Hanging in the Air

The sea is blue and calm. The wind blew gently from the North, shimmering the surface of the sea in bright sunshine. The conditions has been like this for the past 3 days, perfect for paddling - except that we still don't have all our kayaks with us.

SEAIR, who has so generously agreed to fly our kayaks in, is taking a long time to do so. 6 kayaks and most of our 160kg of ration are still in Manila, and we don't know when they will be sent. We went to the airport yesterday and received only 2 kayaks.

Each day the sea beckons us. The waves are gently lapping on the shores beneath us. We climbed up the hills as high as we could, just to get a glimpse of the sea. On the highest point, as far as we could see, perhaps for tens of miles out to the Pacific, the sea is calm and blue. We sat there and watch.

The expedition is 12 days long. There is a lot of time to be patient with such delays and nuisance. There are also a lot of reasons to jump and complain about the inefficiencies and delays. Yet we can also be grateful of what we have got.

Yesterday was supposed to be Expedition Day 2. Because of the delay, we were invited to a birthday party of Nicole, a pretty 7-year old granddaughter of Dely. Surrounded by friends, families, and strangers, among delicious traditional Ivantan fare, we celebrated!