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Now it is by no means easy to jump from a small boat to a buoy in such rough water as that in Iligan harbour, and we watchers on the ship felt some little uneasiness until the lights from both buoys proclaimed that it had been accomplished by the young native who always did that work. In the morning our scientific fishermen were rewarded for their patience.
Market-day, which comes every Saturday at Iligan, made a break in the dull uniformity of our several visits there. It was full of interest to everyone, for it is then the Moros come to town, like the beggars in the old nursery rhyme, "some in rags and some in tags," but none in velvet gowns, no doubt because of climatic exigencies.
In reality, Iligan is a little nipa-shack settlement, some of the nipa buildings being very pretty, to be sure, but hardly pretentious enough for city dwellings.
The next morning a wire was run ashore connecting the cable hut with the ship, and by what is called a capacity test, the trouble was located at Misamis. So late that night, instead of going to Iligan, as we had expected, we sailed for Misamis again, arriving there a little after one on the following day.
By half past one that afternoon we weighed anchor and sailed out of the harbour, our friends on the different ships waving us good-bye, and that night lay off Iligan in a very rough sea. At daybreak we drew alongside the buoy, got it and the shore end aboard, and before splicing, "spoke" Iligan, making several tests which showed that end working satisfactorily.
All that afternoon the cable sang its song of the drum, in preparation for the morrow's trip, and a little after daylight the next morning the Misamis buoy was picked up and its cable spliced to that in the main tank, after which we left Iligan, paying out the cable so slowly that it was five o'clock before we anchored off the Misamis buoy, just in time for a splice to be made ere the swift darkness of the tropics was upon us.
The second morning after our arrival at Iligan, on the occasion of our first visit there, all on board were shocked to hear that one of the buoys attached to a cable anchored in the bay was missing. It was the buoy to which the Cagayan shore end had been fastened, and there was not a little mystery as to how it could have got away from its mushroom anchor.
This cable connected Pasacao and Guinayangan, or Pass-a-cow and Grin-again-then, as we always dubbed the towns. It was on our way to Pasacao from Iligan that we had our last glimpse of old Mount Malindang, or, as the sailors called it, Mount Never Pass, because it was so seldom off our horizon.
This was all completed by ten o'clock, and we were under way for Iligan, towing the schooner at our stern. We sailed very slowly, as bearings and soundings were being taken all day, anchoring off our destination late that afternoon.
The office was also established by this time, after which the two shore ends were laid and buoyed, thus accomplishing a tremendous day's work. In the early afternoon we women went ashore sight-seeing, and found Iligan chiefly interesting for what it was not.
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