Southbound & back on the SuperFerry
June 29, 2003 | 12:00am
In memory of Magenta, and on the staircase of SuperFerry 9 that plies the Manila-Dumaguete-Cagayan de Oro route, this sign can be read: Watch your steps. Also, on both starboard and portside is an advisory "not to leave baggages unattended."
Grammar quibbles aside, time was when riding on an inter-island vessel in our archipelago was a risky proposition. Indeed in the ’60s, most boats resembled floating coffins, and schedules of arrivals and departures were constantly changed without prior notice.
When we were kids who boarded a boat bound for Dumaguete in 1962, we checked in at the pier in the evening and after having spent the night in cots we woke up in the morning, asking excitedly: "Are we in the high seas? Are we in the high seas?" Only to find out, to our consternation, that we had yet to lift anchor, and the sight that greeted us was the usual North Harbor squalor.
Of course much has changed since then, despite the mandatory horror stories including "the worst peacetime maritime disaster" that was the Sulpicio Lines’ Doña Paz in 1987. Punctuality and efficiency became more or less the norm, i.e., to arrive safely at port and not at the bottom of the sea.
Things began to change, if we recall correctly, with improved services of William Lines, one of the original partners of the merged WG&A, the others being Gothong and Aboitiz. William Lines’ MV Cebu City was a memorable boat with humble amenities, although it too went down to the bottom several years ago at the height of a storm. We felt a tinge of sadness when it met its miserable end, as we had ridden on that ship several times to and from Dumaguete when we were still wooing someone in the city of gentle people.
But what forever altered the face of Philippine shipping, making it no longer the laughingstock it once was, was the WG&A merger. The fleet of SuperFerries plying the Visayas and Mindanao routes were veritable floating hotels – and in some cases motels in the truest sense of the word – with restaurants, massage parlors, barber shops, video arcades, the only thing missing an Internet café and a swimming pool.
(Which reminds me of an old Don Martin Mad magazine comic strip, where a vacationer dives into the pool of a luxury ocean liner, only to emerge finding himself in the high seas and the ship sailing away from him.)
Meals too have drastically improved, no longer are they the watery, mess hall slop that made partaking of them feel like one was confined in a charity mental ward. Now there are honest-to-goodness meals to warm the old finicky stomach, from cream-of-something soup to scrambled eggs and sausage and french toast, as well pork chop and potatoes served in a variety of ways except mashed, which anyway can be done in one’s hungry mouth.
As for the movie videos on in-house TV, there was a wide array of both local films – with at least one starring Sharon Cuneta – to foreign fare featuring inspired roller coaster slapstick called "The Rat Race" and two movies with Jacky Chan, "Rush Hour 2" and "Drunken Master." Questions though were raised as to the showing of "Titanic" in such a situation; that would be like listening to "Biyaheng Langit" while waiting at the pre-departure area of an airport.
The sundeck of SF9 has a modest playground, and enough space to conduct impromptu practice sessions and rehearsals, as what the Bayanihan dancers did on their way to a dance congress in Dumaguete on the last weekend of April.
SuperFerry 2 from Dumaguete on the way back to Manila had no playground on its sundeck, just a wide promenade where one could take in an uninterrupted view of the islands, and a bar called Hideaway with no takers, at least none when we happened to pass by in the early evening, with the lone waiter still waiting for sea breeze-drunk customers to wander in.
Sunset off Panay at portside was one of the most breathtaking we’d seen in a long while, a stretch of clouds resembling a fiery dragon, while an old fisherman waved his oar at us from a distance and the lamps of fishing boats gradually turned up in the darkening blue, trailing us in our foamy wake.
Grammar, for whatever it’s worth, was also more polished in advisory signages on SF2, although there was the occasional inspirational slogan that made one weep upon reading it, such as this in the Mabuhay Bar: "Life is a checkered of joy and pain."
Come to think of it, it really is. Especially if one felt like a sybarite on the slow boat back to the real world of a rat race that is Manila, a city part roller coaster and largely slapstick.
