system running from a vehicle battery in case of brown outs! I was really enjoying this project!

Ellie was in charge of the cooking and serving equipment! She had made a stainless steel food warmer which was very rare around here, all the tables were covered with white Formica which was easy clean! We fitted a Stereo unit which we brought from UK so the sound was good! Everything about the place was looking very good and people were showing a lot of interest and asking when we would open for business! As opening day was getting nearer, Ellie went into overdrive and managed to get the refrigerators from San Miguel and Coke, she also added a freezer for ice making! Much of the cooking items we already had spare at the hotel so they were brought down! Decorations and posters, A sign board from San Miguel was set above the door! We were now ready to open but we had to wait a couple of days as we had to wait for a date with the Chinese lucky number 8 in it, i.e 08, 18, 28!

The big day came and we opened the doors waiting for the hungry public to arrive but to our amazement everyone still went to the other 4 eateries in the line and nobody came into ours! This went on until just before lunch time and the staff started asking people what was wrong and why people were not coming in and one Jeepney Driver summed up the problem very simple, he said, your place is too clean and everyone think its too expensive to eat and drink there! This guy was correct so we gave him and his conductor a free meal and showed him the price list and he was surprised to see that we were the same as the rest so he went away happily and became a regular customer! Once people realised that not only were our prices the same as the other in the block but our drinks were cold and the food was hot so from then on, we had a good clientele but it took a few days for the word to get out!

Business was doing fine and many people who were waiting for buses or dropping from the bus station came to eat and drink with us before continuing on their journeys, even the bus crews were now regulars! We had many requests to put a Cable TV in as well which we did and we also started to open 24 hours a day as there were lots of night guests also but unfortunately many wanted a place to sleep while waiting For an early bus and this made the place look like a doss house for vagrants at times so we again closed down on a night time! After about a year of operation we realized that we would never do too well with an eatery because with living away from the premises we could not control everything so we were thinking of what to do when the City Council made the decision for us by telling us that the front sections of all the eateries were illegal and had to be removed as the National Highway was going to be widened and in order to accommodate the project our front section had to go!

That was the excuse that we needed so we gave the place to the relations who were helping to run the business and moved ourselves totally out of it! It closed down completely not long afterward when the Yellow Bus Company moved its operation to the new station further away in an other part of the City!

The Eatery was a very interesting project as we found out for ourselves, Filipino’s did not trust clean thinking it meant expensive! The Family unit who usually own the small eateries are real hero’s to me as its very long working hours, you have to deal with awkward or drunken customers and you have always got to be ready on time with your service or your customers will go somewhere else! We tried to make this small eatery into a viable business for ourselves which we actually did but with fuel costs to and from the hotel several times a day, cooking food at the hotel and delivering it and with me drinking beer there, in the end it all became too expensive so we had the good sense to get out before things went bad for us!

The moral of this story is: If at first you don’t succeed, get out before you lose your shirt!

Cambridge Farm Hotel Grows a Swimming Pool!

As the Hotel Business was improving and we were getting more long term guests staying with us, every day or every few days we were asked, when will you build a swimming pool? After some time, the wife went to Manila on a trip so I took my chance and started the construction of our pool!

Now, I must explain the very lucky natural money saving phenomenon which we have here, the land that we bought has about 2 or 3 feet of good top soil, then it is sand and gravel below so for all our construction projects we did not have to buy loads of sand and gravel, just dug it out of the ground as required! Not only were we able to dig out all our building materials but what was left was the hole in which we could construct the swimming pool! Already, even before I got started I was well ahead of the game! Once the work started there was no stopping us!

My building style was different to the local people as I did not use any expensive wooden form-work instead I used hollow building blocks! I first lined the random shaped hole with a wall of hollow blocks to act as a rear form in order to get the shape of the pool and to stop the earth collapsing! The working floor was the next part to introduce, this was a 3 inches thick concrete pad with just a drain hole at the lowest point, it gave a clean working surface! Once I had the outer wall and working floor constructed the steel reinforcing bars was fitted both on the floor for the main base and up the walls also! The main 8 inches thick floor was next and to allow for this large amount of concrete to be poured at one time I hired a mixer much larger than the small one that I had and I hired some extra workers also, unfortunately, the large mixer did not work at all so we did the complete mix using my small wheel barrow size mixer! This worked but it took us 18 hours to do a pour which we had estimated would take us around 10 hours!

