buhatan river | Gideon300 Adventures

Kayaking in Buhatan River

One day in the summer of 2012, I’d been rushing up the modifications of my inflatable kayak. I’d added up a sail. After lunch, I went to sorsogon pier to check the water. It’s high tide. Decided to test my sail on that day, but waited for my nephew to accompany me. My plan was to kayak along the Buhatan river going to rompeolas.

It was 3pm I think when my nephew got ready. We inflated the kayak and loaded it to my trike. With the help of my brother, he drove us to Buhatan bridge. It’s good that there are concrete steps going down the river. The water was subsiding so I was rushing before the it’s completely low tide. My concern was, we might be grounded at the mouth of the river if its low tide. But it was only my anticipation because I have no idea what is the river looks like at the mouth. We brought our boat down the river and set up the mast and the sail. But the sail was not yet up.

I feel happiness inside of me while we were paddling along the river (suba). Since the current was going out, it didn’t require us much effort paddling. It was cloudy day and the rain was pouring from time to time so I didn’t brought my dslr with me. I have a point and shoot camera with me but got no chance to capture the scenery because we were catching up the tide. Along the river, we passed by a number of banata (fish traps). It was really fun because we didn’t know exactly the direction to open sea. We just follow the current. In a few minutes, we saw its mouth. We saw the Sorsogon Bay.We rest for a while enjoying the view. The mountains behind us, and the rompeolas from a distance. I tried to pull the sail up. There was no wind so paddled a little further. Then we started moving.

I don’t have knowledge about sailing. Only inspired by the videos I’ve seen from You Tube. Tracking was not easy as I imagined maybe because my boat don’t have a rudder or le board. I also noted an error with the height of the sail and the rope that supports the mast. The sail was too low and the rope abstruct the shifting of the sail from one side to the other. I just used my paddle to change direction avoiding the fish traps that scattered on the bay. But we enjoyed the experience. When we were at the middle, I took out our merienda (pinakro na palawan). I wished, I also brought hot coffee with us. We took a few snap of ourselves before we moved on. When were near the pier, we saw my brother waiving on us. It was agreed that he wait for us at the pier to take us back home.

It was an unforgetable experience indeed. A dream come true. Planning to do it again some time to snap pictures along the river. Also planning to do it in Matnog river. Supposedly it was my plan to paddle along Pilar river. But didn’t pursue it bacause my family was worried. (insurgency issue again). g300