Pre-Christmas Messabout
Three PHBYC boats were on the water in Loch Taal on the weekend of December 16.
one of the reasons I wanted to go out that weekend was to test my newly acquired 2.5hp Tohatsu from ebay.ph. Leroy helped me test it out prior to the purchase that same week, and it was running great.
upon getting to club lake though, I wanted to make sure it was still running okay before I mounted it on the boat, so I strapped it onto a sawhorse and tried to start it, and tried and tried…. and I just couldn’t get the darned thing to work. Leroy then texted that he was also on his way and so I just went for a swim and decided to wait for him. I also found out that Club Lake was fully booked that weekend for an ex-junkie convention. 
But Archie was nice enough to let us stay in his room.
Leroy got in at around 12 noon. I told him about my predicament and we went to check the motor, after giving it around five pulls, sure enough it started, much to my bemusement.
We then strapped the motor on to the boat and went for a quick run around the lake.
motoring being as boring as it is, 
we headed back in after around 5 minutes and decided to have lunch. Leroy brought some teriyaki flavored boneless bangus made by his first mate Leah, which was excellent! while we brought some salisbury steak (Cholo’s favorite. ) greatly missed was biel’s Lasagna. 
while having lunch, Archie’s guests started arriving. and soon after B’lisss, it’s Skipper and his First mate.
Leroy helped Maligno prep B’lisss while I took pictures. and soon everything was 
more or less set for B’lisss, Leroy and rigged up Ceol Beag and went for a sail. We cruised over around the area of TLYC where a few hobies were racing a triangle course.
After a few minutes at the helm I handed over the skippership to 
Leroy and we headed back to the direction of Club Lake to see if Maligno was able to launch. winds were around 10 to 15 knots which made for pretty good sailing. Soon after we saw B’lisss had launched and were heading out. with Leroy at the helm I was free to take pictures of B’lisss in all her glory. 
She was making good speed, more than us in fact. Water line length really factor in these conditions.
We sailed around for a while, and it was clearly obvious that Leroy was having a great time. But we eventually had to head back as Leroy had another commitment.
after Leroy left, i then went for a quick swim and saw B’lisss was motoring back, I then found out that her port back stay snapped.
Maligno promptly fixed the problem and motored back out. I thought they were going to raise their sails but they didn’t, they were just drifting in the middle of the lake. So the wife and I decided to 
investigate, I strapped on the motor and off we went. Upon getting there we found Maligno and Marte feasting on sandwiches and watermelon. they then directed us to come along the starboard side and broke out the blue foam fenders. We had a couple of sandwiches and knew that Cholo would enjoy this. 
So we headed back to fetch the little guy.
The there was still a fair amount of wind and B’lisss was a lot further out now than when we left her but it didn’t take us long to get there. Cholo’s primary 
motivation for coming with us was a chance to get on Maligno’s boat and as soon as we got there he jumped aboard and got comfortable. 
We spent almost an hour out there, just drifting, and all had a good time enjoying each other’s company and watching the sunset. Soon enough it was getting dark and it was time to head back. on the way back, my motor kept on stalling, so we got a tow from Rolly. having no bow eye on my boat meant I had to attach the painter to the mast 
partner. and Ceol Beag was swinging left and right the whole way back, nothing unpleasant, just funny. next time i’ll probablly just drill a hole under the breast hook. later I found out that my motor just ran out of gas.
Soon it was time for Dinner, both families didn’t make plans for dinner but found each other at the same place, a restaurant called Milan’s. A place that was supposed to be known for their maliputo dishes. We had dinner of Sinigang na maliputo, grilled porkchop, and pinakbet. and each adult had their own fresh buko. 
after dinner we then prepared to sleep. the B’lisss’ crew’s accomodations were simple and very enviable, they’d be spending the night on their boat. (Did I say I wanna be like Rolly when grow up? 
) Rolly setup a boom tent and laid a board between the cockpit seats where they laid their sleeping bags over. Pretty cool! Cheryl and Cholo went off to bed and I stayed on to have a couple of beers with Archie.
slept at around 12 am and was woken up by Cholo at around 5:30. (his usual waking time)
we had breakfast at Talisay market and went back immediately to the club lake. I gassed up the motor and mounted it back on the boat. It still kept on cutting out, I theorized maybe bubbles in the fuel line so it was pretty much a tedious starting and restarting for 
around five minutes. afterwhich it was starting to run steady again. I picked up a piece of bamboo to use as a tiller extension and sat on the center thwart and motored around for 15 minutes. with only me onboard and with the water still pretty calm I was able to get Ceol Beag to plane. It was fun.
I then picked up the brood and followed B’liss to TLYC where Tato
was Launching his VG20, On the way to the TLYC We had some peanut butter sandiwiches. And while there It was decided that the TLYC troupe be sailing on to Eric’s in Balete.