We sure drank some cold beers after work on that day! An inside wall was then constructed of hollow blocks with a space 8 inches wide from the outer wall, this allowed us a good space to fill with concrete between the two form walls making the final thickness of the whole wall more than 16 inches thick, very strong! All cement and concrete had a waterproofing agent added to it in order to prevent any leakage, luckily for us it worked!

We had to play around a bit setting concrete steps and shallow areas for kids but this did not take long and very soon we were ready for the finishing! The drains, skimmer and water entry ports were all set in and pipes laid to the pumps, filters etc and for the finishing, we used a mixture of white cement and blue cement color mixed together! Again I employed a gang of plasterers as I wanted to do the finishing in one go so there would be less chance of this cement finishing lifting if water soaked underneath! All this went very smoothly but the finish was not really an even color but basically the pool was finished so we could now fill it up! This kind of color will be bleached out over time by the chlorine! The filling of the pool took 3 days continuous pumping from our 2 boreholes but it seemed to take an eternity! As we were filling, Ellie was landscaping and building cottages and a bar area, that’s where she has great ideas so I leave her to do this kind of work! To build the bar we bought a newly constructed Coconut Lumber Building from an Englishman who changed his idea of business, the price was cheap but we had to demolish it ourselves and in the process I manage to get a nail stuck through my foot! Ouch or some similar utterance I said and then off I went to the hospital for stitches and injections, the Doctor told me to rest and take it easy and afterwards I wished that I had taken his advice but I did not and was soon down on my back on a drip with a high fever and a dose of blood poisoning for a few days! Stupid me!

After my recovery, the pool was being used by friends and relations and it was not leaking so it was time to add the first batch of chlorine to the water! I added only 1 kg and went for a coffee, when I came back some minutes later I was shocked to see that the water had turned a very dark brown something like the brewed coffee that I had just consumed! What had happened was that adding the chlorine to a body of water which was mineral rich and full of invisible suspended solids created a chemical reaction and all of this stuff came out of suspension and colored the water horribly so for the next 2 weeks it was a case of add chlorine, vacuum the pool and clean the filter until the water was clean again! after the pool was cleaned up, Ellie had a portion of the requirements for visitors and guests constructed and we were ready and willing to open!

All went well, we did not have any real problems but we had to watch the water quality as even the rain is full of algae and if we do not put Chlorine and Muriatic Acid after a heavy rain the water will be green in the morning! Now we top up the pool only with water from the local Water District as it contains Chlorine already! We have only changed the water one time since we opened the pool and this was only so we could refurbish it after about 8 years! The last time we refilled we used the Water District also! Sometimes we have had bad chlorine which had expired and was worthless but now we only buy by the kilo and by doing this we can do the smell test because as chlorine is a gas you can easily smell it, if you cannot smell it then its no good!

We have all kinds of event at the pool side such as Parties, Reunions, Weddings and Receptions, Baptisms, Seminars, Birthdays, Beauty Contests including the Purok Malakas Miss Gay Contest once! We even had a choir practicing singing while up to their necks in water! As long as guests are happy, so are we! Running a pool is not easy or cheap as you need to add chemicals weather people are using the pool or not, really its more of an attraction than a money maker! One time we tried a Karaoke Machine at the pool but this did not last long as people only wanted to squawk into the microphone instead of buying food of drink!

As the years have gone by we have added things as requested, a slide was constructed but I refused to put a diving board there, we have a kids pool operating also, there are more tables and seats and even a couple of cottages for guests to stay in! Our kids have a small store which they run on a weekend and when not at school, I think this gives them good experience in dealing with people and money and they earn a bit of extra spending money also! Ellie keeps on changing the looks of the area and now there are large rocks all around the top of the pool giving it a bit more of a natural look! We even have a concrete ship wreck near the bar! Now she wants more cottages and a waterfall so she has her ideas as to what are the next requirements! If we have good income we build if not then she does things that do not cost much like rearranging the garden and transplanting trees etc! She never stop, she is always busy with something unlike me!

