April's cruising costs for Philippines and Malaysia

Wow, we're really into Asia now! Despite the fact that we hauled out, April was still a cheaper than our monthly average! Overall we spent NZ$ 1314, but excluding the haul-out costs it's only NZ$ 527! It's probably mostly because we spent 2/3 of the month day passaging along the west coast of Palawan, Philippines where there aren't many possibilities to spend money. But, so far Malaysia is also very cheap, and the food is even better.

We are still in Kudat, it turned out the rattling of the shaft was worse than we initially thought and Phil has been working on a solution with some help from a couple other cruisers here in the marina, luckily enough one is a mechanic!

Goodbye to Philippines

Yesterday we arrived in Kudat, Malaysia. We chose to do the last passage overnight so that we could arrive Friday lunch time, in time to clear into the country before the weekend. I don't thing that actually mattered, this seems to be the easiest and most relaxed country to check into we have experienced so far. And even better, it was free. However, it does seems you have to clear in and out of each (major) port, so we might change our mind later on.

Back to Philippines though. Overall we have had a pleasant trip down the west coast of Palawan. It's been pretty placid and light, sure with some roll, it really never goes away, but overall not bad at all. Pretty much each afternoon squally clouds would develop over the land and move out over the sea, but it was only in patches, and most importantly didn't bring much wind, but neither much rain.Our last passage to Malaysia was extra pleasant, just a light wind closed hauled and a pretty flat sea. If only all passages was like that :-)

Land travel without Sophia is the blue line

Above is a map of our route through the Philippines. We spent 2 1/2 months in Philippines, the longest we have been in any country so far. This is mostly because it's also the biggest country which is also evident from the fact that the majority of the time we only spent one night at each anchorage, and were day passaging a lot. I think overall we probably even spent less time at each anchorage on average in Philippines than anywhere else.

We have had a great time and have really enjoyed seeing so much of the country and experience a totally new culture (compared to the other countries we have visited). Total cliche, but the people really are super friendly and very casual and chilled. It's a very nice cruising destination yet there really aren't many cruisers there. Sure, there are a bunch of yacht based in Philippines, but they are mostly only in a couple of 'hot-spots' not moving anywhere and it's mostly older men with young Philipina wifes. Most seems to pass through like we did from Palau and that really isn't many either. Wild guess, but it's maybe only 20 each season, maximum. Why is this? We think it's a bunch of reasons, again mostly just guessing, but probably the typhoon and the security issues (piracy in Sulu archipelago and civil unrest in Mindanao. Another big reason is that Philippines simply isn't on the regular milk run around the world (it goes through Bali/Indonesia instead).

Philipinos LOVE dried fish, they eat it for breakfast and all the time! So, no Philipino summary without a little dried fish collage!

The typhoon risk of course isn't nice, but December to June are considered safer months, and thankfully we haven't experienced any either. Even if you are caught out and a typhoon is approaching the country, there are quite a few typhoon holes spread around the country. Regarding the security issues, nobody is cruising the Sulu archipelago (a shame though, because it looks like beautiful cruising ground) and because of this, there simply haven't been any incidents in many years now. It's also easy enough to find our which places on Mindanao (mostly the south) to avoid.

But, now we're in Malaysia and that's very exciting too. The feeling of arriving in a new country is quite special, there are many things to learn and explore and where do you find bread, will people smile back at your (usually always) and what's the currency. There's a half year old marina here in Kudat with no owners, so it's free! Who knows how long it will stay like that, apparently it was build by some Malaysian government people, but it's all pretty unclear. Yesterday we went into town to checked in and got some food, super delicious roti for me (yeah, have been really looking forward to that) and KFC for Phil, much less exciting, in my opinion, but that was his choice. We're going to stay here a few days before moving on.

Visiting the navy and express trip to Puerto Princessa

Oyster Bay (inside Ulugan Bay) is one of the safest places to leave the boat while traveling to Puerto, so that was what were were going to do. That is Oyster Bay's only plus side. The down sides are that it's 4 miles from the anchorage to where the jeepney leaves (in dinghy) and that there's only one jeepney that does the trip a day. The anchorage itself is very sheltered, basically typhoon safe. But, it's literally in the middle of nowhere. Except for the small navy station.

For some reason we though the village was actually in the bay where we were anchored, but a quick dinghy trip around revealed no village, so we decided to go ask the navy guys. There's this long pier and we could see a few buildings also, but weren't really sure what to expect, the guide book said they are unpredictable and vary from friendly and helpful to firing warning shoots! We waiting in the dinghy until somebody came to greet us before we jumped up. But, it turned out we were more than welcome. It's only six guys manning the station and they were thrilled to have visitors. So thrilled that in the couple of hours we were there, a bottle of tequila and half a bottle of brandy were comsumed :-) We don't think that was just because of us though, there were a lot of bottles around. They were super friendly though and spoke OK English.

They told us it was only half an hour's dinghy ride to the village from where there was transport to Puerto. It sounded like the first one was at 6am, maybe a van or something, and then a jeepney at 7am, so it was suggested we leave at 5.30, one of them was keen on a ride with us and could also guide us there. We asked several times if half an hour was enough, because our dinghy is very small and only has 2.5 hp, but they assured us it was fine.

Phil and I got up just after 5am next morning and went to pick up the navy guy and started our trip. Phew, an hour and fifteen minutes later we finally got there. The good thing was we didn't have to wait too long for the jeepney to leave, it was already pretty full too. Then it drove around and picked up fish in big containers, even full of water, it all went up the roof, but not without spilling a bit into the jeepney. All part of the Philipino jeepney experience.

