Bohemian Boats

    Migs

April 18, 2008 by Migs  
Filed under Migs

We found ourselves in the middle of the water in the middle of the day in the middle of the season. The mid-afternoon sun roasted us like muttons –to quote a little John Steinbeck– and we were melting like the cheese on yesterday’s pizza. Summer has officially made a blistering entrance. We were right in the middle of it.

“Let’s swim,” Marte Perez suggested.

A lovely, affable woman of whose age I shall diplomatically refuse to take an estimate, Marte dove from her husband Rolly’s pocket yacht straight into the cold waters of Taal Lake in Talisay, Batangas. Nykko, my photographer friend, made a louder splash: seemingly a thunderous beckoning to someone who had no intention to swim (or, to be more precise, was embarrassed to have his fear of the waters exposed.)

But how, in my representation of a local sports magazine, could’ve I declined? “No” was not the correct answer. So I dove clumsily, although I was already trembling before before I even hit the waters.

Petrified, I tried to swim and take notice of what was happening around me. A most fantastic sight! In an event dubbed as the “Summer Messabout,” the Philippine Home Boatbuilders Yacht Club (PHBYC) paraded a flotilla of homemade sailboats and motorboats – of different sizes, lengths (from 8 to 22 feet), and personalities.The tarpaulin sails danced with the breeze and saturated the vaporous backdrop with colours. Taal Volcano was a beauty to behold, too: a faraway mound full of textures, imaginings and mysteries.

PHBYC members were building a canoe on site –at Commodore Peter Capotosto’s Taal Lake Yacht Club– to show visitors how easy and practical the process was. Armed with pre-cut panels, epoxy, hammers, screwdrivers, power drills, a paint brush, and basic carpentry skills, the group built the 15-foot Moth in a span of merely six hours. (It was one-legged multimedia artist Cherrie Pinpin’s first canoe, but everyone took turns paddling the new boat around Taal Lake.)

Then – the back of my head resting on the pillows of water – I gazed at the vast, cloudless sky. Suddenly a single bird flew across the view. It prompted me to muse upon what Kenneth Grahame once wrote: “Believe me my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as messing about in boats.” It was to be the epitaph for the death of my fears.

I was first to climb back on deck; Rolly followed suit. We enjoyed a wine-less conversation about his life in sailing and his prologue to that. He was from the Northern province of Tuguegarao as I was; attended Ateneo de Manila as I did; studied English literature in college as I regretted not doing; photographed professionally for seven years (and ran a theatre company) as I could only have dreamed of.

“But you’re still young anyway,” I almost wanted him to say. Instead he smiled silently, allowing me to arrive autonomously at this conclusion. The rest of the sailors continued to mess about, and the winds scattered gently all throughout.

“Ahoy! Ahoy!” we afterwards kept yelling at those who happened to sail nearby. Roy Espiritu and Louie and Cheryl and Mario Garcia and Cherrie and Felix and Ben and Kuton – I don’t want to miss any names here – all waved at us as if we were friends either long-lost or newly-professed. But did it matter? Was I not feeling the oats best described as bohemian? For as the sun began to set and the blue sky faded into orange, I seemed to have settled in a kind of camaraderie where I felt no storm could come. And I heard the delicate waves of the lake echo exactly where we were.

Home.

*** The PHBYC was formed in 2006. The boat building craft compelled the founders and members to create a web-based forum at www.pinoyboats.org, which has become PHBYC’s central point of contact. Being the country’s first virtual yacht club, the group has quickly dispelled some of the myths about boating – that it is only for the rich (building can cost just as much as a regular mobile phone!), that sailing is a difficult skill to learn (members attest that it’s way easier than riding a bike), and that water sports are dangerous (“It’s very safe,” said Rolly. “You’ve simply got to respect the water.”).

About the Author:  Migs Bassig is a freelance writer and journalist with a background in Mass Communications. After working for a Manila-based advertising agency, PR firm, and events organizer, he now contributes to various locally published magazines and newspapers, and is one of the authors of Metroblogging Manila. A suburbanite commuter, Migs has lived all his life in the Philippines and loves scouring the Philippine capital’s rich patina of arts and literature.