Just now Ellie is renovating some of the rooms and cottages until she has another good idea then another project will begin! Anything is possible!

Tubbataha Reef, A Divers Paradise!

Tubbataha Reef is the only World Heritage Site in the Philippines and is located in the Sulu Sea in between North Western Mindanao and Southern Palawan and it is a place which most Philippine Divers and indeed many Foreign Divers want to visit at least once in there life! If you get good weather then its a wonderful trip but with bad weather it can be a  horrific experience as many divers have found out! Luckily for me, the weather was perfect for my trip so it was money well spent!

Just 3 years ago myself and a group of divers from Gen San made the pilgrimage to Tubbataha but to get there from Gen San we had to first go to Cebu, spend the night there then fly on to Puerto Princessa in Palawan the next day where we were picked up at the airport by the Scuba World Crew who were the trip organizers! It was a short drive to our boat, the Oceanic Explorer which was a large ship with plenty room on board! We met the rest of the divers and crew and set off in the early evening for the overnight trip to the reef! Unfortunately for me there was a Formula 1 race that evening but they would not hold back the boat so I could watch it!

We woke up early the next morning and were greeted by the sight of Bird Island which was one of the rare areas of the reef which was actually visible above water! Our first dive was to be on a site called Shark Airport and on entering the water we immediately knew why the name was choose for the site as there were several sharks on the white sandy sea bed just a few meters below us! There was all kinds of marine life here and with this being only dive number 1 of 20 we were really excited as to what we would be seeing on the future dives! After this first dive we had breakfast and having eaten realized that we were not going to loose any weight on the trip as the food was good and plentiful on each meal!

I shared a cabin with John Heitz, my good friend from Gen San, I had the lower bunk and John had the top! Now, the ship was a Japanese model and unfortunately had ceilings and doors which were Japanese size so it was not long before John got the nick name of bump head as he had several bumps and bruises on his head from his collisions with different parts of the ship as we all did! We were doing 4 day dives and 1 night dive  so the schedule was quite hard for some as they did not dive very often and could not do every dive on the trip which made life for me and John even better as we had a family of 4 along with us in our chase boat who did not do every dive so our dive guide took us on some spectacular dives which we would have missed if we had been diving with the family! On 2 such dives, we were in strong current around 100 feet down on a ledge at the side of the wall and along side us just a few meters off the wall was a line of sharks! These sharks reminded my of competition team cyclists because every few seconds, the leading shark would flip itself over and move to the end of the line! A few seconds later the next leader would do the same and so on! We watched this action for a few minutes on 2 occasions and I believe it was a way for the sharks to save energy by taking it in turns to face the current!

Our daily routine was to wake up by 6am, have a snack and drink and then the  first dive! Have breakfast then have a 2nd dive, have a snack then have a 3rd dive, have lunch then have a 4th dive, have a snack then have the Night Dive, then have supper, relax and sleep! This routine was for 4 days so it was quite tough to keep to! All the time, we were very lucky as the weather was really kind to us, the water was flat calm and the sun was out so the conditions underwater were exceptional! Even the night dives were good as there was a moon to add light along with the beams from our flash lights and there was much to see! Some of the night time creatures included Sharks, Turtles, Moray Eels, Octopus, Lobster, Crabs, Squid, Sting Rays, and much much more! The eyes of the Sharks glow on a night time just like those of a cat when they are caught in a beam of light so it was a bit creepy to see them!

During our day dives what we saw was like you see on the National Geographic Channel on TV!  We saw Manta Rays, Eagle Rays, Giant Barracuda, Travelly’s, Spanish Maceral and Moray Eels! Napoleon Wrasse, Groupers, Sweetlips, Turtles! Schools of Jacks, Dog Tooth Tuna, Barracuda, Fusiliers and millions of reef fish of all shapes and colors! Man, we were in Scuba Heaven! On one single dive we saw more than 50 Green Turtles all relaxing on the reef, I had never seen anything like this before! Every dive we saw several different types of Sharks including White Tips, Black Tips, Grey Reef, Grey Nurse and even A Giant Hammerhead! There was just about every type of fish that you can think of in the area and even from the ship one day we saw a pod of Dolphins doing their thing and from the upper deck of the ship you could see many fish very clearly in the water below! Now, Tubbataha Reef is situated in deep water so gets a lot of seasonal weather which is very rough so the corals are good but not the greatest, this also can be said for the small reef fish as Nimo which is quite a rare sight on the reef where in most areas they are very common!