Two hours later we arrived in Puerto but were told we had to be back at the terminal already at 12pm again, as it was the last (and only) jeepney. That only gave us three hours to a bunch of errands. Most important was getting our exit stamp in the passport. This went pretty smoothly, except when they asked where our boat was. We should just have said in the harbour or by the yacht club (in Puerto) but silly honest us, said it was in Oyster Bay on the west coast. We were then told that wasn't very good, and it would cost us some money (500 pesos, NZ$15) because if they had had to come see us, it would have been very expensive. Again it helped that we counter-argued (as nicely as we could) and said it made no sense, because we had actually come to them, and she quickly gave up and said, don't worry.

After this we didn't feel like going around to see more bureaucrats, so we decided to skip customs. We actually have a paper that says Foreign Port Clearance from Surigao City and all the old time cruisers here in Philippines told us it doesn't matter anyway and Malaysia will clear anyone in from the Philippines, whatever the papers.

We then went straight to the big mall, looked unsuccessfully for a Malaysia lonely planet and did a big shopping excursion at the supermarket and Phil had his beloved Jolliebee (fastfood like KFC). After this there wasn't much more time left before we had to be back at the bus terminal. We had hoped we could go see Janeth (from Diapila Bay who got a ride on Sophia to El Nido).

The jeepney was already over half full, but there was some disagreement as to when it's actually leave, some suggested more like 2pm! Janeth was a champ and made it to the bus terminal to see us off, it was good to see her again and a shame we didn't have more time. The jeepney did finally leave at maybe 1.15, after having huge amounts loaded on top of it (empty fish crates among other things) and more people than it's possible to imagine. When you think, now it's really full and it's no possible to squeeze another person in, yet another person does find room. This happened several times, and in the end our butts were squeezed so tight in it was barely possible to move (seating is two benches along each side of the jeepney). There was even a person sitting on the outside of the driver, so the driver was on a bit of an angle to the wheel and pedals!

Hours later were were back at Macaracas village and faced with another long dinghy ride back to Sophia. It was much less fun than in the morning (when it was dead calm flat water) as there was now a bit of a chop and our bodies were already stiff from the jeepney ride, but we made it back just before 6pm and quickly crashed.

Next morning I baked muffins and we went to say good bye to the navy guys. Two of them came back out with us in their landing craft to take photos of Sophia. They were extremely photo happy and probably ended up with 50 photos of Sophia, most of them with me and one of the guys posing together, it was definitely more fun to have me pose with them rather than Phil :-)

We are now a couple of stops further down the coast, by Quezon and Shawn (Ohlala) has caught up with us. He's going to Puerto from here. The anchorages here in south Palawan are not great (= rolly), the charts are not very good plus there are lots of reef and shoals. We're considering hopping straight to Kudat, however, there is mostly only wind during the day, not night, and we're not keen on that much motoring. Furthermore there is some smuggling going on between the two countries so it's best to do the passage in the day time. We'll probably end up continuing day hopping and should be in Kudat, Malaysia in 3-4 days' time.

We got up this morning at 5.30 in order to catch some better internet, but it's still hopeless, so still no photos.

Bacuit Archipelago and how we almost got two kids

The last blog post ended with us giving Janeth a ride to El Nido. Here we hung out a couple of days, mostly with Shawn from Ohlala (met in PNG and again Palau). El Nido is an big tourist mekka, and the town is probably one of the most touristy places we have visited so far. The main attraction is the Bacuit Archipelago at its footstep. Like Coron Island and Palau's rock islands, there's a lot of cool lime stone around, including some really steep cliffs, very impressive landscape. Add a heap of islands, pretty beaches and that's the archipelago. Boat trips is the thing to do. We did our own touring around in Sophia, much nicer, cheaper and more private.

Ohlala motoring along one of the steep limestone cliffs near El Nido

We saw the cathedral cave, a cavern with soaring limestone columns and yeah, cathedral like. We also checked out both big and small lagoon on Miniloc Island. It wasn't possible to anchor Sophia at any of these places, so we just took turns taking the dinghy to have a look, while the other stayed in deeper water with Sophia, it worked out just fine. Sophia must have been one of the most photographed things in the archipelago those days though, everyone that came past in tourist boats took photos of us.

The last cool thing we did in the archipelago was to snorkel in the Tapiutan Strait between two of the most outlying islands. It's no real anchorage, but we manged to anchor Sophia on the reef wall and could therefore both jump in. The water was super super clear, really nice. And there were huge schools of little fish and we were treated to an amazing show watching small (15 cm) tuna chase the little fish around, a mere few meters away from us! We always see these little fish jump out of the water in big school, being chased by something bigger, and sometimes we do see the bigger fish jump out too, but this was the first time we saw the chasing while actually in the water. Pretty neat. Of course the chain AND anchor had snagged on rock and coral, but luckily my new free diving skills meant it was no problem diving down to 22-23 meters to free both.

The only downside to the paradise that the archipelago is, are jelly fish! Especially deeper into the bays there were lots, even some really big (and nasty-looking) ones. The worst is there are sometimes box jelly fish, mostly known from Australia, sometimes they actually kill people. It can't be that big a problem though, because there is a huge amount of people around and about and many swim and snorkel, and if it was that dangerous, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be.

