Yesterday I elected to vote with my feet, walking out to Baloy beach. When the resulting steps were tallied, I found myself installed aboard the Kokomo’s floating bar as the inaugural customer of the day.
Ouch, that was a pathetically strained attempt to make my attempted pun in the post title slightly more humorous. Sorry!
Anyway, I did make the journey to the floating bar for my weekly change of scenery. Pre-pandemic, there were three floaters to choose from, now it’s Kokomo’s or nothing. I do like spending some time out on the water though.
As I mentioned, I was the first and only customer. The gals seemed disappointed I didn’t bring any brownies with me. Well, I could see the staff was all pretty bored and being in a generous mood, I offered to buy dinner for everyone. That cheered them up! The food is delivered from Treasure Island’s kitchen, so I knew it would be good.
I was maybe just finishing my second (third?) beer when suddenly the girls behind the bar jumped up and ran out into the seating area. All the other gals gathered around then and spoke excitedly in Tagalog. It honestly appeared they were preparing to abandon ship. I asked what was going on and one girl said, “Fire!”. I had gotten up and was looking behind the bar but didn’t see any smoke or flames. Then the bartender said one of the electric circuits had blown. They called someone onshore and had the breaker switch for the floater turned off. So, there was no danger and also no power. Well, it was still daylight but I asked what was going to happen when the sun went down? They said they would likely just close early (normal closing time is 8 p.m.)
Nothing else to do now but wait for my food order to be delivered. And in due course, it arrived.
A good afternoon out and made some folks happy, all for just under fifty bucks. It’s easy to live large here!
Once back onshore, I decided to stop into Johan’s, a place I haven’t had the occasion to visit recently. It was my favorite Hash On-Home venue back in the day. I chatted with the manager for a bit and she said she’d love to have us there again, but a large gathering would attract unwanted attention from the powers that be. I understand her concerns.
About thirty minutes after my arrival, the power went out. What a coincidence, eh? This time it was widespread (what they call a brown-out) and all of Baloy was in the dark. Well, the other hotels all fired up their generators, but no one present at Johan’s knew how to do so. So, I sat in the glow of the emergency lighting and had another beer. No point in leaving, the power company that serves Baloy also covers Alta Vista. I messaged my helper and confirmed my house was also in the dark. Power was restored about an hour later and I called it a night.
I’m doing this post in the morning because I’ll be heading out to Gordon Heights in Olongapo soon. We’re doing a hike up to some falls today and having a picnic lunch up there. Not sure I’ll get home in time to post prior to darts.
And there you have the latest adventure in my exciting (for me) life.
Well, given my own sense of humor, i thought your title referred to toilet logs.
And I saw that, despite trying to hit the “shift” key on my cell phone while I was typing the above comment, the personal pronoun “I” ended up being lower-case, anyway. Alas.
Yes, that double entendre occurs to me whenever I refer to the bar as a floater.
And hey, it’s a new phone, I forgive you. This time.
Ah, the old fire in bar power outage trick. You better learn some tagalog otherwise you’re going to find yourself pure prey in far more perilous scenarios. Seriously though, what a happy adventure. But just imagine it – all of it – without beer.
Dan, look at the world without my beer goggles? I fear it would be an ugly place! As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beer holder…
I assume the has a motorized winch on it to move it to/from shore to bar? Or is it human power to move it?
Brian, they pull it by hand with ropes. Tough job!