There is a detachment of Rangers stationed on a permanent structure on one area of the reef but they are far too few to patrol the whole area which covers now some 968 Sq Km and in bad weather they cannot move in their small craft so Poachers especially from China and Taiwan do get in and catch lots of Fish, Sharks and Turtles illegally but even when these people are captured they are usually released as a good will gesture to their home country!

The whole of our trip was fantastic and after the last night dive the drinks came out and we celebrated our success! Most of us had not taken any drink since we left port as we did not want to risk missing any dives because of drink! The trip itself was good in one way and not good in another because now I was spoiled and if I were to go back once more I could easily be disappointed after seeing so many wonderful things on such a great experience, maybe on a future trip I would not see so much! I took lots of Pictures but unfortunately towards the end of the diving my Digital Camera flooded and died when the casing sprang a leak, sorry for me! I will definitely recommend Tubbataha to any competent diver but the weather must be good! I know several divers who have horror stories when their chase boats sank and gear was lost, engines failed in bad weather, some only had 1 or 2 dives when they had to return to port because of bad weather etc!

I have no complaints at all about the whole area and I really hope that the Government can do more to protect this important reef from poachers and keep it as a major breeding ground and habitat for many of the worlds Magnificent Marine Creature ensuring that they will be around in the future for others to see and enjoy!

One of the Scuba World Crew had been to Tubbataha on 8 occasions remarked that ours was the best trip he had been on! Were we lucky or what?

Maharlika Beach Resort and Great Dive Spot!

In late 1997 I was a Founder and the President of the Lifeguard Association of General Santos City but that’s a future article! As a diver, someone gave me the idea to do check out dives in the waters fronting the recreational beaches to check for under water hazards which could be dangerous to customers! To me, this sounded like an interesting idea so I made my plans not only to check out what was under the water but to make sketch maps also! Now, as a diver I had never bothered to dive in this area before everyone said to me that it was no good and a waste of time diving there as there was nothing of interest to see but during the next few days I was amazed at the corals and marine life that I discovered all along that stretch of beach front! They were so wrong!

There is a row of Beach Resorts in the Bawing Area in one line along the beach starting with, Tropicana, Maharlika 1 and 2, Rajah, Dupalco and Family, the last two had nothing of interest under water but the first four had plenty! In my opinion, the best of the three beaches was and still is Maharlika 1!

There are two Beach Resorts, Maharlika 1 and 2 which are owned by two Muslim Brother! Maharlika 1 in my opinion is the best as the facilities are better! There are more than 200 day cottages and a small store, they do not sell alcohol but just outside the gates are probably 10 small stores all selling the local booze! On the beach are always plenty of local people trying to make a living by selling things to customers like watches, sun glasses, DVDs, nuts, ice cream, hammocks, cheap jewelry and cultured pearls, fresh fish and squid, even full roast pigs are for sale per KG at times! Basically if it can be carried then it can be sold! There used to be at least 10 Karaoke Machines all close together but luckily now they have all broken down so the beach stays quiet one again! Sometimes my preyers do get answered!

There is an area where the two Beach Resorts join and at low tide much of this are is out of the water and people always go there to turn over the rocks to find small crabs and shell fish! For some reason only known to themselves, the DENR Region 12 have taken a 1.2 Hectare piece of this exposed beach and made it a Marine Reserve and no Take Zone! There are signs stating that the area is protected but unfortualy nobody is there to enforce this law so the people still go there by the hundreds to gather shellfish!

Now, you might say, what is so special about this beach as so far it sounds just like any normal local beach but on this beach, just about 20 meters from the high tide mark there is a fresh water swimming pool which covers about 4,000 square meters and it is fed by a high flow natural spring! The water is much cooler than the ocean and it is only about 4 feet deep so its a pretty safe swimming area for most people! This pool is drained and cleaned every Friday and only takes about 4 to 6 hours to fill up again so it shows how much water is flowing through here!