The last couple of days we have been on the move again down the west coast of Palawan, although so far the anchorages are close enough that we don't need to do dawn to dusk day sails, but more comfortable 4-6 hour sails. The most interesting stop was at Buayan Island. We had seen there were a few small bankas about the bay fishing, but it wasn't until maybe an hour after we dropped the anchor, that they came near us. It was women with kids out fishing for dinner. Their English wasn't very good, but we chatted a bit and I watched them successfully jigging small fish. They kept hanging around and it was clear they were super curious so we invited them onboard Sophia. Soon more people from the small settlement (only seven families live in the bay) came out and we had a full ship. The most interesting thing was our photo board, always the biggest draw for visitors (except other yachties, interestingly enough), they just love seeing photos of our family and friends.

The kids we almost adopted are on the far right, both in red/pink t-shits

Two of the kids were especially keen to stay, they told their mum they could just stay and sleep in the cockpit and quickly illustrated how comfortably they'd sleep on our cockpit squabs. Everyone slowly trickled back ashore, but the two kids, brother and sister, maybe 6-8 years old, just stayed and showed no distress whatsoever when their mum had left. In the end we actually had to help them into their banka to get them to leave, haha, and they were the first visitors back next morning 7am! More visitors quickly arrived, and soon we had four women and maybe 12 kids onboard. A big hit was also rowing around in our dinghy, much more exciting than their trimaran bankas, naturally. We asked if we could come ahore to visit their settlement and soon we were all on land. They are very poor, and the women are married very early, and have lots of kids, unfortunately, not helping Philippine's growing population and  poverty problem.

Giant me next to small Philipino women. None of the kids wore diapers, and the woman on the right has wet pants because her kids peed on her. I'm just wet from sweat!

We're now in Puerto Princessa (via jeepney from the west coast) to clear out of the country, unfortunatley we haven't had internet the last week or so and here it's pretty poor too plus we have no time, so although we have lot of nice pics to accompany the stories, there will be no photos now, I'll try and add them later. We have had fun visiting a small navy station Uluong Bay, more about that in the next post.

March cruising costs in Philippines

NZ$ 1263 is what we spent in March and that even includes my freediving course and associated travel, so all up a pretty good month.

Again we spent more on eating out than buying food :-) Philippines isn't exactly known for its delicious cousine, but at least it's quite cheap. They LOVE meat, and especially bbq, and if you're happy with meat of various (often dubious) cuts and sources, you can live on next to nothing. Being semi-vegetarian makes it a bit harder for me to find food, even the veggie dishes often have meat pieces in them. We're really looking forward to Malaysia and especially Thailand later this year.

Otherwise there aren't really anything to explain or comment on for this month's budget, it's pretty self-explanatory.

Playing bible telephone on a pretty beach

After Coron we visited two other anchorages in Busuanga Group, one in Puerto Del Sol, which is one of those places that claim to be a yacht club, but really is just a resort that also caters to yachts. We were surprised to see 5-6 yachts moored in the bay, although it was quickly obviously they are stored there, only two actually had people on them. We had heard there was a mooring with good water hooked up to it and that why we went there. It hasn't rained more than a sprinkel in almost a month now, so we're getting pretty low on water.

Since Solomon Islands (November) we have relied 100% on catching rain water, and lots of it even. It has also made us quite picky, as there really isn't anything better than sweet clean rain water. So, we went to check out the water on the mooring, but quickly gave up on that idea, as the water did not taste good at all. As luck would it it, it actually rained a little bit that afternoon and with the help of our big rain catcher, we got maybe 60 or so litres, enough to keep us going another little while.

Our next anchorage was in Coral Bay in the southern end of Busuanga Group. There was a resort in the bay and totally randomly it turned out it was owned by a Danish couple! Even more funny was that one of the Danish boats we met in Palau (brothers with one boat each) uses their bay more or less as a base, so they knew Kim very well :-) They keep their house reef protected and it we had a really good snorkel trip on it, really good coral and fish life, we even saw several lobsters. A new-to-us fish was jaw fish, they live in deep rock lined holes in the sand and only just poke their head out to stare at us, they looked so angry and grumpy, really funny fish! This reef along with Kayagan Lake and a shallow WWII gun boat wreck we snorkelled, makes Busuanga group come in as the best snorkel spot in Philippines (so far anyway).

We left Coral Bay and headed towards Palawan. We had two possible stops on the way, but the wind was so good (strong) that we went all the way to north Palawan in one day. We anchored in Diapila Bay. It is a big quite open bay lined with several beautiful beaches. When we went ashore to check out the beach and village, we met a church group that were having a Easter Sunday picnic and fun & games on the beach. They kindly invited us to join them in games such as bibles telephone (whisper a bible quote along in a line, first team to get it right wins). They also gave us some yummy food. 

To reciprocate, we invited some of them to come visit Sophia later in the day and I make muffins, always a hit with visitor. It was even the first time they had been on a yacht, despite the fact that yachts fairly often visit the bay. Unfortunately one of girls became sick literally 90 seconds after being inside Sophia (to have a look around) and she spent the rest of the time puking on the back of the banka they arrived in. It's not the first time that has happened for visitors, but it's quite amazing how little it takes, it was a pretty OK flat anchorage in our opinion. One of the girls works in Puerto Galera and had been back visiting her family for the easter break and was going back go El Nido to catch the bus and as we were going at the same time, offered her a ride which she gratefully accepted. We hope to catch up with Janeth again in Puerto Princessa.

