![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liveinthephilippines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/20180921_122252.jpg\")
<\/a>To be strictly accurate, our friend \u2013 who was born and raised in GL \u2013 didn\u2019t know Boyum\u2019s name. She had, however, heard of the eccentric American surfer who died under mysterious circumstances and was now buried near the grave of her father. Who, incidentally, had been assassinated while running for barangay captain a few years earlier but, hey, that\u2019s a whole other story.<\/p>\r\n\u201cCan you take us to the American\u2019s grave?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d she said, and off we went.<\/p>\r\n
Anyone who\u2019s ever explored a cemetery in the provincial Philippines will tell you that it\u2019s kind of like playing a game of Where\u2019s Waldo. First, a motorcycle ride, followed by a long walk along the shore until, voila! seemingly out of nowhere loomed the first of many graves. As we traipsed among them squinting our eyes to make out the names engraved on the stones, my excitement grew. Could this really be the final resting place of such an enigmatic character from the past? How many people before us had visited his grave, and from where had they come?<\/p>\r\n
Suddenly we came to a large moldy stone that stopped our friend short. \u201cThis is where my father is,\u201d she announced, \u201cand right behind him lies the surfer.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
Eagerly I moved forward, stepping over the unfortunate would-be barangay captain\u2019s grave to kneel at the other stone. The letters were so moldy that I could barely make them out. 1-9—-91.<\/p>\r\n
Hmm, I thought, not the right year but close. Perhaps they’d made a mistake. Maybe they hadn\u2019t buried him immediately and recorded the wrong date of death. Carefully, I brushed away the dust and mold from the rest of the inscription to see what it said. It was very light and almost indecipherable, but gradually the letters came into view; R\u2026u\u2026d\u2026Rudi J. Bischof! My heart sank; it wasn\u2019t him.<\/p>\r\n
But then who\u2019s grave was I looking at? Was it possible, I wondered, that there had been more than one wayward surfer who came to an untimely end? Did Bischof know Boyum; had they spent time together braving the waves and snorting the snuff? Was this another early adventurer that legend forgot?<\/p>\r\n
And then it occurred to me that it was somehow right, at least for the time being, to leave those questions unanswered. For legend needs mystery, and islands need a legend. Better not to uncover too quickly what time had obscured. Better to let mystery spread like the shadow of the moon before disintegrating into the morning light.<\/p>\r\n
As we walked back towards our bike, I nonetheless felt a sense of disappointment. Perhaps we would find the lost grave another time. One thing was certain; that we would keep trying.<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n
<\/p>\r\n\r\n
<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nA former Los Angeles Times<\/em> staff writer and winner of a 2018 Golden Mike award in radio broadcast journalism, David Haldane fell in love with the Philippines on his first visit there in 2003. A few visits later, he also fell in love with the beautiful young Filipina to whom he is now married and, with whom, he has returned many times. David has written extensively about his experiences in the Philippines for several publications including Orange Coast<\/em> and Islands Magazine<\/em>. Today he and Ivy, along with their eight-year-old son, Isaac, divide their time between homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Surigao City, Philippines. His award-winning memoir, Nazis & Nudists<\/em>, recounts, among other things, the courtship of Ivy and finding a place to call home. For David that turned out to be at the tip of a peninsula marking the gateway to Mindanao where he and Ivy are building their dream home next to a lighthouse overlooking the sea. This blog is the chronicle of that adventure.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n