Water sports tourism eyed at newly rehabilitated Lake Buhi

BUHI, Camarines Sur (May 27, 2012) - Lake Buhi now attracts the attention of investors on water sports after the local government successfully revived the viability of the lake in a recent major clean up drive.

Over the weekend as the town celebrated its town fiesta, one potential investor showcased its line of water skiing gears and equipment, as local talents rode jet skis and tried their skills on wakeboards pulled by a speedboat.

An earlier water skiing exhibition was staged back in April 30 to test the Buhi waters for suitability to water sports.

Buhi town Mayor Rey Lacoste said a firm that is active in the transport industry is interested in offering water skiing facility to tourists at lake Buhi and likes to stake undetermined investment in millions.

Mayor Lacoste said he would not comment yet on the amount of investment until a contract between the Buhi local government and the firm is concluded, adding that a 300-hectare area of the lake may be reserved for water sports.

Much of the 1600-hectare lake is now free for general use after the local government aggressively dismantled over 1,000 fish cages and 3,800 illegal bamboo structures that saw the lake's viable area constricted to merely 160 hectares (10%), resulting in a series of fish kills in the past 3 years.

The lake's rehabilitation started in July and October of 2011 and the town is now seeing the fruits of the campaign to revive the precious body of water.

After a long time, the Catholic church and the religious sector were able to hold the fluvial rites and procession over the weekend where images of the town's patron saints, St. Francis of Asisi (patron of the environment) and San Antonio de Padua were again boarded in a pagoda that plied the newly freed areas of the lake.

Local constituents said this religious event was not possible a year ago when the lake was crowded with bamboo structures and fish cages that were illegally built outside the designated zones. (SONNY SALES)