At this time, I have done more than 1,000 Scuba Dives here as this place is my preferred Dive Training Site as I can do the confined water training in the pool if necessary and then into the ocean for the main diving practice! At the end of the Ocean dives we can just jump into the fresh water pool nce again with all our gear to both swill the salt water off of ourselves and also off our equipment! During the week the beach is usually quiet but on a weekend it can get very busy and on public holidays its total chaos as every cottage will be full of people! Now its very strange that all these people travel for many miles to get to the beach packed into trucks like sardines but most do not swim or anything, they just go into the cottage, eat, drink, sleep and go home! If that is the way that they enjoy themselves then good luck to them!

Now the diving is excellent as there is so much variation of things to see, there are both hard and soft corals which make great habitat for the marine creatures, there is sea grass where the Sea Horses, leaf Fish and Pipe Fish can easily blend in, there are sandy areas where the weird sand dwelling creatures like Snake Eels and Gobi’s live, Green Turtles are not uncommon and a resident shoal of Yellow Tail Barracuda are always present! Lion, Puffer, Surgeon Fish are plenty along with every-one’s favorite Nimo the Clown Fish who can be found in many colors!

A lot of divers, especially under water photographers like this area for Macro Photography which in simple terms means taking pictures of small creatures like Shrimps, Crabs, Snails and Sea Slugs (Nudibranchs) and anything else tiny that they can find! There are also some extremely rare creatures like the Weedy Scorpion Fish which looks like a weed and the Frog Fish which can swallow prey equal to its own body size, Bamboo Sharks which are small nocturnal hunters of shell fish can sometimes be seen on Night Dives! To date, no Underwater Photographer has gone away upset at not seeing good and interesting things! There is an excellent area for Snorkeling where the tops of the corals are just about 4 feet below the water surface but it is very rare to see anyone in this area as people do not know about it and do not ask!

All along this stretch of beach we have deployed over 2,000 Artificial Reef Domes, I will tell you about this very successful project in a later article! The first of these Domes were deployed at Maharlika!

This beach area could be really good if it was developed correctly as all the natural amenities are in place such as good access from the main road. The power supply is almost constant. There is an  abundant supply of fresh water in the form of a spring! Great Diving and Snorkeling areas, even the sand on the beach is good even though its not white! Unfortunately, to attract tourists does not seem to be a priority for the government who want more business investment which is also good for the area!

I for one really hope that areas such as Maharlika and in fact the whole streach of beach can be preserved and improved for the future but unfortunatly big business is getting closer all the time so I am very afraid it all might dissappear! London Beach has already been sold for a Bio Fuel Depot and industry is movin in all the time! It will be a great shame if the local population has no place to swim because the rich people own all the beaches!

The Sarangani Bay 5,000 Artificial Reef Dome Project!

In early April 2005, Myself and my American friend John Heitz were having a couple of beers at my Cambridge Farm Bar after a day of diving! My bar is a place where many great ideas are born especially after a bit of worship to our favorite saint, San Miguel! During our dives we had seen all kinds of degradation to our local coral reefs both man made and natural but the organizations who were supposed to take care of such problems were doing nothing so me and John, on the spot, decided that if we wanted anything to by done to improve our local coral reefs then we would have to be the ones to initiate it! After a few more beers, the idea of the Reef Dome Project was born!

Over the next couple of weeks we came up with several designs of Dome Shapes and Sizes, all made with locally available materials in order to keep costs to a minimum. The buckets which were to act as the casting forms were purchased from the Gen San Fish Port, others were made up by the local Tire Repairing Vulcanizers, steel, sand, gravel and cement were all locally purchased locally so no extra expense added there! As form oil was so expensive we bought used vegetable oil from Jollibee to stop the concrete sticking to the forms! My two old laborers were now the dome construction crew and the project construction site was Cambridge Farm Hotel! Now, everything was in place and the project began!

The first few domes were deployed on 17th April 2005 in the waters fronting Maharlika Beach Resort! This was a learning curve for us as we had built the domes but had never rolled them into the water before but all went well and the domes, as we hoped were easily moved by a single diver! If we decided to pile them in pyramids as we did later in the project we could usually manage this with 2 divers! Now that we had deployed the initial domes and we could see that it was quite feasible to easily deploy more, we went into full production constructing the domes and it was not long before we had many sponsors willing to assist in this worthy project! On many occasions groups who sponsored the domes made the deployment day as a family social event with parties on the beach, others just donated money, even the Padi, Project Aware Foundation made a substantial donation so the project was really flying so we decided that the number of 5,000 domes would be required to complete the project and as you can probably understand, that at this early stage, we still had a very long way to go! The number 5,000 was just picked from the air!