Day passages, Coron and Kayagan lake

After Romblon we had four long passage days, where we were on the move from early morning to literally just before sunset most days, about 40-50 miles a day. It's not very nice to do night passages in the Philippines as there are a ton of fish traps, buoys and fishing boats all around, all not lit, but we also prefer to get a nice un-interrupted sleep every night. We sail the far majority of the time, but the wind is quite variable, and almost on all passage, we end up having to motor a bit as well.

Enjoying the sunset over Busuanga Group (Coron) after almost 800 steps, phew

What's at the top of the 800 steps

Our stops were: Santa Fee on Tables, Bulalacao on Mindoro and Grace Island Resort by Ambulong island, south of San Jose, Mindoro. We didn't even go ashore at the first two stops, we just slept there. We had intended to stop at San Jose to get new supplies, but the wind has suddenly turned NW (it's still NE trade season, although getting towards the end of it), so that anchorage was no good, and instead we went to Ambulong where we didn't expect to find anything, but there was a resort there, although we weren't too impressed with it, below average food for high prices and lots of animals in small cages. It was quite big, mostly floating houses, but there were no guests. The upside was the anchorage was super calm and protected.

We have now been in Coron a couple of days and have enjoyed staying put a little bit, weird/funny, we even had a day where we didn't do a single thing, except hang out on Sophia, read, play on the computers and only ventured ashore for one or two hours. You'd think we get enough quiet with all those passages where we literally just 'hang' on Sophia also. Ashore (in towns anyway) it's usually quite noisy, dirty and super hot, whereas Sophia is cooler (sea breeze), quiet and clean.

Amazing Coron Island. The beach in the corner was our picnic stop

Today we took a boat tour, just like regular tourists, but simply because we wanted to go to Kayagan lake, and there's no anchorages around there for Sophia, so this was easiest, plus we got to go to a couple of other snorkelling sites, and lunch was included. One of the snorkel sites was pretty good and even had some fish (there really aren't many left in Philippines!), but the total highlight was the lake. It's located in Coron island, which in itself also is quite spectacular, steep lime stony cliffs, and this lake (70-80% fresh water) is basically that same landscape turned upside town, like a mirror, underwater. There were hardly any fish, but it was the underwater landscape and ultra clear blue water that was the attraction. The snorkelling has also been especially cool after my newly learned freediving skill, I can stay down longer, go deeper and I equalise much better (my ears don't hurt after lots of dives like they sometimes used to. 

To get to Kayagan Lake you walk over a pass from where there's a beautiful view

Kayagan Lake, unfortunatley still no underwater pics as our underwater camera has pretty much been declared dead

The inevitable dunk from the dinghy, motorbike tour and tornado catamaran

After Gigantes Islands we sailed to Roxas on Panay where we stayed two nights. Here the inevitable happened: fall into drink from the dinghy! It's amazing it hasn't happened before now even, well, apart from our other dinghy accident in Tonga, but under different circumstances, where our dinghy was pushed backwards by a big wave when we tried to dinghy along in really choppy sea. Back then it was 'only' the outboard that got wet (besides us obviously) and Phil dealt with that immediately flushing it with WD40.

A long story short, Phil fell into the water as I was getting into the dinghy. We were both at fault, although mostly me, he didn't give me enough space, I 'sacrificed' him, because I had a small bag with wallet, keys and my old small camera (when I bring my big camera with the different lenses, I ALWAYS drybag it, just in case). However, it turned out he had his smart phone in the pocket, ups, why did he need the phone to a supermarket expedition anyway, nobody has his Filipino number? Unfortunately it didn't survive, so Phil had to go back into town a second time and get a new one. We use the smartphone all the time to create wifi hotspot so we have internet. At least he'll hopefully respects drybagging valuables a bit more from now on...

By the way, we're not going to Puerto Galera, Phil could luckily see sense in my arguing, or maybe it was just because he won the last time. We had another route discussion again though, Phil wanted to go to Boracay (a crazy tourist hotspot, a bit like Pukhet or Bali, but on a tiny tiny island). I was more than keen to give that a miss and instead go to Romblon which sounded like a quiet, pretty island well off the beaten track. We went to Romblon, but only because it made most sense to go there first, and then possibly back to Boracay (we haven't decided yet.)

We have now been here three days and have really enjoyed it. It's a small town, but quite nice and with hardly any shanty parts, plus a fort up a hill with a nice view. There are colourful buntings hanging over the plaza and amazingly beautiful orchids growing on houses everywhere. Here is another collage or them, I just can't help it...

We also met a Danish backpacker couple, Ida and Nicolaj, whom we originally met back on Apo Island! So funny. They had spotted Sophia anchored as they came in on the ferry and wondered if that was our boat, they did remember something about us saying the red canvas is pretty unique. They were just sitting at a cafe and wondering how they would find us when we happened to walk past them! We invited them out on Sophia for sunset drinks and dinner and have been hanging out them them these last few days.

Yesterday Phil and I rented a motorbike to go right around the island. We came prepared and wore long pants and shoes (first time I have worn shoes in 9 months, felt soooo weird and not good...) and asked about helmets. We got these flimsy almost hard hat ones, but they were better than nothing. We haven't seen a single other person wear a helmet here on the island, so I sure that accounted for at least some of the staring and laughing at us :-) But it was a fun day and a pretty island. It has a lot of marble and we drove by lots of little marble work places, dusty men chiseling away on these rough white rocks!

