9 April 2009
Mabuhay!
Well,
at last we have made it out of the Pacific - bet you all thought it was never
going to happen. The trip from Palau was mixed - the first couple of days was
absolute heaven: we couldn't keep the smiles off our faces, and we did our
best-ever day of 155 miles. Then the squalls hit... the next few days we a bit
untidy, lots of rain and bursts of wind in the squalls. This was particularly
unpleasant at night, as it was so overcast there was not enough light to see the
squalls coming, and we got hit by one with 40 knots of wind which over-powered
the self-steering and crash-gybed* us, ripping our preventer fitting from the
boom. Fortunately there was no other damage to crew or boat, but we hove-to
until first light so we could check it all out.
After 5 days we arrived at the entrance to the San Bernardino Straits, the entry
to the Philippines and the exit from the Pacific. We were stalking this, as all
the pilot books put the fear of god into you about transiting it, using such
phrases as: "8 knot currents" "strong eddies" "whirlpools" "tidal rips"
"standing waves" "main shipping passage" and recommends "least alarming" stages
of the tide to pass through, and the charts all had hundreds of taniwhas** drawn
all over them. We anchored at Biri, a small island outside the pass to rest up,
wait for better weather and the "least alarming" state of the tide. We spent 2
nights there and on the second day were besieged by boatloads of young locals
who had never seen a yacht before. Apparently we were the first in living
memory. We also met our first pirate, but he was only 6 years old, his gun was
plastic and we bought him off with a lollipop.
Our first pirate!
The next day we gritted our teeth, girded our loins, dusted off all the other cliches and headed out into the pass. What an anticlimax! After all the angsting, there was only a couple of knots of current and no shipping! I almost went back through to wait for the full moon and a screaming wind and tide so I could get some value for all the emotional energy I'd expended worrying about it. The sailing was so good we did the 70 mile trip to Donsol in one hit.
Potpot and baby son
We had been heading to Donsol on the Bicol Peninsula in the south of Luzon ever
since we saw a promo DVD about the Philippines which showed people swimming with
whalesharks there. Whalesharks are the biggest fish in the world and (THANK GOD)
pretty much vegetarian, filter-feeding on plankton & shrimp & any small fish
that get sucked in during the process. Bruce had been all moony about them since
seeing ads, heavily featuring whaleshark photos, for a brand of watch worn by
someone researching whalesharks that was on the back of several New Scientist
magazines we had on board, and so we decided that would be our first stop. (Yes,
actually that is pretty much how we work out our itinerary) We duly arrived,
anchored and the next morning headed into town to change some money as we
couldn't buy any Philippine pesos in Palau. That was when the excitement
started. We were helped to tie up at the steps on the riverbank by the town by a
fisherman called Potpot, who then took us on a tour of Donsol, which is a small
fishing village. We didn't really want the tour, but his English wasn't good
enough to explain what we needed (nor our Tagalog good enough) It became apparent
that frivolities like banks were not part of the Donsol infrastructure. Minor
panic was setting in, as the tour was heading to Potpot's church to meet his
pastor. Just what we needed, we though, especially since it was a small
break-away born-again church. However, the pastor, Noel, was great. He spoke
reasonable English and told us we needed to go to Legazpi, about an hour away,
to change money. Slight problem, as we had no pesos for the jeepney fare. No
problem said Noel, I will lend it to you, which he did. We were really humbled -
these people have no money (we went to visit Potpot's family later: he and his
wife & 3 kids live in the slum by the river in a house of bamboo slats covered
with plastic rice bags) and yet they trust us on first meeting to take what must
be a considerable sum for them and to bring it back. (Which of course we did,
with a gift to the church & to Potpot for minding our dinghy). They also had no
concept of a yacht, and when we said we didn't need accommodation as we slept on
our boat, they thought we meant the dinghy, as Daemon was out of sight around
the corner. We bought them out to see the boat yesterday afternoon and they were
so excited. They all dressed up especially and were waiting on chairs outside
the church (small one-roomed broken down concrete building with a dozen plastic
chairs) for us to pick them up.
