Bohemian Boats

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 Santos, a photographer friend, made a louder splash: a thunderous beckoning, it seemed, to someone who had no intention of swimming (or, to be more precise, of having his fear of the waters exposed).

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

Petrified, I tried to swim and take note of what was happening around me. In an event dubbed as the “Summer Messabout,” held in a Philippine beach resort called Taal Lake Yacht Club, 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 colors. Taal Volcano was a beauty to behold, too: a faraway mound full of textures, imaginings and mysteries.

Other PHBYC members, meanwhile, built a canoe on site – at Commodore Peter Capotosto’s Philippine beach resort – 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 just 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 the prologue to that. He was from the northern province of Tuguegarao, Cagayan; attended Ateneo de Manila; studied English literature in college; photographed professionally for seven years then ran his own theater company.

“Ahoy! Ahoy!” we afterwards yelled at those who happened to sail nearby. Also at those who were on the shores of the Philippine beach resort. 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 of them waved at us as though we were friends either long-lost or newly-made. 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.

*** Attractions Philippines editor’s note: 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 very dangerous. (“It’s very safe,” said Rolly. “You’ve simply got to respect the water.”)