The Fluvial Parade

Last Thursday, 13th of May, Puerto Galera celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Fatima. As part of the celebration, religious groups offered flowers to the Lady the whole week before Her feast day. The Virgin Mary is a most beloved religious figure especially in the Philippines being a pre-dominantly Roman Catholic country with over 85% of the population are Catholics.

In Puerto Galera, She holds a special place in the hearts of the townspeople and in Her honor, three consecutive masses were held in the morning. After the masses, all boats were blessed with the holy water by the parish priest followed by a fluvial procession with the Pagoda as the main attraction. The pagoda holds the image of the Our Lady of Fatima and as it floated down the sea, other boats joined in to honor her as they sailed around the cove.

Our Lady of Fatima ready for its procession

Curiously, the town of Puerto Galera is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, another incarnation of the Virgin Mary, but the town also honors her as the Our Lady of Fatima because as the story goes, the Our Lady of Fatima is the patron saint of the local boatmen.

Her feast day ended with another procession around the town proper led by the parish priest and religious groups which culminated with a celebration in the parish church.

The IMS Health Group at Coco Beach

Last week, the IMS Health Philippines Inc. (Industry of Pharmaceutical Research and Consultancy) with 63 happy and lively employees, together with their manager Mr. Al Castro and group organizer/coordinator Ms. Gigi Herrera, visited Coco Beach for their company holiday and some exciting activities.

The Gegemons with their IMS Planet

To make their holiday memorable, IMS Health group decided to have interesting games and activities. After lunch, the group was divided into three teams… team1 named Gegemon, team 2 Dedemon and team 3 is Pokemon, and they competed in different beach games like tug-of-war, an exciting caterpillar and sand castle building. The main activity is the sand castle building where each group was required to explain the concept of their sand castle and the function of every character in their work. The team Gegemon Wilma, Ricson, Annie Beth, Carissa, Charmei, Sof, Laune, DJ, Michael, Nobledo, Nina, Janet, Evelyn,Jipeh, Manny and Kamiew won the game and called their sand castle IMS Planet. They received cash prizes from the company through their manager, Al.

Their activities went on until the sunset

In the evening, the boisterous group had a barbeque party by the beach, “boodle-boodle style”. When one eats boodle-boodle, everybody eats in front of a long table lined with banana leaves and all the food is placed on top of the leaves. Spoons and forks are not allowed so you have to eat by hand!

Next day, they went to White Beach and bought some souvenirs to bring back home. The IMS group really had a great time at Coco Beach since they found the place beautiful and interesting with great accommodations and service from the staff!

“All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy”, as the saying goes and for this past week, staffers from the different departments of Coco Beach took one day off for some rest and relaxation to re-charge and energize themselves after more than six months of hard work with the high season in full swing.

Kitchen Department chills on the sands of Dulangan

To start off, the Kitchen Department and the Info Activity Guides headed by Chef Noel and Lyzzelle had their own outings in two of Oriental Mindoro’s tourist destinations. The Kitchen Department went to the Madonna Beach in Barangay Dulangan. This small cove has a statue of the Virgin Mary guarding over the sea. The Madonna beach is also locally known as “Aplayang Munti”. Of course, the staff had to be divided in two batches since kitchen could not be closed totally for one day The groups had a whole day of fun swimming and karaoke singing by the beach with lots of food and drinks to go around.

The first batch… Chef de Partie Onyong (Main Restaurant), Chef Lito (Trattoria Sotto le Stelle) Chef Weng (Touch of Asia), Jhun (head baker), Edwin (cook), Rose (pantry) Inday and Linda (canteen cooks) and Peter (dishwasher)

The second batch… Chef de Partie Erickson (Carabao Restaurant), Chef Addie (Doña Lina Restaurant), Danny (cook), Christian and Edgar (cook/pantry), Christopher (helper cook), Eddie (helper) and Art and Michael (dishwashers).