Our trip to Legazpi was an eye-opener. We boarded a jeepney*** decorated in the
style of a dilapidated 1970s cinema: all mirrored ceilings, padded & buttoned
vinyl walls, requisite number of religious icons without which it is illegal to
depart the depot etc and of course the inevitable background music at high
volume. If you ever wondered where the cheesey music of the seventies & eighties
went to die, it is the Philippines. They are really big on whiney white guy
stuff ("Everything I Do I Do For You" "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You"
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" etc etc etc) which has now tragically embedded
itself in my brain on a repeating loop. We were the first in so got the choice
seats. It was an education to see how many people would fit in. The Land
Transport Safety Authority in NZ would have a fit. I'm not sure they even have
regulations about the passengers that sit between the driver and the driver's
door. Bruce has now stopped sulking about my insistence on buying emergency
medical and evacuation insurance before reaching Asia. This was reinforced when
we got in a motorised tricycle to go from the depot to the bank. These are
motorbikes with a semi-enclosed sidecar. I have seen upwards of six people in a
sidecar... Right of way seems to go to the most pure of spirit, with much crossing of self by the driver at intersections, overtaking etc.
The bank was another saga that I don't have the strength to go into, suffice to
say that 2 hours in a queue is bearable if the airconditioning is good. It would
be even more so if they gave cash advances on foreign credit cards...
Filipinos have a keen sense of irony
Join the dots... Whale shark bit
Whale shark head
Yesterday morning we were up at dawn to swim with the whalesharks. Was that
amazing or what???? We went out on a banca**** with our new friends Sheila &
Mike on Kantala who sailed in to Donsol the day after us, Tim the Welshman and
two German guys as well as the banca crew and Omar, our guide. We headed out
about 15 minutes into the bay and circled until we spotted the first whaleshark
and then jumped in and snorkeled over to swim with it. Wow. Just wow. And wow
again. They are so amazing - that one was about 9 meters long and the head must
have been 2 meters across. They are very chunky and covered with polka dots and
very, very graceful. We could keep up with it, and on several occasions we were
only a couple of feet away from it. It was almost impossible to get good photos
as a) it was too huge to get in one shot b) the visibility wasn't great because
of the plankton-rich water and c) YOU WERE TOO DAMNED CLOSE! I have lots of
photos of bits of shark that I can probably jigsaw into one photo. We swum with
that one for about 20 minutes before it dived. In all we saw 5 whalesharks
ranging from 4 to 9 meters and had another 20+ minute swim with one. Tim the
Welshman is a real whaleshark fanatic and was beside himself as he had spent
US$7000 to see them in the Galapagos Islands and had only seen 5 in a week, and
then only for a minute at a time, so 5 in 3 hours for NZ$30 was a pretty good
deal. Very, very awesome.
Today we are motoring flat out to get to Marinduque Island in time for the
Easter Sunday Moriones festival held there. Apparently it is a re-enactment of
the lesser-known biblical story of Longinus the Roman centurion and his miracle.
Stripping it down to what actually happens, a bunch of guys wearing Roman garb
and carved masks chase the Longinus character through the town and fields and
catch him twice, from which he escapes both times, then catch him a third time
and behead him. According the the Rough Guide, this being the Philippines,
costumes are not limited to centurions and the hundreds of pursuers include Miss
Piggies and Madonnas. This I must see!
PS: A reminder that Daemon is feature boat in the April edition of the US
sailing magazine Latitudes & Attitudes. Get your copy now! Or if you are
cheap, dowload it from their website.
* For the non-nautical: Gybing is changing course with the wind behind you, and
moving the boom (hard pole on the bottom of the big sail) from one side of the
boat to the other. This is usually controlled in a very paranoid manner by the
use of ropes to stop it happening too quickly. Crash-gybing is when it all goes
pear-shaped and the boom slams across at high speed without being controlled,
and is a great way to break gear and severely damage any crew in the way. A
preventer is a rope tied to the boom to stop it accidentally gybing.
** Taniwha = NZ water monster. On Daemon the whirlpool/tidal eddies signs on
charts which are drawn as spirals are referred to as taniwhas, and avoided as
one would generally avoid a water monster.
