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txt[1] ="Sailing from Hagnaya on Cebu Island to Bantayan which is just visible in the distance
The guy washing the lunchtime dishes on the ferry - I didn't bother with lunch!
The island now in sight with the Santa Fe Beach Club in the middle of the picture. 8/06/2009"
txt[2] ="The welcoming meal at the house with some of the family and friends and a welcome message in flower petals as I came in the door
8/06/2009"
txt[3] ="Washing machines - one biological and one electrical!"
txt[4] ="The new workshop to be - 17 feet by 15 feet - a lot bigger than the Malaysian one"
txt[5] ="Building the barbecue area back to what it was 10 years ago .
Complete with electric light and running water. The pig-roasting barbecue is on the right - so far just trees as main supports for the roof. 
Cutting and transporting our own trees to the saw-mill to make the supports for the barbecue
15/06/2009"
txt[6] ="Firewood being delivered Philippine style!"
txt[7] ="Dogs in seperate bedrooms in the unit that Alita's brother is building 21/06/2009"
txt[8] ="The new generator arrived today - 5KVA diesel air-cooled supposedly silent with electric start etc, all for under £650. 28/06/2009"
txt[9] ="One of the many residents at the house - a baby ghekko - he's only about 11 inches long"
txt[10]="View from my study room
View down the back - the land is ours as far as the eye can see. It will make for a super jungle track for the Simplex and later the Black 5.
Building the perimeter wall"
txt[11]="Now we have the barbecue area working, Joso's old barbecue has been appropriated by a neighbour! 30/06/2009"
txt[12]="A Swedish friend Kjell and his wife who live on Bantayan for proportions of the year. They run the Santa Fe Heights resort. 05/07/2009"
txt[13]="One of nature's strange phenomena - termites taking to flight to make new nests. Millions upon millions all seem to do it on the same night and gather in these strange clusters to shed their wings and crawl away. 06/07/2009
"
txt[14]="Having a small celebration of my freedom after 10 years of being theoretically under arrest, the case was dismissed absolutely!
Little mud crabs - the claw meat is extremely sweet and tasty - later we had big crabs and I ended up with indigestion from too many crabs and perhaps a little excess of beer!
On Sunday we will be roasting a pig - pics to follow. 09/07/2009"
txt[15]="Preparing for the party -
Poor little piggies arriving
One on the spit 12/07/2009
"
txt[16]="Leaving tomorrow to return to Malaysia with a view to packing up our life there and coming back to live on the island.
This is how the house looked 16 years ago when we first built it.
"
txt[17]="The workers preparing their version of a farewell dinner for me - don't know what it was as someone had already cut off the head - me, I'm just having chicken lol!"
txt[18]="The Move from Malaysia - Our life in Malaysia being packed ino multitudinous cardboard boxes to fill 2 twenty foot containers to the brim.
06/08/2009
Now arrived on Bantayan. Getting the 300 kilo milling machine out of the container. They thought it was VERY heavy until they realised that the stand had been nailed to the floor of the container Lol!
The cardboard city in the living room here!
Most of the boxes were outside in the bodegas. 06/10/2009"
txt[19]="Some of the workers having their evening meal at the new table in the dirty kitchen area - the fancy carving has all been done by hand in-situ on the existing neem tree support for the dirty kitchen. 04/12/2009"
txt[20]="Our first pump boat just in the water on this auspicious day - 18th!
This one will be fishing for mackerel - the second one will be going for crabs etc. 18/01/2010"
txt[21]="The new poultry I'm building on the other piece of land - 240 feet long by 35 feet wide, to house 3,000 broilers. Hopefully it might make a profit!
16/05/2010"
txt[22]="My first attempt at bean sprouts - 3 days from germinating - more than we know what to do with!! A bit too long, but apparently the trick is to put a heavy weight on them to make them short and fat - Mark II will be tried once we've eaten that lot LOL!
16/05/2010"
txt[23]="The swallows have returned to nest in the washing area - so far 3 eggs - pics will follow when they hatch 17/05/2010
Now hatched
20/05/2010"
txt[24]="Now the rains have returned, we're getting some of the vegetation back - bananas which we planted 9 months ago are fruiting and the mango trees we planted from seed 15 years ago are in full production too
In the background you can see we're putting finishing on the hollowblock wall as the hollowblocks are very soft and showing some deterioration already with the rains. 04/08/2010"
txt[25]="We were given a 3 month old pedigree black labrador pup - she's gorgeous - but I think it will be a big dog - look at the size of her feet (the dog, not the wife!) 07/08/2010"
txt[26]="I've dug a pit to make maintaining the vehicles a bit easier - here is it's first use, replacing the back axle on one of the multicabs 08/08/2010"
txt[27]="SIT Students"
txt[28]="Building the swimming pool. Scroll down for the latest ones. Pictures will be added below as it progresses I reckon it will take too long to dig by hand as there is over 100 tons to be dug out, so I'm trying to organise a JCB / Backhoe to do the digging. The pool will be 14 metres by 4.5 metres - enough for a leisurely douse in the evening after a hard day's drinking!!! 03/09/2010
The backhoe proved to be FAR too expensive - over £1,000! So I've got a few guys on the job now at £2 per day each.