After watching Tatoski launch the VG20, I was going to take back the Cheryl and Cholo to Club lake, since they were leaving earlier than I was. while trying to get out of the waters TLYC, the prop ran aground and after that, no power was being transmitted to the prop. Marte was very kind to pull as back as the wind was slamming us against the bankas.
Sure enough, it was a broken shear pin. Luckily Tato was still around and had a spare that would fit mine. Cholo and Cheryl went ahead to Club lake on B’lisss and Marte stayed on while I fixed the prop.
With the prop fixed Marte and I followed on to Club lake, where rolly was installing a makeshift bamboo batten on the jib as it was excessivley flutttering the day before.
I was contemplating on sailing to Balete on Ceol Beag but was eventually convinced by Maligno to ride on B’lisss instead. which turned out to be a good thing. a very good thing.
and so we we’re off to raid Balete, Myself, Maligno and his First Mate on B’lisss and Tato and his two "galley slaves" on the VG20.
All the way to Nalipayon rock it was fairly uneventful, winds were fairly strong with one to two foot swells, but still manageable. To be able to blow through the gusts better Marte attached a line to the opposite side of the boat so I can hike out, which i did. Tato started ahead of us but we were able to catch up and eventually overtake him. frequent checks with the GPS showed our speed averaging around 5.8 kts boosting to 6.5 kts.
there was a short calm at the channel between Nalipayon and the mainland because of the mainland’s wind shadow, but we were able to breeze on through. After giving eric a call we were able to get a visual bearing on where his place was. It was directly up wind, and the wind was slightly stonger than it was when we were taking 
nalipayon island from talisay. This is where we saw Tato bearing away and heading back.
we were still around 2 to 3 kilometers out and and we tried to tack three times to get to our destination but found ourselves not getting any headway at all. So it was decided that it was time to drop the sails and motor in. my hands and my butt were starting to ache and was somewhat glad that we were able to motor, we were all getting hungry too.
After a few minutes we were at Balete and were met by Eric. he showed us around their property and sat us down to a great meal of sinaing na bangus. It was fun being there, despite the karaoke machines blaring in the background. but then again where in the philippines are there not any karaoke machines.
Soon it was time to go. from where we were the water seemed 
pretty tame. and getting out was fairly easy. It was a straight run at around 5 kts. but I think the pressure of the boom on the repaired backstay was too much and snapped it again. the further we went, the stronger the wind was and the chop was growing with it. We were hoping to get some shelter at the point to nalipayon but we were being blown towards the shore. Maligno thought it might be a lee shore and we would be able to fix the busted shroud there, but it wasn’t, the wind was as prominent there was in the middle. We could’ve jibed away but I don’t think Maligno wanted to risk it with a broken backstay. It was decided to drop the sails and head for the nearest beach (lee shore or not) fix the backstay and maybe reef the main. even with the sail down we were still getting plenty of windage and were heading towards some parked bankas. Marte jumped to prevent a collision and ordered me to do the same. the two of us were eventually able to point the boat to the wind. and I held B’lisss in that position while the couple fixed the port backstay and secured the sails.
Despite the beautiful sunny day. the wind was totally out of whack. and showed no signs of letting up. so it was decided that to just motor back. Much to my dissapointment 
.
With the chop in the middle of lake at 3 to 4 feet. the shortest course wasn’t actually the best. so we hugged the shore and took the long way home. but even when motoring close to shore the wind was still pretty strong, even with the sails down, the boat would still heel at the gusts. It was during this that Marte was thankful of having large moving balast like me, as all that was needed to level the boat during these times was for me to tilt my head.
It was a nice scenic trip back, as none of us have ever been to that side of the lake before. coming from the east though meant we had to dodge the myriad of fishpens east of talisay market. from a distance it looks like one bigass fishpen, but actually it’s just a bunch of small fish pens with spaces between them. archie later told me that those fishpens are fairly easy to navigate with a motor, and in fact they used to race speedboats through those a few years back. we eventually got out of that maze and were in sight of talisay market.
upon getting back to club lake, we noticed that my boat was gone and so was my motor! which was mounted to rolly’s trailer when we left. We were then met by Robert who told me in not so many words (well actually, no words at all) that my boat was washed away and drifted out and he had to swim out to retrieve it. He also told me that he already put the boat away since it was already getting late. Not bad for a deaf mute huh?
Later, archie told me that his cousin Roy saw Robert carrying the whole boat back up on his back. Man! with help like that who needs a trailer. That person’s feats of strength never cease to amaze me.
We left club lake at around 7:30 and had dinner at Milan’s again. this time we had Kare-kare, Chop-suey, sizling squid and some italian fruit cake. and ofcourse the fresh buko. Milan’s is about a minutes drive east from the Talisay municipal hall .