*** Jeepney = Cross between a jeep and a large minibus, seating about 20 people
semi-comfortably on a bench running the length of the jeepney interior on either
side. Will accommodate around 300 people if necessary. Each jeepney is painted
and decorated in a highly individual style (euphemism!) in primary colours and
frequently featuring religious murals, and resemble large combi vans on acid.
Stunning is probably a good word, in all senses.
**** Banca = Large motorised canoe with double outriggers that are wall-to-wall
in the waters around here. They are brightly painted and look like waterboatman
insects or spiders skimming along the top of the water and I think they are
named for the noise they make when you run over the small ones with the yacht.
The jeepneys of the sea.
16 April 2009
Greetings from Puerto Galera on north Mindoro (N13'30", E120'57")!
Jesus, or maybe Mary, Balanacan, Marinduque
Well,
we made Marinduque in time for the Easter celebrations and it was certainly
worth it! What a party! After a couple of long days sailing from dawn until dusk
(night sailing is out around here - the waters abound with small unlit fishing
boats, unattended fishing nets and many, many FADs, or fish aggregating devices,
which can be buoys, drums, rafts or poles, all unlit and haphazardly placed
EVERYWHERE) we arrived at Port Balanacan at dusk, and as we dropped anchor, our
jaws still grazing the deck at the sight of a 3-story technicolor Jesus (or
maybe Mary - it was very androgynous and we didn't want to offend anyone by
asking) attached to a kiosk on the end of the jetty, we were met by Jack, one of
the local councillors in his banca. While we were chatting to him, we noticed a
long line of candles weaving their way around the promontory. It turned out to
be the village's annual Easter parade, so we headed in to watch that. Most of
the villagers were following a group of religious statues transported by
well-disguised motor tricycles and singing and chanting while weaving their way
through the streets. We were the only outsiders there, so it was a pleasure to
watch something that was done solely for the locals. Bruce & the Kantalans,
Michael & Sheila, also went in at midnight on Saturday to watch the ascension of
an angel taking Mary's veil of sorrow up to heaven (actually a small howling
child being winched up into some bamboo scaffolding) but sleep won out for me on
that occasion.
On
the Sunday the last day of the Moriones Festival was being held in various towns
in Marinduque, but local word had it that Mogpog, 7km from Balanacan was the
place to go. Now a word about the Moriones Festival as we understand it, and we
are certainly open to correction here... once upon a time there was a one-eyed
Roman centurion called Longinus who was the guy who gave Jesus the coup de grace
on the cross. The blood from Jesus's wound splashed in his eye and he was
healed. A miracle! He converted to Christianity and was captured and beheaded a
couple of days later because of his choice. A martyr! Now quite how this morphed
into dozens of Filipinos dressed as centurions (more about this later!), wearing
carved scowling masks and dancing wildly to Achey-breaky Heart, Billie Jean &
YMCA, I have no idea, but all I know is while many, many Christians were sitting
po-faced in church on Easter Sunday, wishing their lives away during a tedious
sermon, these guys were having an absolute ball.
The Natural Fibre Moriones Boogie..
Us with Milo Moriones
Abu Sayyef Moriones
The day before we had made enquiries at the village about whether we could catch
a jeepney to Mogpog for the festival and were assured it would be no problem.
However language difficulties meant that we (us and Sheila and Michael from
Kantala) ended up chartering a jeepney to ourselves (plus councillor Jack & his
son James, acting as tour guides/translators/smoothers for us). However it was
only a few dollars and it meant we didn't have to cram into a public one with
97000 faithful also on their way to the festival, so we went with it. The
jeepney however wasn't quite up to the task, and expired in a geyser of steam on
the first hill. A replacement arrived in due course on we made it to Mogpog in
time for the judging. No, not Pontius Pilate, although he was there, but of the
many, many, categories of moriones (centurion) in attendance. There was the
oldest moriones (male & female), youngest moriones, best flowers on their
headpiece, most artistic (made from trash: sweet and drink packets being the
most popular) and most unique (wearable art from rattan, coconut, shells,
feathers etc) amongst other categories I couldn't quite translate. There were
even a bunch of teenage boy Abu Sayyef terrorist moriones, but I don't think
they had their own category. Each category had to come out for the judges and
danced furiously to pop music while they were being inspected. While all this
was happening, Longinus was being chased around the town by centurions, making
frequent dashes through the crowds, climbing basketball hoops to pee on the
crowd (concealed water bottle, I think, I hope!) until he was apprehended at the
end of the morning and beheaded, after a passionate plea to the crowd, with much
spurting of blood. Completely surreal, but a great morning's entertainment.