On our drive we spotted a tornado (fast catamaran dinghy) and they it was for hire, so today we took Ida and Nicolaj there and had a fun time on the water. It was an old German one the owner's daughter managed to get while she was there working at the embassy, and could therefore import it without the normal 200% import tax, apparently. It was made slightly Filipino with some bamboo rafts, pretty funny, but it was workable. Unfortunately it wasn't very windy, so we never went super fast, but it was still a good time. Maybe we're just silly sailing geeks that while sailing around in our yacht, on the water every day, we're still keen to sail for fun and as a touristy activity.

Island hopping through Visayas

It is almost a week ago that we left Carmen. We have since then slowly hopped our way through Visayas (kind of the middle island part of Philippines). Our first stop was Camotes Island (anchored off Pacijan Island by Santiago). The water was amazing, crystal clear and inviting, although we didn't see many fish snorkelling. Ashore we chickened out of a motorcycle ride on the island, although fun, we have our lives too dear. Next stop was Palompon on North Leyte. The best thing about that anchorage was its protection, no rolling!

From Palompon we had a long days beating into the wind (it's supposed to be NE trades, but this particular day, when we finally were heading west after a lot of northing (since Bohol), it was NW! It was still lovely sailing, and we did arrive at Malapascua before sunset. Malapascua is a tourist island most known for the place to see thresher sharks (scuba diving), but we gave those a miss and did our own snorkelling instead.

From Malapascua we headed more NW and are now at Giantes Islands, north-east of Panay. This is the most remote we have been since our very first stop in Philippines at Lapinigan Island. It's also super pretty islands with lots of limestone cliffs, green bush and white beaches. And just like in Melanesia, we got visited by local kids, although these paddled out on sacks filled with styrofoam. They were quite shy, but warmed up when I gave them a lollipop. As I had guessed might happen, ten minutes later a whole mob came out, all giggling and laughing and they got some lollies too.

Our cruising guide had mentioned something about caves and white monkeys, and suggested getting a guide in the village. Ashore we again got mobbed by about 50 kids (people claustrophobia would not be a good thing) who first took us to a mango tree where we were given green mangoes (the owner refused payment). We were told nobody wanted to guide us to the caves, as it was too hot a day. Luckily a couple of young girls came to our rescue, they were keen to take us, so we jumped in our dinghy and off we went. We did see a beautiful enclosed lagoon and another small cave, but the white monkeys were hiding.

Soon we have to decide if we're going straight to Palawan (with several stops on the way), or if we go via Puerto Galera, which is quite a detour. I'm keen on the first and see no attraction in another cruiser hang-out place (most likely a bunch of old men with Philipina wives, sorry, don't mean to offend anyone, but that does define most cruisers in Philippines), but Phil is keen to go. I think I should win this one, as Phil won our last route argument we had back in Vanuatu when we missed out a couple of islands that I was keen on.

Unfortunately this post comes without photos, as the internet we get with the smart phone here is excruciatingly slow, no pics on facebook either. (Update 24 hours later, with better internet have uploaded the photos, both here and to facebook.)

February cruising budget

In the month of February we spent NZ$ 2019. The biggies were Phil's doctor bills for his fractured toe ($280) and our little break from Sophia while going backpacking wasn't cheap either, so far it was $435. And this is only the first part of our trip, the whale sharks trip and my freediving course occurred in March. I have gathered all the costs for the land travel under sightseeing, rather than divide it into eating out, transport etc.

I have deleted the item Drinks and food for internet, as we haven't had any costs there since Vanuatu and I don't think we will anytime soon.

We haven't had much transport cost before now, and even though transport in Philippines is very cheap, we have travelled a lot on land and in cities and it all adds up.

Very interesting is we actually spent more on eating out than buying food in February!! That's for sure a first! It means we have eaten out A LOT, but it has still been really cheap, considering how many days we have eaten out!

Turtles, whale sharks and freediving course

After one week away from Sophia and lots of adventures, we're now both back onboard and boy oh boy, she sure is home sweet home. It's been so much fun to be off her and do something totally different (well, still visiting beautiful islands and snorkelling), but backpacking is different from cruising. One of the biggest differences is we have met so many young white people, haha. Probably the most since New Zealand. Backpackers are young, most even younger than us, and cruisers are old, broad generalisation, but pretty true. Maybe I'm getting old, but I really like my own bed every night, being able to do my own cooking, and having all my things handy.

 As already mentioned in the last blog post, we left Sophia in Carmen and travelled to Apo Island where we had two great days. It's a tiny island with great reef life, lots of big turtles and fish, even just right off the beach. I did two dives, the first one a drift dive, soooo much fun and beautiful life and we probably almost covered about a third of the island's coast because we drifted so fast. The other one I did was a night dive, just off the beach, but it was super cool and we saw huge sleeping turtles, big nudibranches, scrimps, tiny baby squid (half little finger nail sized), a tiny frog fish and a scorpion fish.

 After Apo Island we went back to Durmagete where we celebrated Phil's birthday (35, he's getting pretty old) with a nice German backpacker couple. They also told us of this place south of Cebu City called Oslob where you can see whale sharks right off the coast, so we had to give that a go, as we had otherwise planned to go way up north to Donsol where you can also see them.

 We weren't really sure what to expect, but we got into this little banka (the Philipino style outrigger boats) and were paddled out to several small tiny bankas that are feeding the whale sharks squid or crill. The whale sharks were basically like puppies following the bankas, sticking their head right up inbetween the ourrigger and what looked like begging for food!!!! OK, so it wasn't quite the wild life experience, but nonetheless, it was still really cool to see the whale sharks right up close in the water with them. They are in family with sharks and look a bit like a gigant flat-ish shark, but they eat plancton like whales. The ones we saw (there were seven in total that stick around although they are free to leave) were maybe 3-5 meters long. You're supposed to keep a distance of at least 4 meters, but in reality they were much closers and I kept having to move back so they wouldn't touch me.

