Manicure 20,000 leagues under the sea (sort of)

Ruins of Mile long Barracks on Corregidor

Our trip began with a brief stopover in Manila, a crowded bustling city  of 1.6 million people.   Manila was bombed flat by the Japanese in WWII; then again by the Americans when they liberated it, so almost anything of historical significance is gone. You can easily cover what is there in one day.  If you are going to stay a bit longer the day trip to Corregidor is definitely worth the effort.  Corregidor, an island guarding the approaches to Manila, is where the Americans, against all odds, held out for five months, before surrendering.  It’s where Douglas MacArthur issued his  famous “I shall return.”  The ruins are quite spectacular, including the tunnels where the Americans held out for months, the mile long barracks, and the sophisticated artillery that was made instantly irrelevant  when the airplane was invented. 

THE PHILIPPINES “I shall return.”

About five years ago I went to the Philippines with my Gambier buddy Bruce for some diving and R&R.  I never did a proper blog of that trip, so here it is – better late than never! I found it a great place to visit – even if you aren’t a diver.  Great beaches, wonderful people and very very economical.  As General Douglas McArthur said, “I shall return.”

  

Blow the (Grober)man down!

Normally I don’t write about our stay at our summer place on Gambier Island, but this past week we survived one of the biggest wind storms the Vancouver area has seen in decades. Gambier Island is only a few hours from our home, but to get there you have to catch the cat, pack up the car, drive an hour to the marina (while listening to the cat complain about my driving), then unpack the car, pack the boat, launch the boat and drive the twenty minutes or so to Gambier Island (there is no road access) and listen to the cat complain about my boating skills.

 Once there it’s unpack the boat, carry the stuff up the dock, load up the ATV wagon and drive up to the cabin. Then it’s time to rest and recover for the rest of the day. The cat generally heads for the high country and is not seen again for some time - once it was seven months.

As I mentioned earlier there was an enormous wind storm last week (August 29, 2015) and we managed to survive it despite doing some pretty stupid things that might have qualified us for a Darwin Award. I put together a four minute video you might find interesting. “Kids – don’t try this at home. Leave it to professionals who all have University degrees.

NEXT:  The Philippines Revisited