Sea dreams

By Marifi Jara

I promised last week to write about how excited I got about the ferry service between the cities of Dagupan, Alaminos and San Fernando in La Union so here goes.

At the turn of the century, as I was working for BusinessWorld Online, we undertook a project called The Mobile Media. The general idea was to go around the country to check on the internet-readiness of the Philippines by actually testing whether there are means through which we could send stories and photos from different locations and get them on the website in real time.

During the Visayas leg of the project, I very much enjoyed all the boat trips as we hopped from one island to another. It was an experience on a wide range of sea vessels including the traditional Philippine outrigger banka, the efficient and comfortable fast crafts that hourly ply the waters between Bacolod and Cebu, and a dreadful barge (it must have been some forgotten  relic  from the Second World War) that ever so slowly moves between Dumaguete City and the mystical island of Siquijor (I heard news recently that the barge has finally been replaced by a more sea-worthy boat).

The waters were a breathtaking endless highway and I thought then how it is a sleeping prospect for our archipelago.

My belief about the potential of developing local sea transport around the Philippines, notwithstanding past disasters of big passenger boats sinking in the middle of the ocean mostly because of commercial greed and government neglect, was significantly reinforced by Bruce Curran, a Scotsman and a long-time resident of the Philippines who considers himself a “white Asian”.

He is a seaman to the very core and used to own a 21-foot yatch parked in Subic, which actually has a fastcraft service to and from Manila that could perhaps be some sort of a model for the ferry service plans here in Pangasinan.

I met Bruce on a travel writing seminar and invited him to be our regular contributor for the then “Oh-my-Philippines!” column under our travel website for expats in the country.

He would pioneer, with support from BusinessWorld Online and The Mobile Media, the concept of banca safaris (www.bancasafaris.com/whoweare.htm) and publish a big, hard-bound and colorful book entitled Combing the Coral Carpet (www.combingthecoralcarpet.com), a sailing guide for the Philippines. The second volume of the book is in the works and only financial constraints are keeping him from finally finishing it.

Bruce would become one of my very good friends and after I moved here up north, on his occasional trips to Baguio, he would usually make a stop at our home in San Fabian so we could catch up on each other’s life adventures and misadventures.

He would be very, very delighted, perhaps dancing and jumping with joy, when I tell him about the planned Dagupan-Alaminos-San Fernando ferry service. Me, I already am dancing and jumping with joy.

I know it is still just in the planning stage and plenty of things need to be threshed out.

But, hey, it is healthy to keep the dreamer in us.

******

My cousin Grace Fronda, who is among the big San Fabian community in the United States, e-mailed this last week regarding my previous I am Home column: “Read your article.  I have the song at ang pangalan ng babaeng  artist ay Dianne Reeves.  It’s a very nice song.  Haven’t heard of Lea’s version yet.  I will look for it.”

Thanks Ate G.!

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/roots/
Readers may reach columnist at marifijara@gmail.com . For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

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