After that our limo (joke!) took us to Boac, the next town where we had lunch
and visited the 17th century hillside fortress/cathedral, which was pretty
amazing.
Sheila & Michael with
Picasso Moriones
After recuperating for a day, we did another big sail up to our current
anchorage, Puerto Galera on Mindoro, which has an active yacht club and
moorings, and provides, showers, internet and a water taxi. They also have
Customs & Immigration, so we can clear in to the country at last (they are very
lax about such things here), although only on Mon, Tues & Wed, so we have missed
out for this week. It is also a tourist town, so that is coming as bit of a
shock after our fishing villages to date. White faces other than us! We plan to
leave the boat here for a couple of weeks and go travelling inland in Luzon.
Much easier and cheaper than taking the boat over.
Boac Cathedral
Well, that's about it for now. I'm about to go in and have yet another go at
updating the website. The Yacht Club purports to have broadband, so we shall
see! They also have a webcam on their website if you want to check the place out
go to www.pgyc.org and have a look.
Cheers!
Jill & Bruce
PS: Just bought some DVDs from one of the street vendors at NZ $4 each (and
judging by the solicitous service we got plus the free extra one, paid way too
much). One of them is The Reader, featuring Keith Winslet & Ralph Fiennes. Is
there something Kate Winslet needs to tell us, or have I just been out of
circulation? As my beloved asked in all naïveté, "Do you think they are
knockoffs?".
7 May 2009
Well,
as they say, we have travelled far and seen terrible things. And some pretty
amazing ones as well. Our "boat holiday" (Large beds! Air con! Showers! Meals cooked by
other people!) to Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, was full-on; a
total reversion to our 20-something backpacking days. We had been reading up on
the travel (& other) literature before we left and were somewhat apprehensive: "Cryptonomicon"
by Neal Stephenson - "Filipinos are a warm, gentle, caring, giving people, which
is a good thing since so many of them carry concealed weapons." (True, on both
counts. Manila Doctors' Hospital has a bin outside the entrance, where, under
the scrutiny of guards with machine guns, you have to unload your gun before you
can enter.) Lonely Planet: "It should be noted that Filipino bus drivers are
among the most maniacal on the face of the earth, although the number of
accidents is surprisingly low. If you are not used to travelling at breakneck
speed you may well be in for a white-knuckle ride." (Not true - coming from NZ,
the home of the homicidal driver, we found them skilled and sensible drivers,
even on the worst road I have ever been on.)
Bruce, Intramuros, Manila
Our
first stop was Manila, which was much better than I had expected, especially
around the Malate area where we were staying. Sure, the footpaths were unusable,
there were beggars and one frequently met "bare-tailed kittens" (sounds so much
nicer than "rat", don't you think?) in the streets, but nothing too overwhelming
and there was an on-going effort to keep the streets clean although everything
is grimy from the constant diesel emissions of the jeepneys and tricycles. When
we came back from the north and went out to suburbs such as Divisoria and
Binondo in search of cheap clothes and fabric for a new boat awning, things
changed - after rain, you were paddling around up to your ankles in what we will
politely describe as "mud" (in case any of you were thinking about eating in the
next few days), there were people living in the streets and at their market
stalls with no sanitary facilities (contributing to the "mud") and there were
some pretty desperate-looking people about. This is not a place I'd like to be
at the bottom of the heap in. We had seen plenty of poverty in the Pacific, but
that was balanced by the fact the people still had a subsistence lifestyle from
their land, so could eat and retained some dignity. Here there is no dignity,
just a grim desperate battle for survival. Very sobering.
