Bowing to the weather in Batanes

As soon as we drove off in the jeep from the Ivana port, the thunderstorm that the weather websites were predicting finally arrived. The weather effectively killed off any plans for more sightseeing around Batan island. That and the queasy feeling we got from riding the boat from Sabtang.

The weather in Batanes is pretty hard to predict, owing largely to its remote location. It can be raining pretty heavily in Manila, but it’d be bright and sunny in Batanes. The typhoon that was ravaging the rest of the country that weekend was already on its way out when it entered the Philippine area of responsibility for the second time. It was too far to affect Batanes with heavy rains, but it still made an impact with the strong winds that blew through the town.

So what do you do when your vacation get rained in Batanes? You stay put and relax. Of course, you can try your luck to sightsee, but what’s the fun in doing that amidst the rain and the wind? And that’s how we spent the rest of Day 2 and the whole of Day 3 in Batanes. We caught up on sleep, and really rested — something we don’t really do when we go on our weekend jaunts. It was a refreshing change, and judging by the way everybody is snoring, it seems it was exactly what we needed.

The great thing about the rain and the drop in temperature though was that I was able to test how my Waypoint Softshell Jacket fared in the pouring rain. The wind was too strong, that I didn’t bother using my folding umbrella (it would just be a waste of a perfectly good brolly), so I settled to walking around the streets of Basco wearing my Columbia jacket to keep my upper body dry. My legs were another story though, and my shorts were soaked through. Luckily, it was my Clearlake Convertible Pants that I was wearing, so it wasn’t heavy even when wet and it dried quickly, thanks to the Omni-Dry technology.

We might have been rained out in Batanes, but thanks to it, we were able to enjoy the simple pleasures in life: great home cooked meals (courtesy of Melo and yours truly), sleeping in, running around in the rain, junk food, Cloud 9 and Big Bang chocolates.

My Columbia gear was given to me for the Mt. Daguldol hike. Since then, I have been wearing them whenever I travel (sometimes even when I just want to dress down). Now you too can give the gift of adventure! Log on to www.columbiaadventure.com, send out three postcards of either the Palawan Hornbill or the scenic Mayoyao. Doing so would help in educating the local Palawan and Mayoyao guides in the science of outdoor adventure and gearing up in Columbia Sportswear. As an added treat, you also get to bring home limited exclusive items from Columbia Sportswear.