Making the hollow blocks for lining the pool
The steel work
09/09/2010
Now almost there.
14/09/2010
Pool now dug, starting to build it - HSE would have a fit at these young lads carrying cement sacks on their heads!
Steel work in the bottom.
17/09/2010
Now starting to pour the cement for the floor - actually hired a crappy cement mixer - this will take a day to do the 10" thick reinforced concrete for the floor. I'm rigging up some lights today to let them work after dark.
The guy in charge of all this is Jessie - in the yellow and grey striped shirt on the left. 21/09/2010
Daily progress
22/09/2010
Now we're ready to put the waterproofing and the tiles and marble dust.
04/10/2010
most of the tiling done just waiting for the white marble dust. 08/10/2010
Marble dust now in place ready for washing out and testing on Saturday.
The pump room plumbing! Lol!
21/10/2010
a small amount of water in the pool for washing out all the sludge. The structure on the left is going to be the waterfall feature
24/10/2010
Rain water filling the pool
Rest houses under construction
Waterfall feature progressing slowly - note the rustic effect on the walls
06/11/2010
Now almost there - just waiting for the water to clear
Sadly the idiot (Jessie) who built the pool didn't know what he was doing. The plumbing leaked like a sieve, and the marble dust was just falling off in lumps - to try to clear the water, he put 10 kilos of chlorine and 5 gallons of concentrated hydrochloric acid into the pool, which had the effect of dissolving even more marble dust and bringing us all out in rashes. Needless to say he ran away because he had no money to correct his huge mistakes. So we're back to square one with a PROFESSIONAL pool builder at huge expense to try to redo the whole shooting match!
11/12/2010
New Look pool - the lettering in red under the water - bit pompous, but it makes it difficult for people to steal!
The slippery tiles round the pool edge have been replaced with orange pebbles.
The new improved step area with a little play area for the baby.
Also the new design of small ceramic tiles round the pool edge.
The varnished rest areas - "JOHN" carved in the bamboo in one and "ALITA" carved in the other one. The spotlights shine on the grotto at the top of the waterfall.
The new streamlined pump house
Well done and many thanks to Katco Pools.
The shower - a concrete post carved to look like a coconut tree!
18/01/2011
Latest pictures - the baby walking on the foot massage path
The tiles round the edge of the concrete area - also notice the black and white pebbles now all round the pool - still to be finally cleaned of surplus cement
Some of the dwindies in the pool in the dark
In the dark with the waterfall running - sorry not a very good picture as my camera is a bit limited and there are water splashes on the lens!
As we have virtually no atmospheric pollution on the island, the sky at night is magnificent. Last night, lying on my back in the warm water in the pool, looking up at the moon and the infinite number of stars, certainly made it feel like I am in paradise 10/02/2011"
txt[29]="Latest crazy and very expensive project - tiling the house throughout, inside and outside!
The noise from my bilogical jack hammers chipping the floor so the tiles will stick, is driving me crazy!
Sorry about the funny blobs on the pictures - seems there is a mould growing somewhere in the lens elements as it's not on the outside - I will change to a different camera for the next pictures.
16/02/2011
Tiling now finished with only 26 tiles left out of 2150 - not a bad estimate!
Alita's idea as we were short of green tiles and had some brown ones left over, we laid the brown ones to simulate a carpet in front of the telly.
It's been a complete logistical nightmare trying to schedule where to lay tiles, moving furniture, beds, wardrobes etc, so I'm seriously relieved that it's finished.
23/03/2011"
txt[30]="Latest daft acquisition - a wreck of a pump boat
Nets being made for the boat - 2 kilometres in total, so if they can't catch fish with that lot....
The nets nowadays are machine made. In the old days we had to make the whole nets by hand - took months! The floats and the lead weights have to be added by hand. That involves threading heavy gauge nylon through the top and bottom holes in the net, and running a second string of heavy nylon on which the floats and leads are threaded. Then the second length of nylon is attached to the first and to the net with thinner gauge nylon - a lead weight every 12 inches and a float every two and a half feet, with intermediate stitching every 4 holes on the net. The net is not stretched tight to allow it to create sort of bags in the net in the water with the holes being stretched vertically by the weights and floats. This makes the gill-netting of the mackerel more efficient.
A very time consuming and laborious job - even with 4 guys hard at it 12 hours a day it will take about 2 weeks or more to do the whole net.
The lead weights - look closely and you will see the two strings of heavy nylon.
The floats - the two strings of nylon are more obvious.
12/11/2011
Boat now painted and fitted with high-tech prop tube with 8 phosphor bronze bearings (normally they use bamboo for bearings!) and a 10HP air-cooled diesel engine. Also kitted out with navigation lights and a spot-light to illuminate the nets when pulling them back in. - being loaded onto a lorry to take to the sea - weighs over a ton.
Now in the water for the sea trials - the red smudge on the back is pig's blood to bless the boat!
18/12/2011"
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