We create yet another traffic jam in Manila
Banaue
Rice Terraces Banaue Town in cloud
Ifugao Women, Banaue Maximo Aguian by his rice terraces, Banaue
From
Manila we took the overnight (air conditioned to arctic levels) bus to Banaue
(pronounced Ban-ar-way) in the hills of Northern Luzon. This is home to the
alleged 8th wonder of the world, the ancient rice terraces of the hill tribes,
or Igarot people, who have lived here for centuries. It was unbelievable
spectacular: the terraces are created out of stone or clay (depending on which
tribe has made them) and cascade down steep mountain faces, often wreathed in
clouds, they are so high up (think Desert Road altitude). They were built over
2000 years ago, and cover over 100 square miles of hillside - apparently, put
together, the terraces would span half the earth, hard to believe until you
experience the number and scale of them. We had hoped to white-water raft the
Chico River which runs along the bottom of the terraces, but it was the end of
the dry season, so the river wasn't high enough to raft, and to be truly
perverse, the rainy season was just starting to kick in, so it was too wet to
hike down into some of the more remote villages, and several places were cut off
by rain-induced landslides. We spent a few days hanging out there, doing some
walks and trips to viewing spots, and bought a couple of amazing old rice god
statues (bulols) from a dealer in the town for a tenth of the price of the same
thing in Manila, and probably a hundredth of the price of outside the
Philippines. The dealer was great and we got details of the age (in generations)
of the figures
and
the history of who had owned them. (Too weird to be concocted: our best one is
from an Ifugao tribesman named Kevin) After fostering an addiction to fried
bananas on a stick from one of the local street stalls, we decided it was time
to move on before we blimped out too badly, and caught the jeepney
to Bontoc, 30 miles away where we could get a jeepney to Sagada, our next stop.
Now that all
sounds simple, doesn't it? Indeed getting on the jeepney was no
problem, and the driver was fantastic, it was the road that was hell! Three
hours later we arrived, and that was a white-knuckle ride! The rains had caused
many slips on the (mainly) single lane, (mainly) unsealed road, which was 95%
hairpin bends around steep mountain passes and sheer drops, which most of the
time were shrouded in cloud - negotiating our way through was not easy. It was
probably the worst road trip I've ever experienced, and probably the most
spectacular. That jeepney driver earned his pesos! It made the 1 hour 15km trip
to Sagada look like a breeze.
Banaue to Bontoc Road
Our bulols
Hanging Coffins, Sagada
After
the Lord-of-the-Rings atmosphere of Banaue, Sagada was more of a sedate tourist
place - it reminded me of the area around Manapouri. The main attraction (apart
from more rice terraces) is their hanging coffins. These are coffins (mostly old
but some quite new) attached to cliffsides or poked into rock crevices on the
face of the mountains. Apparently the walk around the area can be quite
confusing and it is easy to get lost unless you take a guide or go to a certain
point and then retrace your steps, which was what we
planned
to do. That was, until we met our guides. We were accosted by three young boys
at the entrance to the walk, who offered to guide us: "We are not like the other
guides!" "No, you're eight years old." "We only charge 100 pesos, they will
charge you 200!" It seemed good for a laugh, so off we went. They were very
professional: one positioned in front, one in the middle and one at the rear,
much concern about whether we needed to rest and so on with only a couple of
lapses, the first being a couple of minutes of mayhem in a mudpool which no
self-respecting 8 year old could pass up and a few cries of "Snake!... Joking!"
We had a great time!
Our guides, Sagada
After Sagada it was the 6 hour 120km trip to Baguio through another winding
mountain "highway", this one at least being paved if still full of hairpin
bends. Baguio is quite a large city, very student-oriented (lots of
universities) and has a great market where we got DVDs of heaps of TV series for
NZ$2 per DVD. Dexter, Boston Legal, Weeds, Desperate Housewives, Saving Grace -
what bliss! It was also home to one of the more surreal sights I have seen - the
swan boats on Burnham Lake. This is a small, artificial lake in the middle of a
park which is crammed, and I mean crammed, with rowboats, pedaloes etc all in
the shape of swans, fish, mermaids etc all so close together they can barely
move. Our trip back to Manila was equally odd - it was the day the Filipino
boxer Manny Pacquiao fought Michael Haddon for the Welterweight World Title and
the Philippines had come to a standstill. There was hardly any traffic on our
approach to Manila (unheard of!) and as luck would have it, we were on a bus
with TV, so the excitement on board was tremendous. The conductor was sitting on
a little plastic chair in the aisle and I fully expected the driver to be
sitting beside him at any minute. When Hatton was knocked out in the second
round the bus went nuts - it was hilarious. It was a huge deal here (there was
only one crime reported in Manila that day) and there is going to be a public
holiday to celebrate, Pacquiao is going into politics ("The
People's
Champ" party) and is the only topic of discussion when you talk to a local. Very
Americas' Cup.
