Beyond the sea

Our last night in Bantayan Island was one of the memorable and scariest moment of my life. We ended a little late in Brgy. Lipayran, an islet and one of our partner fishing communities who has a higher incidence of illegal fishing, the usual 2 hours travel was extended to another hour or so heading back to the mainland which made me so anxious and completely terrified me for the following reasons:

Our boat was so small and the waves are starting to be bigger.

It's structure is quite minimalist ---without roofing, proper lighting and we don't have any life vest!

As my heartbeat pounds faster while we travel in wide darkness of the night adding-up that mr. moon is still hiding underneath the clouds, I started to realize the following life's ironies that resulted to my deeper admiration for our artisan fishers:

"While all of us are so excited to burn our skin this summer and spent sleepless night enjoying our vacation, these fishers had no choice but to burn their skin under the heat of the sun and be sleep deprived to catch our favorite seafood all their lives."

"While all of us are enjoying our seafood meals, the one who catch it including their family has no food to eat in their table, "

"While they contributed meals for us to live, other fishers risked their lives whenever they traditionally catch seafoods with improper fishing gears ---some of them might lost a part of their limbs or even their lives"

Those are just few of the priceless reasons for me to put more value to my favorite seafood including the artisan fishers who catch it. When we finally reached our home, I thank God that we are safe and our fishers were gifted navigators. I felt truly blessed that God had lead me to this incredible journey of our social enterprise "FCI" and I know I still have a lot of things to learn but this one is a good start.

This immersion have brought me so many memories that I'll forever cherish and will definitely look forward for our next visits. After experiencing their warm welcome in their shanty houses, embracing us as part of their families, and interacting with their children had reminded me once again about our commitment that "no fishers will be left behind not even their children and families" would go a long way as well as our oceans health. Exciting mermaid journey indeed!