The Activity Guides enjoys the cool water of Lantuyan River

At the same time that the Kitchen staff were having fun on the first day, the Activity Guides together with in-house Dr. Ariel, enjoyed their own outing in the Lantuyan River in the town of Baco where they enjoyed the crystal clear fresh water cascading down various rock formations and numerous lagoons.

Lantuyan River is one of the secret places our Activity Guides discovered a long time ago. Many of Coco Beach’s guests have visited this place and they all found the place beautiful because of the natural scenery and the friendly Hanunuo Mangyans who live close by the river. To reach their village, one has to cross first a 200 meter long hanging bridge. It is located in the middle of the jungle and at the foot of Mt. Halcon, one of the country’s tallest and most technical peaks to climb.

The activity guides are Elian, Jojo, Darwin, Belen, May-may, Romel, RJ, Mhay and Milcah together with Dr. Ariel, Warlito (Services Department) and Grace (Accounting clerk).

The Front Office and Shopping Arcade Personnel also enjoys the Lantuyan River

Another batch of Coco Beach staffers went to Lantuyan River, the group consisted of Front Office and Admin Personnel and the Shopping arcade group. As with the previous outings, this group also had plenty of fun with their underwater shots, plenty of food and drinks and the close friendships among them.

The 2nd batch consisted of Ging Laure (resort manager), Lyzzelle (HR), Nena R. (Sr. Accounting Officer), Frontdesk ladies Melody and Joanne, Purchaser Sally, Shopping Arcade personnel Kris and Glenrose, masseuses Layah and Ilynn with Dr. Ariel Torres and bartender, Dennis and some of the children of Coco Beach.

There are about 40 species these often brightly colored fishes. They are marked by lines and spots and they inhabit tropical waters throughout the world. Most are found in relatively shallow, coastal habitats, especially at coral reefs.

A common seen triggerfish around Puerto Galera is the Picasso triggerfish, with its bright colors.

Triggerfish have an oval, highly compressed body. The head is large, terminated in a small but strong- jawed mouth with teeth adapted for crushing shells. The eyes are small, set far back from the mouth, at the top of the head. They differ in sizes from around 20 cm – the red-tooth triggerfish up to 80 cm – the titan triggerfish.

Another common triggerfish in our area is the clown triggerfish. It is easily recognized by its dark upper body and its big white dots.

As a protection against predators and to show that they are angry, triggerfish can erect the first two dorsal spines: The first spine is locked in place by erection of the short second spine, and can be unlocked only by depressing the second, “trigger” spine, hence the family name “triggerfish”

A yellow-margin triggerfish is often mistaken to be a titan triggerfish because of its size.

The rather bizarre anatomy of the triggerfish reflects their typical diet of slow-moving, bottom dwelling crustaceans, mollusks, sea urchins and other echinoderms, generally creatures with protective shells and spines.

An orange-line triggerfish in search for some food among the corals.

A few, for example the red-tooth triggerfish mainly feed on plankton. They are known to exhibit a level of intelligence that is unusual among fishes, and have the ability to learn from previous experiences. The red-tooth triggerfish is also the only triggerfish species which normally don’t swim alone. You can sometimes see schools of over 200 red-tooth triggerfish swimming together.

A single red-tooth triggerfish swimming close to the reef.

Some triggerfish species can be quite aggressive when guarding their eggs. Both the Picasso and titan triggerfish viciously defend their nests against intruders, including scuba divers and snorkelers. Their territory extends in a cone from the nest toward the surface, so swimming upwards can put a diver further into the fishes' territory; a horizontal swim away from the nest site is best when confronted by an angry triggerfish.

A titan triggerfish at safe distance.

Unlike the relatively small Picasso triggerfish, the Titan triggerfish poses a serious threat to inattentive divers due to its large size and powerful teeth.

If you look into a Titan triggerfishes mouth at this distance… you are TOO close. (The diver who took this picture was luckily not bitten or attacked).