COOLWATERWORKS

Fishing first. I have decided, together with friends, to have my very first fishing adventure here in Cebu two Saturdays ago. Before you let your imagination run wild, it was just an activity held within the assuring waters of a commercial fish pen here in the island of Mactan wherein one is almost always assured of a catch – or we just thought so.

We all agreed to avoid the sun and to go around mid-afternoon. As the weather would have her own way, she decided to pour out a torrential rain during noon. I have decided to cancel but one strong optimist prevailed (since our food were already packed and prepared) and eventually the rain stopped at the appointed time of our group’s meeting.

We went to the Kalawisan Fishing Village. There were several pens to choose from – containing milkfish, tilapia, crabs and sea bass.

High with excitement, we immediately settled and scouted for positions to taunt the fishes with feeds and dough on a hook.

After two hours, the excitement wore off. The fishes were there alright, but they are far too intelligent to know that they will probably end up in live coals if they decide to take a bite off the dough. But to break the unlucky streak from all of us, Providence probably allowed one and only one catch by the hook.

So as not to spoil the original intent of eating fresh fish, we decided to buy some from their aquarium and had it grilled along with the one and only catch.

Never disheartened, we still had a sumptuous dinner to cap the afternoon’s adventure and some poses on the sides didn’t hurt.

Now for “parking”. Last Saturday, I decided to visit D’ Family Park in Talamban, Cebu City. The last time I’ve been to this park was about 5 years ago together with my fellow cadet engineers from the company where I currently work. They have a mini-zoo and the last time I went there I had no camera.

The mini-zoo is still there but I think it lacked proper maintenance. Some animals looked ghastly and dirty. Some cages are already empty. The dead animals were not replaced with new ones. 

But there are always saving graces.

I particularly liked the Brahminy kites (Haliastur indus). There were many of them lodged inside a cage. They all stood very honorably despite being captives. Only one was out of shade and I decided to take a photo through the screen.

Beside the kites’ cage was a big Rufous Hornbill (Buceros hydrocorax). This is also known as the Philippine Hornbill and locally as “kalaw”. The hornbill was very active. I find it hard to take a picture since the bird has the tendency to quickly bend its head and body and look directly into the camera as if curious of it.  It would have been good if its movements were slower. I ended up taking several blurred pictures.

I then moved on to the pond. I was expecting to see ducks and geese there since there were many during my last visit.

Instead, I find a pond on the verge of eutrophication. There were so many carps and tilapias and kids trying to fool them with pebbles for food.

As I stayed there, I liked the reflection of the nearby trees as well as the lotuses. I ended up composing for reflections.

I call this next one as “Quartet”. I liked the clustering of the lotus leaves as well as the minimal reflections of the closed lotus buds.

This is my favorite shot.

I always have this silent respect for water lilies and lotuses. In a way, they remind me of what our ideal should be: to rise with dignity above mud and dirty water.