 At Oslob Phil and I split up, I went to Moalboal to do a freediving course, but Phil wasn't as keen, and especially not with a broken toe, so he went back to Carmen to Sophia. It was again the first time in we don't even know how long, that we didn't sleep together, and first time in over nine month that we weren't together 24/7 round the clock.

Over the weekend I did a beginner freediving course and I loved it. I learned a lot of interesting things and did much better than I had ever thought I would. Total brag, but I held my breath for 3.38 minutes, and my best freedive (one single breath of air) was to 26.4 meters. It was also fun to do some learning (super teacher does that) and being part of a 'team' with the other guys on the course. Now I just look forward to even more enjoyable snorkelling.

 Now we're back in Port Carmen and are heading off to Camotes tomorrow morning and will continue cruising through Philippines.

Fractured toe and land travel without Sophia

If you're following us on facebook (more action there now in Philippines when we have internet almost every day, and you don't even need an account to see our page), you may have already seen the picture of Phil's fracture little toe. Sigh. He was so unlucky to bang his foot into the genoa car track on the deck, right between his little toe and the next toe (ring toe?).

At first we didn't actually think it was serious, because it wasn't very painful. But the next day he had quite a limp and the foot was quite swollen and blue. We were going to the doctor anyway to find out about a vaccination booster shoot, and figured we might as well ask. We even betted on whether it was broken or not, I thought not, Phil was 50/50! Well, the x-ray showed a chip fracture on the little toe. A long day later, Phil got a half cast that can be removed for sleeping and swimming, however, we still thought this is very unpractical for boat life and especially for six long weeks! Luckily we have a orthopedic surgeon cruiser friend (the Americans we met in Stewart Island) and emailed him for advice. He suggested the much more practical solution of buddy taping the toe and wearing stiff soled shoes, so that's our approach now.

We sailed Sophia from Cebu City north to Port Carmen and while underway, Slick got a bunch of great sailing pics of Sophia, thanks so much!

Carmen has a basic sort of marina, or actually two but it seems like one, and it's full of crusty old sailors, most working on their boats. Here it's also very obvious about half or more old men cruising the Philippines have young Philipina wifes. We have left Sophia there while we backpack on land (and ferry) down south for various reasons: there's no anchorage where we want to go (Apo Island south of Negros) and we'd also have to bash against the wind to go north again, and also simply because we haven't been off Sophia for over nine months now.

We're now on Apo Island and are enjoying a proper bed that doesn't move at all. Apo Island is one of Philippine's (many) top dive destinations and also knows for lots of turtles that can be spotted just snorkelling off the beach. We can attest to that, we just saw four really big turtles, super cool!!

View from our room at Apo Island. I don't think it's possible to tire of an ocean view :-)

Big city visit and more about clearing into Philippines

After Bohol and after Sheralee left, we're sailed north to Cebu City. It's quite a big city (800,000 inhabitants) and there is even a marina here! First marina since NZ, albeit it's really small (maybe 15 boats only) and there's no room for any visiting yachts. A couple other boats that we know from Palau are also anchored outside the marine, so it has been nice to catch up and hang out with them. The anchorage by the marina is actually just outside a shanty town. Add dirty smelly water and lots of big ferries driving past, it makes it a pretty unpleasant anchorage, but, the big city with the attractions that comes with that make up for it. We have now already been here six days, but that is about our max dose and we're ready to move on again.

The most important thing we had to get sorted was clearing properly into the country. They (as in various officials) were all a bit unhappy to learn that we had actually gotten some paperwork done by customs and immigration in Surigao, because that wasn't supposed to happen until we had seen quarantine, and there was no quarantine officer there, he had recently died! Anyway, luckily we didn't get into trouble for that, seeing it wasn't our fault. The good thing was that after having seen the quarantine officer at the yacht club and paying the only (as far as we can understand) legitimate fee of 2500 pesos, app NZ$ 70, we went to the customs office instead of having the customs officer coming to see us as is normal. This was good because we had heard from the other cruisers that the officer demanded US dollars, up to $70 for 'fees'. Very corrupt. Most ended up paying less $ and some pesos, but it didn't sounded like a pleasant officer.

We visited Hyde Sails, a big UK sail loft with production here in Cebu City. It was interesting and Phil got some industry gossip. Most interesting for me was to learn the minimum wage here is 349 pesos a day, about NZ$ 10. And their work week is 48 hours!

It did take almost two hours at the customs office getting all the paper work done (including half an hour wait for the right officer), but they were all really nice and even had a TV in their office and the other people there were keen to chat with us. The TV is surely not good for work morale, but they didn't seem to be doing any work anyway. We did end up paying 345 pesos which did seem legitimate enough, hard to say, but thankfully were not outrageous demands of US dollars.

At one of the malls we have been hanging out at, there was this super yummy youghurt ice cream place (OK, I know, I gotta try and cut back, but at least youghurt ice cream gotta be slightly healthier, right...). Anyways, they girls were super nice and chatty and asked us to come back after we had watched our movie, and we ended up chatting with the boss lady (in pink) and got more free ice cream, all while the whole mall was closing down. Also, the girl on the far right would like to let you all know she's single.