After about 3 weeks we were inspecting the first domes that we had deployed and we were very surprised to find life starting to take hold in the form of small marine worms, tiny barnacles, green algea and other minute creatures! We were kind of shocked with this growth as we were thinking that it would be months or even years before anything really happened growth wise! We also noticed that small Damsel Fish had staked a claim to each dome as their home and would defend them vigorously even from creatures the size of divers, they were quite fearless and we got hit on numerous occasions! The more we studied the domes the more we got interested in how life developed on them! There were many broken an uprooted corals all around the reef so we decided to try to transplant some onto the domes just to see how they would react! Some were not successful and did not survive but many did especially the soft corals so we made it a point in future deployments to gather loose corals and attach them to the domes in order to kick start the growth!

The more domes we deployed, the more we learned about how long it took different kinds of life to take hold and grow! Barnacles were very fast growers but were also a food source for Parrot Fish etc! The  algae was food for the grazing creatures like Surgeon Fish! Some coral species took hold and grew very quickly while some of the harder corals take a much longer time to show themselves but in time, everything was growing well and new coral reefs were being created in different areas of Sarangani Bay and beyond! With this new supply of marine accommodation came the immigrants, fish of all kinds moved in, Shell Fish, Octopus and Crustaceans, Cucumbers and Urchins, predators like Lion Fish, Scorpion fish and Moray Eels, all forms of live were now in resident, these new reefs even started having some form of order to their society! To say that we were extremely elated was an understatement! We were two very happy people and were really astonished that our little project was creating so much improvement to the Marine Environment!

Like many projects, ours was not all plain sailing as we had our delays! Most were caused by bad weather which we could do nothing about, sometimes the local divers were not available to assist in deploying the domes and some delays were caused when the construction funds were a bit low but luckily for us, the Gen San City Government did not slow us down with Bureaucrats and we were left alone to continue where and when we wished to go! On one memorable occasion, we were taking domes out to an off shore reef on John’s Boat when the engine stopped! The operator looked into the engine compartment and it was flooded, the boat was sinking! Immediately we threw all the domes over the side into on deep water, bailed out the water from the boat and drifted into shore at Maharlika beach! The boat was saved but 17 domes were lost to the deep!

All in all, it took us 40 months of hard work to get 5,001 Domes deployed and on 29th August 2008 we finished the project and relaxed! It was a hard struggle all the way through but we had the determination to succeed! We have been asked to continue with the project but I think that we have done our part in assisting the Marine Environment with its recovery so I hope that others will take over and continue with similar types of projects!

There will be more information about this project but this will be in the form of other articles! If we are to help to restore what Man and Nature has helped to destroy, we have proved that with a little bit of determination, good things can be achieved without too much expense! For the 5,001 Domes, our total expenditure was just P942,329.00 which was about $21,000.00! Each dome cost only p200.00 or $4.20! Already another organization is doing a project to deploy 500 Domes in Sarangani Bay and there is interest from other areas of the country so with a bit of luck, the local coral reefs might once again be an impressive part of nature and give the marine creatures a more natural habitat than they have now in a lot of areas! If we allow the reefs to disappear then the whole marine ecosystem will collapse and that can only be a disaster for mankind so I sincerely hope that our project has played a small part in securing a better and safer future for the inhabitants living in the under the sea realm!

More pictures and details about the Coral Development on the Reef Domes will be detailed in future articles!

General Santos City Fish Port Complex!

Up until several years ago, the Tuna Boats used to offload their cargo of fish on Lion Beach situated on the shore of Sarangani Bay near to the main Gen San Wet Market! Thankfully, the Japanese Government put in money to build a new Fish Port Complex just outside of the City! I say thankfully because Lion Beach was a very heavily polluted area both in the water and on land so it was a good move to construct a new and much cleaner complex away from the City Proper!

