[Frank Woolf]

When I was first looking for land I spent weeks search for a beach lot that I could live on but they few available were either much to far away for the kids to get to school or the land was mostly vertical.

Eventually a broker who has become a friend suggested an accessible place for the house on a hill top with a great view and a separate beach lot that is about 30 minutes away with the right sort of car. This sounded like a good idea. He had a four hectare beach lot he was subdividing and he found the very nice lot for the house. Part of the deal was another one hectare near the highest point on Samal and a three hundred square meter residential lot near City Hall. Add the one hectare we have an Alambre, Toril and you see why we need a farm car.

The beach lot is one hectare with a few places suitable for building a house but for the immediate future at least I will just put a beach house at the back of the beach. They say there will be a good road going through soon. If that happens it will be worth building a house at the road side or selling one or two house lots with access to the beach.

A lucky bonus is that after a year of searching for good fishing spots the best I have seen is right off the beach.

So far I have done nothing with the beach lot. There are tenants there who are moving out. They have built their new houses and will be all gone in two or three weeks then I will start clearing the houses away and preparing for the beach house.

The first picture is the tenants starting a pier. The second is on the road to the beach lot. The third is taken near the beach lot and the last is the beach in front of the four lots.

[Frank Woolf]

I met with my agent and friend yesterday who after five months is still having problems with the previous owners of the beach lot in trying to clear the title deeds.

He has offered an alternative place that is a lot smaller but has a 60 foot boat pier and an 80% finished 2 story wood frame house. I will go see it this week.

[Frank Woolf]

The deal is done. We now have a different beach lot that has a very nice pier and good size two story house that needs to be finished.

It feels good that I can now get moving at last so I will be out shopping for bathroom fittings very soon. As soon and the bathroom is useable we will be able to stay overnight which I am looking forward to because I am almost sure fishing at night will be successful.

I got the caretaker started on filling in holes leveling lumps and getting the lot reasonably even so we can the get it all grassed over and start planting the trees and bushes that have been waiting in my front garden for months.

[Frank Woolf]

A few more pictures

[Frank Woolf]

Work is underway finishing the house, starting with the bathroom.

Before I bought the lot the city engineers came with a back hoe and without asking permission proceeded to dig up the lot on both sides of the road, install a culvert and then just leave it with the massive trough wide open.

Soon afterwards there was heavy rain. The water through the culvert caused a massive landslide on the lot. It smashed into the partly built bathroom destroying half the roof and filling the bathroom 3 feet deep with rock an mud. Some massive boulders fortunately stopped short of the house.

The soil and rocks went through under the house and down the beach wiping out what was a great dive spot as the was a coral wall. Now it is just a steep slope of soil, sand and rocks. Water was running down past the house and pier foundations eroding the soil away. Within a couple of weeks the culvert they installed was totally blocked so all the damage they caused achieved nothing anyway.

I knew this before I bought the lot so I was prepared to pay for it to be fixed.

I went the the city hall to ask about hiring their back hoe. They sent the operators out to see what I wanted done. The operators said they could raise the road level with limestone to allow the water to continue down the hill instead of causing a massive mud puddle (what should have been done in the first place). Fill in the huge trough they left and move a large amount of rocks boulders and soil to put right the damage. They estimated one day of work.

I went back to city hall and paid the 20,000 pesos for a day. The next day the city engineer went to look and said he can't be seen putting right the damage they caused (not his exact words but that's what he meant). He said they can put in another culvert but they won't raise the road or fix all the damage even if I pay for it. I said why the 'ell would I pay you to cause even more damage than you have already done? He agreed to refund the money and said he had no objections if I get someone else to do it.

So now I am looking for a private contractor to do the job but I am so impressed by the team of guys I have working on the bathroom that I am thinking they can do it manually.

The first two pictures show them beginning to dig out the bathroom foundations and walls that were started. The third picture shows progress after two and a half days.

[Frank Woolf]

The building team are making excellent progress with the bathroom. The outer walls, most of the inner walls and most of the roof are done. Tomorrow they will be pouring the floor cement, fitting electrical conduit and switch/socket plaster boxes before finishing the walls.

[davaodan]

Frank that is great progress! They moved a lot of landslide soil to reclaim the foundation. I used the same construction technique of no posts and beams in building my CR and bodega. I believe that to be entirely safe when constructing small buildings like this.

All this work reminds me I need to pick up some hollow block for use in making stairs up the hillside for my place. It is really too steep to climb easily and I will be cutting grass sod into the disturbed soil to eliminate erosion. Once you get the soil landscaped and profiled properly you might want some similar steps.

I love the timber dock you have and I want to build something similar at my place. The trouble is my beach has a longer slope to reach out of the tidal zone so I may start out with a rubble pier.

I hope Keith and I will be able to scuba dive off your place soon to look at the condition of the coral wall.

I wish you continued good luck in your project.

Dan

[Frank Woolf]

Yep I am sure it does not need concrete pillars for such a small building. The walls will support each other, especially as there are more walls inside.

Part the the plan is to terrace the lot with steps where terrace walls are. It may end up just varying degrees of slope but still will need some steps so I will be doing the same thing.

I think the coral wall is completely wiped out but it would be good for someone to take a look. I often see people walking from the direction of your lot along the beach with spear guns so I am guessing there may be something similar close by. Maybe in the next bay.

[Frank Woolf]

When we bought the beach lot I thought it would be a great idea to keep feeding the fish at the end of the pier so the numbers would increase and attract the bigger fish that we would try to catch. It would also be great for the smaller children to see all the coral fish feeding and maybe some of the fry would get a chance to grow bigger.

Each time we went we took left over stale bread, fish scraps etc and fed the fish. The black and yellow sergeant majors soon got used to eating the bread and the shoals of bait fish of all sizes were getting huge. It was looking very promising.

Then the neighbors discovered the fish. According to the guys I have working there, in two nights the neighbors took 4 sacks full of small fish in very fine gill nets laid all around the pier.

Now there are less fish than when we started.

I guess that's another idea that will not work here so I have given up on that one.

[davaodan]

Hi Frank,

There is a good chance the nets they used are illegal. Talk to the Bureau of Fisheries guy that works in that barangay. The BFAR guy in Kanaan confiscates nets and boat of illegal fishers, so use their system. The barangay will probably also tell them they cannot fish with nets off or near your pier. These measures could help with your problem. Don't let them grind you down.

Dan