But just because what we left behind was such that "wow Philippines" would not suffice to describe it, did not make it any less real. The fish below us were gurgling with the laughter of magenta.
Grammar quibbles aside, time was when riding on an inter-island vessel in our archipelago was a risky proposition. Indeed in the ’60s, most boats resembled floating coffins, and schedules of arrivals and departures were constantly changed without prior notice.
When we were kids who boarded a boat bound for Dumaguete in 1962, we checked in at the pier in the evening and after having spent the night in cots we woke up in the morning, asking excitedly: "Are we in the high seas? Are we in the high seas?" Only to find out, to our consternation, that we had yet to lift anchor, and the sight that greeted us was the usual North Harbor squalor.
Of course much has changed since then, despite the mandatory horror stories including "the worst peacetime maritime disaster" that was the Sulpicio Lines’ Doña Paz in 1987. Punctuality and efficiency became more or less the norm, i.e., to arrive safely at port and not at the bottom of the sea.
Things began to change, if we recall correctly, with improved services of William Lines, one of the original partners of the merged WG&A, the others being Gothong and Aboitiz. William Lines’ MV Cebu City was a memorable boat with humble amenities, although it too went down to the bottom several years ago at the height of a storm. We felt a tinge of sadness when it met its miserable end, as we had ridden on that ship several times to and from Dumaguete when we were still wooing someone in the city of gentle people.
But what forever altered the face of Philippine shipping, making it no longer the laughingstock it once was, was the WG&A merger. The fleet of SuperFerries plying the Visayas and Mindanao routes were veritable floating hotels – and in some cases motels in the truest sense of the word – with restaurants, massage parlors, barber shops, video arcades, the only thing missing an Internet café and a swimming pool.
(Which reminds me of an old Don Martin Mad magazine comic strip, where a vacationer dives into the pool of a luxury ocean liner, only to emerge finding himself in the high seas and the ship sailing away from him.)
Meals too have drastically improved, no longer are they the watery, mess hall slop that made partaking of them feel like one was confined in a charity mental ward. Now there are honest-to-goodness meals to warm the old finicky stomach, from cream-of-something soup to scrambled eggs and sausage and french toast, as well pork chop and potatoes served in a variety of ways except mashed, which anyway can be done in one’s hungry mouth.
As for the movie videos on in-house TV, there was a wide array of both local films – with at least one starring Sharon Cuneta – to foreign fare featuring inspired roller coaster slapstick called "The Rat Race" and two movies with Jacky Chan, "Rush Hour 2" and "Drunken Master." Questions though were raised as to the showing of "Titanic" in such a situation; that would be like listening to "Biyaheng Langit" while waiting at the pre-departure area of an airport.
The sundeck of SF9 has a modest playground, and enough space to conduct impromptu practice sessions and rehearsals, as what the Bayanihan dancers did on their way to a dance congress in Dumaguete on the last weekend of April.
SuperFerry 2 from Dumaguete on the way back to Manila had no playground on its sundeck, just a wide promenade where one could take in an uninterrupted view of the islands, and a bar called Hideaway with no takers, at least none when we happened to pass by in the early evening, with the lone waiter still waiting for sea breeze-drunk customers to wander in.
Sunset off Panay at portside was one of the most breathtaking we’d seen in a long while, a stretch of clouds resembling a fiery dragon, while an old fisherman waved his oar at us from a distance and the lamps of fishing boats gradually turned up in the darkening blue, trailing us in our foamy wake.
Grammar, for whatever it’s worth, was also more polished in advisory signages on SF2, although there was the occasional inspirational slogan that made one weep upon reading it, such as this in the Mabuhay Bar: "Life is a checkered of joy and pain."
Come to think of it, it really is. Especially if one felt like a sybarite on the slow boat back to the real world of a rat race that is Manila, a city part roller coaster and largely slapstick.
But just because what we left behind was such that "wow Philippines" would not suffice to describe it, did not make it any less real. The fish below us were gurgling with the laughter of magenta.
BrandSpace Articles
<
>
