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I remember being about twelve years old when a guy at church told me he had just come back from scuba diving in the Philippines. “The best diving in the world.” That stuck with me. Fast forward a few decades: I had just got my PADI scuba certification when I ran into him again. He repeated the claim, and got more specific. “Bohol.”

As he recounted stories I tried to memorize the name. “Bohol… sounds like ‘butthole,’” I noted to myself. Later that night, over pizza with some harbor friends, I brought it up. “I heard the best diving is in the Philippines…Butthole Island?” “Bohol!” someone laughed. “My dad lives there. He’s a dive instructor.” How convenient.

A few weeks later I was landing in Cebu City early in the morning with a ferry ticket to Bohol for the next day. Filipinos have a reputation for being kind. It’s genuine, effortless, disarming. That very first day I met a beautiful Filipina woman named Yvy. I wasn’t hesitant asking her to dinner at the Cebu Yacht Club. She wasn’t hesitant either.

We laughed through my jet lag as she taught me a few Visayan words that I had already forgotten by the next morning on the ferry to Bohol. For the next week I did multiple dives each day, it became a familiar routine: Jump off the boat at the edge of a vertical coral wall that disappears into the deep blue, then descend and drift along the face of the wall. There was no fighting the ocean, we moved with it in total stillness. Sometimes I’d kick against the current to hover over something especially mesmerizing but mostly, I just let go and watched. 

It felt psychedelic. My breath was the soundtrack as this alien world slid past. Coral formations, strange textures, colors that didn’t seem real.

I flooded my GoPro on the first dive, a rookie move, but another diver shared photos so at least I have proof it wasn’t a dream.

After getting my Advanced Open Water certification, I headed back to Cebu to catch a flight for a week of surfing. Yvy kept her evening free to join me for another dinner date.

If you Google ‘surfing Philippines’ everything points to Siargao. It’s been on the surfing map since the ‘90s, but it’s really exploded in the last decade. Along with the comforts and luxuries that are now on offer, you also have crowds, inflated prices, and dilution of the local culture in exchange for a higher ROI.

It’s heavily marketed as a place to learn to surf. Which is ironic  because beginner surfers don’t benefit from world-class waves. But they sure can ruin them.

I kept hoping for a solid swell to clean them up. It never came. Still, I could tell there was a lot of potential there. Enough to justify coming back and, if I’m being honest, a great excuse to see Yvy again. On the way home, I had one more night in Cebu with her. We squeezed in two essentials: Karaoke— and balut.

If you don’t know, balut is a fertilized duck egg. It’s not the type of egg you could stomach first thing in the morning. But after a couple drinks, on the side of a noisy street, it is definitely worth trying.

A few months later I returned to Siargao and Yvy took off work to join me. By now we had been talking every day for months. The waves were better, but a funny feeling lingered. It felt…packaged. Like a surf version of a theme park. 

So we left. Mid-trip.

I followed a gut instinct to go somewhere less touched, quieter. A swell was coming and I just wanted to surf alone. That decision changed everything. We flew into an another island and started exploring on foot, under the full intensity of the Philippine sun. No tourism infrastructure. No crowds. Just coastline. 

We found a simple room for rent with A/C, and there was one open air restaurant on the beach where we ate every meal. I surfed empty high-quality waves with no one else out. 

At one point, I paid a moto-trike driver to stick with me all day while I chased spots I’d found on the Satellite map. Eventually, I had him wait on shore while I hired a small fishing boat to reach an outer reef. That session alone made the whole trip worth it. On my last day I started asking around for available property. I found beachfront land, about an acre and a half, with surf out front… for the price of a new truck back home. That is the kind of math that I like. 

Traveling home I thought how nice it would have been to have had my own transportation. A motorcycle would have been nice. I started looking at bikes, down the rabbit hole I went.  The next day, I bought a Honda CRF300L Rally. A good lightweight adventure bike, a desert or jungle bike. It felt like the right tool for wherever this was going.

After getting licensed, geared up, and accessorized I went on some solo off road adventures in Baja. I felt that the bike could handle another rider, at least a small one. 

I pitched the idea of an island moto adventure to Yvy. “Sure, of course my love.” She is so refreshingly easy going; calm and content.  I ordered the same bike in the Philippines, flew over with my gear, and built out the identical moto setup upon arrival. From there, Yvy and I rode ‘two-up’ to her hometown in Libona, through the pineapple covered countryside. After a few days with the family we continued on. 

We spent three days crossing the island, winding jungle roads, cliffside routes, through rain and mud. Eventually we reached the coast and explored beaches and rivers. We even left the bike behind on a beach and spent a night on a tiny island.

I surfed waves the locals said had never been ridden. That is a feeling Siargao could never sell me. Soon we ended up at the same stretch of coast we’d explored by foot on the previous trip. That’s when I made offers on two properties. One was accepted, the other is still being negotiated. 

This is a turning point. What started as curiosity just remembering a conversation from decades ago, has turned into something much bigger. I just returned from a fourth trip, with another trip already in motion.

Another chapter of life taking form on the other side of the world.