Next visit was immigration. We had heard that it was supposed to be free (21 days visa only, extension cost money), but that both the two officers in charge of yacht immigration try to charge 2500 pesos for the privilege. Again, the other cruisers had claimed not to have that much money with them, only just for taxi and a bit extra, and did get away with paying significantly less, so we had prepared for an argument. When they saw us, we immediately heard them repeat yachtie yachtie and some philipino and we saw dollar signs in their eyes, although admittedly we were suspicious from the start...

It quickly became clear there was no legitimate 2500 pesos fee, although they kept repeating something about coming to our yacht to clear us in (to which we argued, but we came here!) and we even signed a paper (unfortunately didn't get to keep it) that said something about that we hadn't fed the officer any meals or given him accommodation, which proves at least there are some measures taken to fight the corruption. In the end they guy kept saying, it's up to you, it's up to you, meaning, it was up to us how much we wanted to pay him! Of course we choose to pay nothing, although they certainly didnt' look happy when we left. We do realise that a lot of things in Asia (and many other places) is done with baksheesh (tips/bribe), but this was just so obviously wrong and corrupt and we did not want to support it.We did go back a few days later and got our extension without a problem, although that at least is a standardised process that other tourists also go through and the fees were clearly printed on a poster.

Guest post by Sheralee - A to Z guide

We are very sad to have said good bye to Sheralee, it's been really great having her and sharing our fantastic cruising life with her. The ultimate success of the visit is that she (a non-sailor, but keen traveller) is now considering the cruising life as a way to go! Anyway, Sheralee kindly wrote an A to Z guide to her Philipino visit onboard Sophia. We love it, thanks so much Sheralee and thanks for coming to visit us and being our parts and mail mule :-)

ANCHORAGES - most important to find scenic, sheltered and secure! After Limasawa, also stayed at Guindulman for a couple of nights, then Loay near Villa Lumpia resort for another couple of nights (abandoned river anchorage as we crawled through very shallow water surrounded by reef and crowded with fishing boats), then the sheltered port of Tagbilaran where we saw the first other cruising sail boat since Palau.

BAKESHOPS - even on the smallest island you were never more than a few hundred metres from some sort of bakeshop, with bread, sweet buns, cakes etc starting from 2 pesos each (about 7 cents). Yummo! (Also see WEIGHTWATCHERS)

CORAL - stopped at several beautiful snorkelling spots, including popular divespot and Marine Reserve Balicasag Island enroute on Tuesday. Surrounded by coral reef so Phil and Astrid took turns piloting Sophia while we explored. Saw a turtle, lots of big parrot fish, and schools of the greater spotted tourist....

DINGHY - our lifeline from the shore to the boat and vice - versa. Have no idea how they fitted four people when Astrid's parents visited! By the end I had mastered entering and exiting gracefully (quiet Astrid!!!). Travel hint - luggage that fits into two dry bags is recommended (ie, not a big wheelie suitcase). If you wish to offer post-dinner entertainment, do the splits while getting back into Dinghy in the dark.

EMAIL - internet was surprisingly cheap and not too unreliable. 50 pesos ($1,50) per day including Unlitxt (unlimited texting I am guessing). Again, even in the most remote spots there were posters advertising Unlitxt and smartphone rates....

FISHING - 8 days, fish 0. Really need to work on that trawling guys...

GIMBALLED - that stove is a very clever idea, we should all be gimballed in rolly weather on a boat...

HABEL HABEL - you saw the evidence on the last blog post. 1 driver and 3 whiteys, no helmets. Couldn't believe we made it up the hill, wouldn't have won any speed records though.

ICE CREAM - Astrid is finely tuned to hearing Mr Whippy jangles in NZ, and is now finely tuned at spotting any establishment which sells ice cream. The number of photos of Astrid eating ice cream is not proportionate to the number of ice creams Astrid has eaten :)

JEEPNEYS - brightly coloured small buses with two long bench seats in the covered back. They travel set routes and leave whenever full. For about 8 - 10 pesos per ride they are a bargain - Cheapneys... Travel tip - not recommended for people over 5 ft 5. Unless it is raining then you just jump in anyway.... (TRIKES are similarly colourful, with religious slogans on the back but is a Honda with a covered side wagon with two seats (additional seat on the bike behind driver, or a side 'seat' on the outside. Highly recommended.)

KINDLES - essential for any cruisers. Particularly during day long passages after the scenery has worn off and you are convinced there are no whales sharks or dolphins. Most commonly heard phrase on boat: ’where's my kindle?'

LIONFISH - the most impressive fish I've seen. Better than Nemo's. Go google it. Go on!

MANGOS - mmmmm, mangoes. (Yes both spellings are correct). I am pretty sure we ate mangos everyday, if not it was an unforgivable oversight...

NEXT TO NOTHING - what a lot of people got by on in the villages. Yet all were friendly and looked pretty content (living in paradise ain't too bad). Also defined as 'what they wore on the boat'. I soon got into the swing of this, when with the Danish girl.... And it was hot and saved washing! Travel tip - it is polite to warn Phil before he comes up on deck.

ORCHIDS - so many of the villages had the most beautiful street fronts and these gorgeous flowers would be sprouting out of gardens with pride.

PORK - what most Filipino dishes seem to have in them. Also a lot of Hot Dogs of questionable meat source. I do wonder if the Muslim population in the south have different traditional dishes. The majority of Filipinos are Catholic (and are hopeful that their young cardinal will be in the running to be the next pope!)