Burnham Lake Mayhem, Baguio
Sausage Stall, Baguio Market
After a couple of days in Manila sorting out practical stuff we headed back here
just in time to hunker down for a typhoon due to hit a few hundred miles north
tomorrow. We had become a little blasé about typhoon warnings here as it seems
anything over 25knots gets an alert - in NZ there'd be a perpetual state of
typhoon alert if the same criteria were used - but this one seems to be a bit
more serious - all the big ferry bancas have cancelled their trips and are
hiding out behind us in the bay. We are on one of the typhoon moorings that the
local yacht club rents out, so hopefully we should be ok, as long as nothing
gets blown down on to us. A long couple of days ahead watching our new DVDs, I
guess.
24 May 2009
Like Hollywood, but the again...not.
We
are having a Coron-ary ... which is a short break in Coron while I get my last
assignments for my Semester One papers completed. Coron is a lovely wee town on
the island of Busuanga in the Calamian Group, north of Palawan. (N 11"59.7"
E120'11.8") It is predominantly a dive place, but there aren't many tourists
here, and none of the retired alcoholic sex tourists so prevalent in Puerto
Galera and Sabang: much nicer altogether! The town is quite amazing - whole
neighbourhoods of it are built on stilts over the water, which solves the
wastewater plumbing, but means we don't swim! They
have taken a leaf from Hollywood's book and installed a large "CORON" sign on
top of the hill, where it is quite at home with a giant illuminated cross (so
tall it has its own red aircraft warning light) and half a dozen very unscenic
cellphone towers. We won't even mention the over-water bar with about a dozen
giant mermaids supporting the roof. We had dinner out at one of the dive places
when we first arrived - NZ25 for 4 beers, a coke and 2 three course meals (mains
were marlin & chili crab) - hardly worth cooking! You did need to turn a deaf
ear to the rat fights behind the woven palm wall panels though. The market is
great for veges, but Bruce came back pale, shaken and vegetarian after visiting
the meat section yesterday. It either looked at him (chickens in cages,
squealing pig trussed on pole, flies everywhere) or looked as if it had been involved in a
chainsaw massacre, and the market stalls are all out in the open, no
refrigeration, doors, screens etc. He has been waxing lyrical about lentils ever
since!
Coron Meat & Fish Market - it's afternoon, 30 degrees Celsius and the smell is ... impressive
The trip down was great, the weather was sunny, but we didn't get enough wind to
sail, however that meant we could spend a couple of days
anchored at Apo Reef, a deserted reef between Mindoro and Palawan, snorkeling &
relaxing and avoiding the onmipresent roosters that populate this cock-fight-mad
country - the peace was bliss! Co-ordinates were N12'14.9, E120'28.7 - quite
weird to be anchored in the middle of nowhere, just an island in the distance.
Great snorkeling though.
Had a great disappointment the other day - lashed out and had a girl's day out at the spa in Sabang (the vile sex-tourism/dive resort near Puerto Galera) with one of the other yacht women for 4 hours of massage, salt & coffee scrubs and a pedicure- bliss! Despite my joy at having fabulous feet after years of skanky battered calloused yacht-person feet, I found most of my tan had disappeared in the scrubs - I now suspect it may have been accumulated dirt. The horror! Now I know why we have navy or charcoal sheets (and yes, they were that colour originally!). Working on new colouration as I write!
The crime scene!
