Kwajalein Atoll.......: Nagtabon Beach....November 14th

Ok, apparently it was actually the 13th I was there. A Sunday. I didn't really get it at first, why it was so crowded, and I was nearly the only white guy there. I didn't get it mostly because of just wanting to learn to get on the 6'4" surfboard they had for rent there and try to surf what little break they had. It wasn't about surfing, it was about learning to get on a smaller board. What a beautiful place to learn. Nagtabon beach is this beautiful valley about 30 minutes from Puerto Princesa. You have to travel through rural countryside to get there, a lot of curvy kind of uphill and rural but concrete roads to get there. Once away from Puerto Princesa the road goes down to two lanes, not that anyone here really cares about what a lane is. The rural people dry there rice on the roadways. They put tarps down, half past the white stripe that is the official edge of the road and half into the grass that is what we would refer to as the berm. So 4 feet into the road in a place like Hocking County in Southern Ohio where the roads are all curvy and hilly, they would have a tarp halfway into a lane or nearly so, with rice on it. It seemed the only flat dry sunfilled, windfilled area they might have available, so they use it. The sun provides the heat, and the passing cars and scooters, and tricycles, and etc provide the wind. It just seems odd, from the Ohio boy standpoint, that someone would clog up half a lane on a blind curve to dry their rice. They also use the side of the road to graze their Ox. Nose ring tied to a tree or whatever, you come blasting around a corner to see what, as far as I know, a 2000 pound water buffalo standing next to a road you could be doing 45 mph on. The Ox don't care, neither do the goats they tether there. Dogs here on the other hand bring new meaning to "don't care" as far as roadway etiquette might be concerned. Near the city or out in the middle of no where, the dogs just chill. Halfway thru the lanes, in the middle, they just seem not to care. Many of them, probably are wanting suicide, most I've seen are fairly healthy, none are overweight.

So the last bit of journey into Nagtabon is way downhill. When going today, I stopped to take a picture from the roadway before heading down the hill. It was too tree covered to really get a good shot, but I tried. While I was standing there, a silent scooter went by with a Filipino guy on it. The engine was off, he was saving gas. I followed suit, didn't start my motor and coasted downhill to the beach. The locals, I'm guessing, have a spot for cars and such, but the tricycles and motorcycles and scooters just kind of squeeze into the end of the road before the beach starts and before the two huts that kind of mark the beginning of the beach. I'm guessing its all privately owned. You go between two beach huts (picture what you might consider a well built tiki hut) and there is the south china sea. To the left there are a few more beach huts that sell stuff, canoes with outriggers, and more "rental huts" that are basically a picnic table covered in Tiki hut style. To the right there is the same except more huts that sell stuff. I settled in on one to the right. This beautiful Palawan girl missing all her front teeth had a kind of big stand with 4 picnic table size tables under shade/rain cover all palm leave covered like most of them. Her daughters and mother worked it all with her, I'm guessing they all just lived right there under the cover from rain. The bugs are not really an issue except maybe the flies, but they go away at night. Flies/ bugs must not be too big of a deal here because many ride their cycles full bore with no eye protection.

So Nagtabon Beach is around 6km long, if one were to walk it from the one side cliff to the next. The beach at low tide and high tide is still much larger than what I've taken for granted living in the Marshalls. (yes I feel cool saying that). The sand is a dirty blonde. They report no sharks, but the whole valley beach has no reason to have a bunch of fish that sharks may feed off of...so no sharks. This place is probably the most beautiful beachy spot I've ever witnessed in my life. Its just the remote untouched feel of it mainly I'd guess.

So today, Sunday, I came here to rent the surfboard from the guy who rents surfboards, kind of. Dominic, my friend from the hotel, helped me find him. The waves aren't really good for surfing, but they are good for learning to get on/ride a shorter board. After spending two hours in the water today, I went to the beautiful lady missing most her top front teeth. She had some food that looked kind of good, chicken based. I can see why Americans are so big, versus the Asians. The servings here are more realistic based on the energy output of the Philippinos. They are small, very small even if you include the rice. Its been no secret to me that we eat too much, that I eat too much. Even given my active nature, my caloric intake is more than I need.

So the beautiful jet black haired, nearly thirty something Philippino beach lady missing most of her top front teeth, with several cute kids, and a mother working the hut too, gives me grief about not having a smaller denomination than what I have had. I give the grief back. All is good.

After spending a few hours surfing, returning the board, then getting something to eat, I sit and wait, just watching all the people on the beach. Its then I realize that its Sunday and the Philippinos are big time family people and that is why the beach is so crowded. It starts to rain. It rains hard for a long while. I'm under cover, half of the people are under cover of tiki huts made of palm leaves, just like you might picture from a perfect beach deal. The other half of the people just don't care. They play volleyball, they continue to play in the water. The group in front of where I'm sitting tries to avoid the rain for a while, hiding under their hut and the tarp that covers the area in front of me. They are drinking beer as evidenced by the empty Grandes under their benches in the hut. Then they kind of embrace the rain. They use the water off the tarp to do their dishes, after hiding under the tarp long enough to realize the rain is not going to stop. Women with jeans on, that were initially trying to stay dry, gave up and come back from the ocean soaked.

After a while, I give up, and ask for a San Miguel Grande. Its a fourty ouncer of San Miguel, a Filipino made beer. So the toothless woman says.."so you're drinking now". It continued raining until I finished the beer. A Spanish couple was under the cover of the toothless girls hut also. The rain continues and rather than try and drive my motor bike home in it, I decide to go body surfing. The body surfing was going well, but these kids around 14 had a 4 seater kayak with two paddles. They were trying to surf the waves in. It was kind of working. I yelled at them when they were out there perched to catch a wave, and screamed for them to paddle as a wave approached. It was hilarious. They kind of rode a wave in, but mostly the kayak just turned on them and they wiped out and dumped everyone. They offered me a seat....and hell yea I took it. One asked me if I spoke Taglog. I only recognized that one word and said no. He said "English" and after that I was guessing he was yelling "paddle white dog" although I doubt it because they are so nice an respectful. There was a lot of screaming going on as we tried to catch waves. It nearly always ended in the kayak full of 4 or 5 of us side shifting and dumping and more screaming. A few times there was pain, but mostly it was all just a bunch of laughing as we came up. Others came out and wanted to ride. They had to, we were the loudest things on the water. I saw some people throwing a Frisbee and was quick to say thank you and leave. Trust me, I was sooo happy to play with them on the kayak. So I gave the guys on the beach firs thing my light up Frisbee. It was middle of the day, I don't think they got the coolness of it. We had a huge Frisbee circle going then a midget field of ultimate started. Perfectly awesome! Playing ultimate in a foreign country on the most beautiful huge beach I've ever been to with a bunch of guys who just scream a lot for fun.

So this one give no justice to the view, but as my time here progressed and I kept returning to the beach the little pile of gravel pictured here on the outside of the road, all safe and stuff, continued to grow and get dangerous. The piles showed up on the inside of the steep curves going to the beach, more than halfway thru the roadway. Gravel is bad for two wheel vehicles, very bad. They don't care.