Stephane's thoughts corner…

Stephane Bailliez's thoughts on everything

I’m leaving tomorrow to the Philippines for a ‘Grand Slam’. I’m joining some friends for an underwater photography shoot-out from April 29th to May 24th. (yay !)

• Arrive in Manila and stay for a few days
• Transfer to Puerto Galera in Mindoro Island and stay at Mermaid Resort
• Transfer to Anilao and stay at Solana Resort
• Fly to Dumaguete on Negros Island and transfer to Duain at the Eldorado Resort.

I’m bringing a decent amount of new underwater photography gear including Ikelite housing for my D80, a 8″ dome for wide angle (12-24 and 10.5mm), macro 105mm with woody diopter and all necessary ports. That will be the first time underwater with it. I’ll try not to flood it…

On the diving gear side, I’m bringing an Aqualung Kronos which has an exhaust deflector on the side and can be handy for photography (assertion to be verified really). I got tired of the Scubapro MK16/R395 which never was that great to me as I felt it was too hard to breath despite tuning and revision at the labs. (not noticeable at the beginning but after 4-5 dives a day for a week or so, you feel it.)

Anyway, off to Manila tomorrow.

I have a bit of time so I will write my first feelings as a dumb tourist in the Philippines. Being there for only a week. All in all this was my first contact with Asia if I except a couple of long or short term involvement with people in the French and American asian community. Anyway. What first strikes as a man in the Philippines is obviouslly the deep interest you attract toward Filipinos young women. And I can tell you that there are some extremely attractive one !
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I just received an email from TopClassHost support . The site is being moved to a better featured and more reliable control panel. This will correct the email and permission problems. The move will be completed today, and the new access details forwarded to you.. I’m crossing my fingers ;|.
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As some of you may have noticed my host provider TopClassHost was unable to offer redundancy yesterday and thus the whole site was unavailable for some unknown time. They even did not configure the website properly to avoid a 404 error on url with paths only the root was displaying the maintenance message
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I’m back to Cebu City after a week spent diving in Moalboal. I left around 10AM from Moalboal and took a V-Hire for 60 pesos. A V-Hire is a Filipino-style ‘matatu’ meaning that it is not an official mean of transport and not registered by the minister but they are much more confortable than the local buses. Moreover they are air-conditionned, take up about 12 peoples only (unlike in Africa they don’t stuff as much people as possible inside) and a little bit faster (though driving here is a constant challenge between pedestrians, tricycle, motorbike, buses, dogs, etc… ).
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