The weekend's excitement has been the theft of our dinghy and outboard. We woke on Saturday, had breakfast and Bruce went to get into the dinghy and... no dinghy. Someone had swum out in the night and cut the tethers, so we just had two pieces of rope dangling from the stern. He pumped up one of the kayaks and headed into the police station to report it, but they didn't hold out much hope of getting it back. They did come out on a banca to look at the scene of the crime, although I'm not sure how useful two dangling rope ends were for that. We printed some photos of the dinghy and took them in for the Police and Bruce asked if he should take one to Coastguard. Ahhh, Coastguard! The cops then rung Coastguard, who mentioned yes, by the way, they did have a grey & white Aquapro dinghy that had just been reported found. Utter relief! The thought of trying to get replacements in the Philippines, Malaysia etc was just a nightmare. We lift the dinghy out of the water at nights now.
After Coron it is off big game hunting! One of the islands was made into a game reserve, with tigers, giraffes etc imported from Africa (they had to get rid of the tigers - they ate everything else) as well as local wildlife, such as bearcats. Apparently, although it was set up as a National park, originally one of the Marcos sons used it as a big game shooting reserve. Could be fun. Maybe the cop will lend us his gun.
18
June 2009
Yup, we're aliens, illegal ones as of yesterday. Our visas have expired and
there is nowhere to renew them until we reach Puerto Princesa, in another couple
of days. However, the local bureaucracy is pretty lax on these things (we were
in the country for 3 weeks before clearing in), so there may be some "fees" but
shouldn't be a problem. According to the Immigration website the fee for
overstaying is the same as for a visa extension anyway. Please visit/send care
parcels if it all goes horribly wrong.
As you can tell from the above, we are a bit behind schedule. I finally got all
my term papers completed in submitted just in time for the heavens to open and
for it to rain and blow for 40 days and nights (OK, 9, but it seemed longer). It
was good having our own ark, but relying on us, our resident cockroaches and
family of geckos doesn't seem a good bet for a new world population. Actually
being stuck in the cabin for all that time in rain, wind and thunder wasn't much
fun but fortunately we had lots of DVDs - board games in close quarters can lead
to mutiny/spouseicide. At least I got my first bath since our last visit to NZ -
the dinghy filled with rainwater, so an excellent opportunity to hop in with
soap and shampoo, wearing my modesty sarong and ignoring passing bancas of
tourists and fishermen. If it hadn't been for the accompanying rain and
electrical storm, I would have had a glass of wine and a book too!
Who are you calling a dirty yachtie?!
After making an escape from Coron, we decided the season was getting late,
meaning the head winds are getting stronger and the typhoons more insistent. We
are trickling down the coast of Palawan heading towards Malaysia. The season has
changed and we are now in the SW monsoon, which means we either have headwinds
or no wind, so the motor is getting a workout. We are currently anchored off a
little town called Taytay, which has a wonderful old Spanish fort on the
waterfront, dating from 1660. We had a look around it yesterday, and it was
quite magical. We then had dinner at a little place in town and arrived back to
find the tide had receded dramatically and we had to drag/carry the dinghy over
a couple of hundred metres of sand, rock and seagrass before we could float it.
Not so magical...
Fort Ysabel, Taytay
Nooooo!!!!!
Not the yacht!!!!
26 June 2009
Rice
stall, Puerto Princesa Market
Well, we escaped jailtime in Puerto Princesa - the Chief of Immigration let us
off with a 500 peso overstaying fine each, and overruled the counter staff who
were insisting we needed to extend our visas, which would have been 2500 pesos
each, so we are cleared out and ready to go. Bruce is worried about the
Immigration women, he says they were vicious, and suspects they have marked our
passports with the international secret symbol for "cavity search". We have just
had another typhoon through, the fourth of the season, which missed us, but
knocked some friends about on the other side of the island, but they are OK,
just a bent 75lb plow anchor. The weather has been rainy, so we are still on
anchor at the Abanico Yacht Club in PP, enjoying their great hospitality.
Urchin sellers,
Puerto Princesa Market
PP is an interesting town - the guidebooks make it sound as if it is a bustling modern city, but in reality it is a city-sized small town. Much of the construction is thatch and bamboo, even in fairly central areas. You can get most of what you need to provision here: we found fresh herbs - what bliss! We even found fabric paint so we can make up more boat t shirts. The market is very good, not at all sickmaking, unlike Coron, so we have been fossicking through that as well. We have even had new cockpit cushions made - very spanky cream leatherette jobs. Even our resident gecko family (3 & counting) (no, no idea either) approve - the cushions had only been in the cockpit an hour and one was out sunning himself on them. Just as well we have no more overnighters until after Thailand, as they are so comfortable there would undoubtedly be naps during watches. Nothing like bare, hard teak to keep you alert in the wee small hours.
