Tagum, Davao del Norte: A Workday Looking Out to the Sea on Banana Beach

Jetty leading to the sunset on Lanika, Davao Gulf, Tagum

It's been a busy past two months and I've hardly had the time to shoot, much less to take an out-of-town trip due to work. Call it making hay while the (summer) sun shines because the rainy season is just around the corner, making its presence felt with occasional rains. Our main team went over to Tagum in Davao del Norte, some 45 minutes to one hour drive away from the Davao City airport spending two mornings and one night in an exotic location off the Davao Gulf in the middle of a banana plantation.

We took the first flight out to Davao and it was kinda hard on the system as we were still meeting the previous afternoon and taking the 4:30 sked means sleeping little or not at all the previous night. Friends and acquaintances who see the FB pictures would constantly rib us for not inviting them but believe me, this is work. We're thankful we get to see places we probably wouldn't get to visit on our own but at the end of the day, we have work to do (nothing probably worse than finding yourself in a really incredibe place and not be able to enjoy it). 

Lacking sleep, we would try to keep our eyes open as wait for meetings and oculars by the poolside even as kids splash in merriment in the infinity pool.  That or we'd sit on the hammock under the trees inviting us to grab some sleep but we simply can't.  Our ocular finished a bit earlier than expected, around 3:45pm, but by then all we could hope to do is doze off (you should hear the symphony of snoring in our assigned room, the unmistakable reverberation of the sleep-deprived). Believe me, I had to drag myself out of the cool room at Lanikai to shoot the sunset and very nearly missed it, all I really wanted was to sleep some more as we still have meetings the next day before catching our return flight to Manila. 

Seeing kayaks and paddleboards by the beach earlier, I thought of going out and paddling out in the morning. Well, I paddled in my dreams LOL. My insomniac self reared its head so I ended up catching more zzzzs around 4am. I really hope that when we come back for our event, I'd be able to even just spend an hour or so paddling out to sea.  But first, we have to work.  Really.