Taal Lake Round The Volcano Race 2010
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Image courtesy Taal Lake Yacht Club
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The 2010 Round The Volcano Race at Taal Lake Yacht Club represents not only a great weekend of fun on the water but it is possibly the best opportunity for sailing photography close to Manila. Open to Hobie sports catamarans and dinghies of all shapes and sizes, the Round The Volcano Race offers some great spills and thrills, with the backdrop of Taal Volcano and its spectacular lake.
The Taal Lake Yacht Club is the perfect venue for a weekend out of Manila – just a 90 minute drive South – with the option of camping on the lake shore or finding a room in a nearby resort; or, if you are so inclined, day tripping out of Manila each morning/evening. Certain things in life: the Taal Lake Yacht Club will be happy to receive you on 20th and 21st November; and, to facilitate the fun.
Taal Lake was formed when the original volcano blew itself to pieces before recorded history, leaving a crater some 30km wide in places. Following that gargantuan eruption the lake was actually open to the sea, at the top of what is now Balayan Bay. As a sheltered inland waterway it attracted many fish species and other marine life – from sardines to sharks to sea snakes. In 1754 an eruption of the new Taal Volcano, lasting six months, effectively filled the southwestern entrance of the waterway and Taal Lake was created (with the new volcano in the middle), with only a narrow river exiting to Balayan Bay.
Since 1754, the indigenous marine life of Taal Lake has slowly succumbed to reduced salinity and (sadly), in more recent decades, over-fishing. Only the sardines and sea snakes still swim, in ever decreasing numbers. Since the 1990s the industry of “aquaculture” has slowly covered the surface of the lake to the point where it is now very difficult to circumnavigate the volcano, especially between the southern shore of the lake and Taal Volcano itself. And there may not be many more years that the Round The Volcano Race can be run because the passages between the fish cages become narrower each year.
The best GetWet advice is join the Round The Volcano Race in 2010 because there may not be too many more.
Don’t have a Hobie or a dinghy? Contact the Taal Lake Yacht Club and they will rent one to you, if there are any left.
Links:
View Taal Lake webcam
The Taal Lake Yacht Club website