QUICKFOOD - Angels hamburgers, 2 for 25 pesos (about 70 cents). Phil and I gave them a go and survived!

RAIN - had only two significant downpours during my trip. The first was after our Chocolate Hills and Zipline ride experience. It pretty much kept raining all afternoon so we gave up trying to dry out or wait it out, and embraced it. We were like drowned rats in the dinghy, then had a full shower back on deck (shampooed out the salt soaked hair). Ahhhh, love the rain. Second downpour was after a perfect morning sailing and snorkelling at Balicasag. We headed upwind to Tagbilaran into a rock and rolly squall and while the crew 'kindled' below deck, the landlubber watched the horizon up in the fresh, wet air. Travel hint - water will pour out of the rolled up mainsail and straight down the back of your neck when seated in the cockpit and going down a wave. But it's not cold, so just embrace the rain!

SNORKELLING - also see CORAL.

TARSIER - the cutest little endangered primates, native to Bohol. See photos and captions on SY Sophia's Facebook page.

UNIFORMS - all schools and shops have neat and colorful uniforms. We looked like slobs in comparison!

VIDEOKE - Nuff said, seriously.

WEIGHTWATCHERS - what you need after a trip on SY Sophia. No fish and vege diet here! There were at least 3 cupboards with chocolates or chupa chups. The XL choc and maple syrup bottles needed their own cupboards. Astrid baked banana/choc bread and butter pudding, pear and choc self saucing pudding, and I had homemade baileys in my coffee at least 4 days.... Travel hint - the food is superb onboard. Enjoy!

XCELLENT - the time I had.

YACHT LIFE - definitely home away from home. Water was a major difference, washing dishes in salt water and rinsing with a spray bottle of rain water. There are 220 (?) litres and a great set up to catch rain water off the Bimini. Surprisingly spacious quarters and had everything you need, even an exhaustive library (I studied the books about cruising, have planted some seeds of a cruising lifestyle, sigh....)

ZIPLINE! - Astrid and I went on a 500 m zip line ride across the Loboc River gorge just so I would have something to put for 'Z'!

Disclaimer: the writer has not been paid for this independent review and contributed to her stay through grocery provision and being a courier for boat parts and 8 months of mail. Your experience may differ from the one described above and only humorous correspondence will be entered into.

Nemo land, ehh, or sea...

We are having a great time with Sheralee and are loving Philippines so far. Sheralee arrived in Surigao Tuesday and we left there early Wednesday and had a super nice sail to Panoan Island, south of Leyte, we anchored off Pintuyan village. It was a surprising clean and nice village, it seemed they had some campaign going to keep it tidy and it looked like it was working. The most amazing is all the orchids just growing in people's front yards and trees!

Next morning we weighed anchor and sailed to Limasawa which is a tiny island also south of Leyte, but much smaller than Panoan. Both islands were literally covered with coconut palms, we have never seen so many trees in one place! The shores of the villages are packed full of the out-rigger boats in all sizes, but mostly small ones for rowing. A lot of them go fishing at around sunset.

At Limasawa we were anchored off Triana on the east coast. We had a really good snorkel around the point off beautiful lime rock formation and palm trees, beautiful both above and below the water. The visibility was excellent and there were HEAPS of clown fish all over the place, Nemos is all kinds of sizes and colours! Some were almost nude coloured, very pale light orange, other were almost dark red! We didn't see any big fish (must be fished out), but still lots of smaller ones and pretty cool coral and rock landscape.

Later in the afternoon we went ashore to find the place where the Spanish first celebrated mass in Philippines in 1521 and thereby starting the Christianisation of the country. The occasional was marked with  a cross atop a hill, although apparently Magellan didn't even go up the hill, but just watched it. Again the little town was very tidy and pretty and of course everyone smiles at us and says hello, especially kids and women. So far we're impressed by Philippino towns' tidiness.

We found out the cross was accessed from the side of the island, but that we could just go over there on a habal-habal: a motorcycle with a long seat so that it fits several passengers, we have seen up to 6 people on them sometimes, so it was no problem fitting all three of us behind the driver! Of course no one wears a helmet, pants or proper shoes and I don't dare think of the potential accidents.

A few days ago I would have sworn I'd never ride a bike without proper protection, but that idea quickly went out the window along with safety 101. To be fair, we didn't go very fast and there seems only to be motor bikes on the island. Anyway, it was actually a lot of fun riding the bike, although I think it was even more fun for people to see these three big white people on the back of a bike!

There were 450 steps up the hill and some of us living on a boat aren't used to stairs at all, but we managed to stagger up! It wasn't the grand view we had anticipated and that the guidebook promised, but it was OK. To be honest, the bike ride there and back was more exciting.

Limasawa sometimes also gets visited by whale sharks and one local guy did row out and told us he spots them and maybe even takes people out to see them, we're not sure, his English was really poor, as is our Philippino! How he manages to spot them from his small rowing canoe remains a mystery. He never did turn up the next morning at 6am as he said he would. Instead I was hauled up the mast in order to try and spot them from there. Either there were none, or my spotting was faulty, we didn't see any, but it was still a nice view from the top of the mast.

We then just kept going and sailed/motored (when the wind died) over to Bohol and are now anchored in Guindulman Bay on the southern coast. Sheralee and I went for another snorkel just off Sophia, but visibility wasn't very good and there weren't many fish, although we did see several Nemos again! We were also stung a little bit although continuously by some sort of tiny jelly fish, so that was a quick snorkel!