The next day, when it was still 5:00 in the morning and while Lee was still undoubtedly snoring in his room, I went out to buy breakfast. I remembered seeing an eatery near the sea the night before and I figured they also sold breakfast. Luckily, at 5:30 it was already open but the cook wasn’t there. I patiently waited until the cook arrived and he cooked the food I ordered. Lee was already surprisingly up when I arrived at the lodge so we had breakfast right away, while planning what stupid things we would do again on that day.

After breakfast and after cleaning the table, we went to the beach again. It was my very first time to be at a beach and the waves were really scary. The West Philippine Sea is really tempestuous in December, according to the locals. I have yet to find an answer why.

I saw the beach of Patar in broad daylight. A lot of people describe Patar as a “white sand” beach, but what the—, the sand was beige as in B-E-I-G-E. Anybody who says it’s white is colorblind.

The sun was up and shining and everybody was having a good time but I felt that the water was too cold, so I just stood up there, watching Lee enjoy the crashing waves. Suddenly, one big wave was all over me and before I knew it, I was already drenched in salt water. Because of the big waves, Lee and I were careful enough not to go too far from the shore. In fact, we stayed only on the knee-deep part of the sea BUT because of the big waves that were constantly crashing on us, we got wet just the same. Sometimes the waves were over our heads. The people around  us were having a good time screaming out of their wits because of the waves.

Lee and I thought of a nonsense competition. When the waves would come crashing, we would dive and look for some seaweeds and hit each other’s face with the seaweeds. The first person to get hit was the loser.

All of the people at the sea were screaming, including the big men. The people just sitting at the shore were also screaming at the sight of us, being battered by the waves. Due to my petite frame, I was constantly pushed to the shore by a wave and I would just lay there covered with sand. Yeah… at 157 centimeters and 43 kilos, I was easily pushed by the waves to the shore and they would beat me before rolling back to the sea. As soon as I had one second to catch a breath, the other wave would come crashing to me again. This may sound crazy but I actually enjoyed it. Haha. It did not matter that my long hair was covered with beige sand. I was having the thrill of my life.

We went back to our accommodation, took a shower, and ate lunch. We ate the leftover sinigang that I cooked the night before. The assistant in the house suggested that we should go to Bolinao Falls and Enchanted Cave, and so, relying on Waze, we were heading for those directions a few minutes after our lunch.