The new Fish Port Complex is the Main Tuna Landing in the Philippines and also there are many other species of Fish and Marine Creatures landed there every day of the year! Market 1 is the Tuna Landing and every day and is a very interesting sight to see, starting very early in the morning, the organised chaos begins as the port comes to life! The Tuna Boats bring in their catch, all these fish are hooked on hand lines so the catch is considered to be a sustainable method of catching fish even by Green Peace! The fish are offloaded manually and each fish is carried up to Market 1 on the shoulder of a labourer to the Weighing Scales, On many occasions, the fish weighs more than the person carrying it! Once the fish are weighed, they are laid out for sale where the would be licensed buyers come along and check the fish for freshness by taking small core samples of the meat with a special purpose made device! Once sold, the fish are moved into the area of the buyer where they are gutted and then put on ice if they are for export or transported directly to the Fish Factories for Preparation and Canning, to Local Markets for sale to the general public or transported on ice by truck to markets all over Mindanao!

There are always some creatures caught as a bi-catch such as Sharks, Sword Fish, Marlin and Moon Fish which is a very strange looking fish a bit like an Ocean Sun Fish! The bi-catch on many occasions is good for export and is shipped out along with the Tuna to locations mostly in the USA and Japan! The Sharks, minus their valuable fins are sold on the local markets as are the poorer quality of the other species! The Export fish is usually chilled down in ice water in order to make it as cold as possible so that it will survive the journey better to its final destination! The Heads, Tails, Jaw and Belly are removed and sold on for local consumption, the heads and tails are used in soup while the jaws and bellies are wonderful when barbecued! The main Carcase is cleaned and packed and sealed in an air cargo box along with insulation and some Dry Ice! This whole operation is very fast and most of the export fish are sent out on the early morning PAL Flights to Manila and onward from their to their final destination! The Japanese are very proud and always say that they have the freshest fish in the world but this is not quite correct when it comes from Gen San as we beat them by a day for freshness!

In the initial 3 to 4 hours each morning, Millions of peso’s worth of tuna and other fish change hands sometimes several times even before leaving the complex but the amazing part about all this business is that you do not see actual money changing hands for the main sales, only on the bi-products is cash called for! At the end of the day which is usually before 10 am everybody goes home or where ever the go after work seemingly very happy as they all get paid correctly in the midst of all the confusion and chaos!

Market 2 is the Auction Area for box’s of small fish which have been caught by the boats which use nets to catch the fish and it also houses a small Wet Market where all kinds of fish both Open Ocean and Reef are sold! Unfortunately in this area, many kinds of fish are for sale which are either Endangered or illegal, caught by Dynamite or Cyanide Fishing Methods! The people who should be regulating this area do not do a very good job at all in my mind! Just the other day, there were 13 large Bump Head Parrot Fish on sale, these fish are not illegal to catch but are not a very popular eating fish! The people who caught them probably wiped out the whole family in this one instant leaving no breeding stock behind and with this kind of fish, the market value is not very high at the best of times!

For 365 days a year, the Fish Port Complex carries on with its business off loading fish and sending them on their way to destinations both local and around the world! Its a very interesting place to visit but there are now a lot of restrictions before people are allowed to enter! You must wear White Rain Boots, long trousers, A shirt which covers your arm pits, no cameras are officially allowed, no children or pets are allowed and there are other restriction which sometimes change an a daily basis! This is only for people entering as many of the fishermen who get off the boats are the scruffiest people you ever did see but the regulations do not seem to apply to them! Even with the restrictions, the Fish Port Complex is really worth a visit but i recommend that you have a change of clothes with you as you could easily get “accidentally” splashed with fish blood during your visit!

The Fish Port has had a huge investment by the Chinese government which has increased the area and capability of the port by another 100% but so far nothing is happening with this new development as the fishing industry is in decline for the moment but I am sure that in the future, once the fishing recovers then the market might easily pick up once again! Gen San is a City to which fishing plays a big role in the economy! If anything happens environmentally which could affect the fishing industry it would be a great blow for the city and the area as a whole! Saying that, I hope that the planned Coal Fired Power Station never gets built as the pollutants put out by such a plant could easily have an adverse effect on the area and the economy! I hope that Gen San goes Green and says No to Coal!