On Thursday I finally decided to take the bus to the neighboring town of Dauin to visit a dive cafe and at least finally get my feet in the water. In Dauin there's a nature conservation reserve that includes large parts of the coastal waters because there's a coral reef that's supposed to reach the beach.

I only sat in the cafe for 2 hours and did some work. I then had someone explain the way to the beach and set off. After a 5-minute walk through rough terrain, the beach came into view. The sand has a beautiful milk coffee brown color and is relatively coarse-grained. I hadn't expected that because beaches on coral reefs are usually white and made up of dead coral.

But not here. The best part was that I was almost completely alone on the beach. I only walked about 100m along the beach before some small bamboo pavilions invited me to stay. I made myself comfortable there and decided to work on another task. I still had battery left. This is how I imagine working in paradise, and yes, it was truly paradise.

My concentration was only interrupted by a gecko that hid in a bamboo tube in front of me and my camera. It made such strange sounds, amplified by the bamboo, that I first thought it was some unknown function of my new phone. The gecko then looked out of the tube every 30 minutes to further annoy me and my camera.

Another family was sitting nearby. After a while they went snorkeling, and I overheard how beautiful it was and that there were fish everywhere. I think I'll have to go diving here soon. I hope my nose will finally be clear again soon.

When my laptop battery was almost empty, there was a loud crunching and cracking above me, and I heard something bigger coming down from the tree. It really banged loudly several times. I just watched myself run toward the water and hoped it was the right direction.

Yes, it was lucky. After just a few seconds, it was quiet again as if nothing had happened. I stopped in front of the water and looked around. I saw this 15 to 20 kg branch lying right next to the table where I had just been sitting. On the other side of the pavilion, there were other branches and parts of the pavilion roof.

I took a closer look at the roof and found that a nice hole gaped at the spot where I had just been sitting, and only the thicker bamboo strut prevented the branch from hitting me. Phew, that was really close.

Many thanks to my guardian angel. Since my laptop battery was dead and I couldn't concentrate anymore, I slowly made my way back to Dumaguete.

In the evening I worked for the remaining hours, and today I went to bed earlier.