Canigao Island: The Way Out

🎵Time to say goodbye..,
Paesi che non ho mai
Veduto e vissuto con te
Adesso sì li vivrò
Con te partirò
Su navi per mari
Che, io lo so
No, no, non esistono più
It's time to say goodbye..,🎵

Ayun.., kinanta na hahaha! So let's go!

These were some of our boatmates all ready and waiting for the ride back to mainland..,

Red arrow points to our boat approaching. Blue arrow points to me myself still trampling on the water!

Another shot of our boat approaching.., and someone who couldn't get enough of the water hahaha!

There is a story to this gentleman seemingly looking at the camera, so my driver told me. He was not looking at the camera. He was not also looking at the baby (he's the dad of that cute little darling). He was glancing at the drunken ladies (previous topic). They weren't just done with their drunk dramatics!

Boarding time! One last look at the sand of Canigao. To me, it is actually colored 'pinkish-cream'..,

Somewhat pinkish, di ba? But I don't hear anyone claiming or hyping it to be so. So, I just keep quiet :)

We remembered the boarding technique - last to board sits in front!

Oh, I noted people go where they sat on the trip coming to the island. But it's not a rule, just courtesy!

And.., pushback!

Notice how quickly our boat was dragged away by the water current. This docked (and we boarded) at that corner in front of the lifeguard's high chair (already hardly seen in this picture). Very fast current.

One last look at Canigao Island.., goodbye Canigao, I'll see you again someday somehow..,

It looks smaller from this vantage. That is the northeastern edge. It is shaped like an isoceles triangle, and that stretch would be the "base". Imagine a flat-iron?! That area would be the "back" part. Ganun!

We finally arrived at the Matalom Port. Hey I have a trivia about this lengthy "bamboo walk"!

The boat captain (he was still entertaining me, I was VIP, remember?) told me that their government is making a new pier (to the left of this photo) directly behind their municipal hall. He says it'll be as long as this one, or probably even longer, but all made of concrete and of course wider. Aw, that'd be good!

Although, come to think of it, I like the challenge of traipsing on this rickety contraption hehehe!

There is that sense of being thrown back to the era of our forebears haha! Look, all eyes are on their feet - because, one false move and... OMG huwag naman po hehehe! Not good for those with children and the elderly. But yes, I did wonder how those drunken ladies we saw on the island would pass here!

This time, I disembarked last, to observe and take pictures. So here's one last look at M/B Ruthcell..,

Look, save for a few grains of sand at right, the boat remained clean and orderly, right? Maybe me and my boatmates - all of us - incidentally happened to be a group of erudite tourists. Oh ha? "Cultured" ba kumbaga! Yes, the whole boatload of us whohoa! Than the bitchy brouhas we witnessed at the island!

Oh, that rectangular "window" near the floor.., they told me that is an air intake to provide ventilation to the engine room beneath. And above that, in between the two piles of life vests, that space is the boat skipper's window to see where we were going! And the blue-walled thing at the back (right) is a toilet!

Hey it's not easy taking pictures while walking on this bamboo bridge over "un"troubled water!

See that?! I still managed to take a pic of that boat about to depart for the island. The "overnighters"!

Look! They're loading some things in styropore boxes.., nagutom na ako!

Surely that must either be frozen food ready for the grilling, or frozen delights to last them all night!

And as I got nearer mainland, I saw that boat at left also about to depart, and I got jealous..,

Why were they boarded there? Why did they not have to walk on the wobbly bamboo bridge like many of us did? A boatman calmed me down saying that is possible during high tide, esp. on smaller boats!

Okay fine hehe.., and so I reached solid ground.., mainland Leyte.., LGU Matalom!

That is the entrance (if you're going to Canigao) and the exit (if you just came from the island). Driver told me to while my time away at those colorful souvenir stalls, as he went to get his 4WD "kangga".

OMG these stores.., they teem with many abubots on sale from anything to everything!

Not only Canigao souvenirs like shirts or hats, they even have payong, fake watches, even underwear (not swimming trunks ha, brip talga)! We passed here in the morning but I didn't browse any of them.

What attracted me so much though, were these shell-craft, made by the locals..,

I know some of you will call these "baduy", but lots of the ingeniously crafted things made me smile!

Look here.., these are decorative whatevers, made of various sea shells big and small..,

But I like it that they use those shells that would otherwise just have been thrown away as trash, right?

Some of them even elicited a muffled laugh on my part.., like this shell of a "sa-ang"..,

It's now a thing with big eyes and full red kissable lips hehe! The catch: they're not easy to transport.

And I had fun listening to Manang Tindera describe all of these cute shell creations..,

I realized something, if we were like her.., surrounded with all those cute fun thigs she sells.., wouldn't we also have that kind of smile she wears everyday? I definitely believe so. It's more fun in Matalom!

Promising to visit Canigao again soon.., let's go somewhere else shall we? Okay, that's next!

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