Alray and I asked around and a local fisherman said he would take us there for 200 pesos. We got into the banka and we were off. It took about a half hour to get to the port of Santa Cruz. As we walked up the hill I noticed lots of kids on their way to school. Santa Cruz National High School was just up the road. Being a teacher, I decided to go for a visit and talk to the local teachers about their school and education in general.

When we got to the entrance to the school, I asked the security officer if I could speak to the principal for a few minutes. He said sure sir, and took us to the school office. While waiting in the outer office, I spoke to many of the teachers there and they were very interested to know about my teaching experience and school in Pennsylvania. I spoke to them and found out that this school doesn’t have electrical power until about 4pm. I even tried a little (gamay kaayo) of my Bisaya. They also only have one computer for the entire school. Even though this school had very little technology and other resources, the staff was friendly and professional. All this happened before class time. When the bell rang, classes started and it was our time to leave.

On the way back to the boat -banka, I thought, in the future, I would like to come back for another visit and see how they are doing. Maybe they would have some more electricity and a few more computers to help educate the students for the 21st century.

Before leaving Talicud, we visited a small resort, Clarita Beach Resort, located on the edge of the town. The beach was nice and clean and the water warm and clear. Only problem is that it’s way off the beaten path. They also have rooms to rent on the beach for about 500 pesos per night.

On the way back to Digos, we stopped at the Philippine Eagle Center outside of Davao. While on this trip, I brought my Canon camera which is capable of video and my cell phone which which can also record video but at much less resolution. I see now that I have to make a greater effort to hold the camera still, but this is difficult when recording from a small camera. That is why I think it’s best to keep these videos short. I hope to improve in future posts.

Talicud island from Kevin Smith on Vimeo.

I’m still learning how to use iMovie but I think I’ve got the basics down. I also now have all the video on my mini DV cam on an external hard drive. This is a bid advantage because I can scan quickly for the parts of the video I’m interested in. Many parts of the video I am talking to my wife so she can see what it looks like. She was not too keen on riding on the motor and decided to stay home and watch our daughter.

The Bat Cave Samal from Kevin Smith on Vimeo.

We started our road trip in Babak and then went north up to visit the bat caves. After the caves, we continued north up to the new marina and then down the east coast. The road goes along the coast until Canibad. The road drifts inland and after a short time I couldn’t see the water anymore. After heading inland, we got lost for a while because some of the intersections have no signs and the map I had really didn’t help.

After driving around for a while, we asked some of the local people which way back to Penaplata. They gave us directions and we made it to Penapata and then we rode down to Kuputian. We stayed the night there on the beach in a tree house. During the night, there was an amazing wind and rain storm which caused the tree to sway in the wind. The following day, we took a bangka to visit Talikud Island and look around. These are stories for another day.

I’ve been working on transferring video from my mini DVD to a hard drive so it can be edited in iMovie. I use Flickr and they have a 90 second limit on video uploads. I’ve decided to keep my video posts to this time limit as I like Flickr and the short time helps me decide what is important to show.

Update: I’ve switched to Vimeo to see how that works. I tried to update SPCShelter and was unsuccessful. Because of this, I had to revert to a backup from two weeks ago and lost two weeks of data.

Samal Philippines bike trip 2008 from Kevin Smith on Vimeo.

We visited Davao and Mindanao Bob showed us around town. We also took a day trip to Samal and fell in love with the island. We bought a small lot on the island. A month later, I decided to go back to Samal and explore more of the island. The plan was for my brother-in-law to drive the motorcycle and I would ride on the back. We both packed an overnight bag and some water.

Our trip started in Digos and we rode to Davao. This was my first long range trip riding on the back of a motorcycle and I was a little apprehensive, but after a while, it was fun and exciting. Once in Davao, we took the ferry to Samal and from there we were off. This is the first part of our trip, going from Digos to Davao and driving to the ferry in Davao. This will be a four or five part post.

Next, my trip on the ferry from Davao to Samal.