Invictus at anchor in Puerto Princesa Bay, near Abanico Yacht Club
The bay where we are anchored is sheltered and very beautiful with spectacular sunsets, but unfortunately the water is filthy and infested with huge stinging jellyfish, so swimming is out. Fortunately the weather has cooled down over the last couple of days, and I have even had a couple of minutes where I have felt cold! (This is comparative - I was wearing a singlet and shorts at the time, it was raining and I was in a fast dinghy, but hey, beats sitting in a puddle of sweat feeling your flesh slowly stewing!) As soon as the weather clears we'll be off coast-hopping down to Kudat in Malaysia for a few months exploring Borneo.
5 July 2009
Bruce at Patawan, deep in pirateland
Well,
we are now firmly ensconced in pirate-land. I seem to vaguely remember saying
before we left, "Oh no, about the only place there are pirates is the Sulu Sea,
and we won't be going THERE!", and have been trying to ignore the fact we have
been cruising about the Sulu Sea for the last month or so. Fortunately most of
the bad stuff took place over the other side by Mindanao (and we're not going
THERE - at the moment) but the area we are in at the moment, Balabac, does have
its warnings attached in the cruising guides (not in the Lonely Planet, because
NO tourists ever make it down here, as far as I can tell). Balabac is the island
closest to Malaysia (25 miles), and a lot of cross-border smuggling goes on, so
of course, given the food chain thing, smugglers get preyed on by pirates after
their loads of cargo, hence the "do not sail at night" warnings for the area. We
haven't seen anyone that looks like Johnny Depp yet (damn), but a couple of days
ago we anchored off a deserted islet in a lagoon in some islands off the bottom
of Palawan (one being the aptly-named Bugsuk), only to notice that the village
on the island a couple of miles away sported an awfully large number of big
fast-looking boats for such a small settlement. This combined with several small
bancas coming to ask for food and/or money gave us an uneasy feeling, so after a
nervous night we decamped for the island and town of Balabac, where we are
anchored at present. The people here are friendly, smiley people, and there are
two Philippines Navy vessels anchored here as well, which gives a sense of
security, even if they run their noisy generators day and night!
We went into "town" this morning for supplies (large bunch of bananas, 2
avocadoes and a handful of chillies for NZ80 cents), and Bruce managed yet again
to display his new-found talent for locating the local beer wholesaler and doing
deals for cheap cases of beer (Malaysian beer prices are not user-friendly
apparently). We were wandering along the main street when Bruce dived off into
what I thought was a private residence and came out with a man who opened his
wholesale warehouse especially for us, and sold us 2 dozen beers for NZ$10! I
was stunned and impressed - the man is the yachtie equivalent of a drug dog!
Stilt house, Crawford Cove, Balabac
As we are getting further south, the towns are becoming more and more Moslem,
meaning I have to cover up more, not so pleasant in this heat. Where we are
anchored we can hear the call to prayer over the loudspeaker as the sun sets.
Well, I'm presuming it is the call to prayer - either that or it is an
announcement that the infidel yacht whore is having a shower in the cockpit (I'm
waiting for the fatwas...)
We are finding it hard to believe the decadence of day-sailing everywhere - we
have made our way down here from Coron, and most days have only been 5 hours or
so, not taxing at all. Mind you, there isn't much sailing, as the wind here is
minimal (unless there is a typhoon, and you don't want to be going out in that
anyway). We have done around 900 miles during our time in the Philippines and
have sailed for about 18 hours: most on the first day, and then almost all the
rest yesterday, otherwise it has been motoring. Weather permitting, tomorrow we
plan to head to the bottom of Balabac Island, where there is an old Spanish
lighthouse we want to visit, then we'll hop across the Balabac Straits to the
islands just north of Kudat for a day or so before heading into Kudat to clear
into Malaysia, a trip of 15 miles, but we wouldn't want to over-extend
ourselves...