Billy's Birthday

At the disco with a couple of vodka and redbulls :-)

The dance floor at the disco

Me with a glass of lovely red wine, I did manage not to spill any on my white outfit :-)

Billy enjoying a birthday beer with Sky

Me with the fire poi.

Billy blowing out his birthday candle

The meal.

What a nice place to be to spend your birthday. We woke up and the sun was shining, it was lovely and warm and the sea looked nice and calm. We went to the restaurant next to the dive shop for our usual mango shake and cup of tea before going to the dive shop to gear up. The first dive we did was really nice, very mellow and saw some beautiful stuff, unfortunately we had forgotten the camera, which was typical as I'd spotted a couple of amazing Nudibranch! After the dive we went and had breakfast at a place across the way where they do really good baguettes. Then sat in the dive shop before going on a 2nd dive. Again this was very nice and mellow. I had gone back up to the room in between dives to get the camera but unfortunately we didn't spot anything amazing though still saw some nice stuff. After the 2nd dive we chilled in the dive shop for a bit and then went back to room. For his birthday the dive shop were putting on a BBQ for Billy. I had arranged a cake which Billy was not aware of. So we headed back to the dive shop about 6:15 and got ourselves a drink. I brought a couple of bottles of red wine including one which was one of our favorite brands at home, I was quiet looking forward to cracking the bottle open I can tell you :-). The BBQ was great, Sky's wife made a gorgeous Filipino curry, rice, bbq'd aubergine, chicken satay and salad. Also for a starter we had "Sloppy Joe's" which apparently is an American dish (Sky is from Texas). It consists of a piece of bread, or in our case it was a bread roll cut in two and on top was a kind of bolognaise/chili and a slice of cheese. It was very nice indeed. After the bbq I brought the cake out to Billy much to his surprise and everyone sang happy birthday and he blew out his candle. The cake was really nice. The people at the bakery did such a good job, the cake was beautifully decorated and tasted divine. I got a vanilla and strawberry cake as I figured it was a safe flavour for everyone and I knew Billy liked this too.

After we were suitably stuffed and had a couple of glasses of red down us I did my fire poi. I hadn't wanted to wait much longer as I was starting to feel a little tipsy and I hadn't done fire poi for over 2 years and was feeling a tad nervous. I had brought a bottle of kerosene earlier in the day which would do me for a few goes which was a good job as I was a little rusty on the 1st go. No one really noticed though but I did have a huge audience. I did the poi on the beach outside the dive shop and to the right is a bar and the left a restaurant plus loads of people appeared on the beach. I decided not to notice and carried on what I was doing which after the first go i was ok. My heart was going like the clappers though lol :-) I did the poi a couple of more times to use up the kerosene and then relaxed to get drunk. We stayed for a few more drinks and then me and Billy headed to the new disco which had only opened the day before. The usual "discos" in Sabang are just go go bars, there is no dance floor but this was an actual disco. It was really good fun too. It was very funny to watch the local Filipino guys strutting their stuff like they owned the place and the music wasn't too bad. The guy who was serving our drinks was called Raymond, which we thought a bit unusual for a Filipino. He was such a nice guy though, he was only 17 and quite sweet. Whenever we needed a drink we would shout "RAYMOND" lol :-) As it was a disco it was quite expensive to drink so I found the cheap option which was vodka and red bull! We must have had about 4 each and was pretty steaming by the end of the night. We staggered back to the room and it was a right mission getting up the hill. At one point i fell over into the hedge at the side of the steps. It was quite funny as because it was slopped i fell downwards and my shoes got left on the path whilst i lay half in the hedge half on the grass. Billy was ahead of me and he shouted down to see if i was ok, I shouted back up to him that I had fallen over and he shouted back he had too lol! luckily we had no grass stains on our white clothes phew!

Needless to say the next day we didn't dive and spent the day recovering from a stonking hangover!! It was worth it though. Billy did seem to have a very good birthday.