South to Borneo

Back in company with Gadfly we left Puerto Princesa dotting our way down the coast stopping at some of the many Islands late in April. I wish I could say I’ve been too busy to write anything but truthfully I’ve just been slack.

Brooks point was the last place to spend our Pesos and by pooling our remaining cash had just enough for 2 beers. The tide having receded in the time we were gone provided plenty of amusement for the local fishermen.

Back to Borneo is also back to the squalls that the Island reputedly has more of then anywhere else in the world.

After too much lamb curry and salty eggs, we did our standard shopping in preparation for taking on Marja and Hannu from Finland. Amanda even managed to fit in a hair cut from her most favorite hairdresser in Asia. Sloop introduced himself by attempting to sleep in their cupboard late at night.

At villages where boats don’t normally stop we got plenty of attention

The man with the red stripped shirt was the grateful recipient of Michelle’s rain coat. I tried to get him to put it on for a photo but Amanda intervened and I ended up with it on.

Our rolliest anchorage of the year encouraged a BBQ on the beach followed the next day by one of my walks. The Finns were happy to come not knowing that I normally get semi lost and the tracks become hard to find.

Amazingly neither of those things occurred however the tide posed a bit of a problem with Hannu and me having to drag the dingy about ½ a km to the nearest water. Ooops.

The locals thought it was a great joke but hey, they were playing soccer on a sand bar.

Chillin' out in Puerto

Our arrival at the Abanico Yacht club in Puerto was celebrated with both Rubicon Star and Gadfly, 2 boats we hadn’t seen in a while. After discovering the most economical way to enjoy a beverage was to buy the bottle, things got a little out of hand with Tim on the drums, Amanda & Gini on the dance floor and Trevor well… just on the floor.

Once the merriment was out of the way we settled into grocery shopping, buying all the treasures the Philippines has to offer while also taking advantage of the on street air conditioning. 

An interesting thing to come out of this was that Amanda got charged the same for her bottle of water as Michelle did for her 3 bottles of rum. 

Braving the public transport system a trip to a nearby waterfall was planned. Turns out ‘nearby’ was not so nearby.

After almost 4 hours of sitting on what felt like bricks we emerged from the bus safely and incident free.

The waterfall although popular with the locals had a large area free from swimmers where we could spend a few hours cooling off before beginning the trip back to town.

With a few more last minute supplies we packed Michelle and her rum into a tricycle in the pouring rain for her trip back to freezing New York and began our trip south to Kudat.

We’ll be back...

Back on Palawan

With the wind dying we continued on our way west stopping at Caladagan Island we purchased octopus from a fisherman and snorkeled with shrimp fish amongst ther things. Although we have mastered the art of cleaning Octopus the gettingit tender still proves to be a challenge.

The Palawan coast is littered with uninhabited postcard Islandssurrounded by reef some of them tougher than our Octopus to negotiate.

With the wind completely gone now Amanda picked Maraguit Island as a spot to stop probably because of the abundant coconut supply that both her and Michelle are now adding to their rum. When in Rome…

To cool off we took the dingy over to the main land and up a river. Hoping for a waterfall we proceeded on foot once it became too shallow for the dingy.

Michelle’s Mum who thinks she’s on a cruise ship offered some advice before she left the U.S. “Stay with the group Michelle”. I’m guessing she’s not aware the group is 3.

We lucked out on the waterfall and settled for swimming at the dingy. Going against my number 1 rule – if it’s not f….. don’t fix it, I decided to improve the carburetor which ended in us rowing downstream to the main road where a young girl took us to a Vulcanizer (tyre repair shop). Here I borrowed her fathers compressor, solved the problem and we got back underway.

After dotting our way through Honda bay we reached Puerto Princesa for our Philippines outwards clearance.

Danger in Cuyo

We arrived in Cuyo for the end of holy week (Easter) and with no motorbikes available for hire, checked out the town. At the church built in 1630, the stilts used in the traditional races were laying out leaving me no option but to impress Amanda with some of my childhood skills. Both hers and Michelle’s attempts didn’t really get off the ground.

After returning to Thyme we witnessed the departure of boats filled with holiday makers. The Navy ship giving free passage for 1,500 holidaying Palwanians loaded for 15hrs. The travellers erected tents, hammocks and various other shelters for the trip back to Puerto Princessa.

I wish we had the camera out to catch to goat that was hoisted up before some late arriving passengers.

The motorbikes came through the next day and we left on a tour around the Island. Michelle made me real nervous with questions like where are the brakes and does it have gears??? A foreign concept to a country where everything is automatic. Slowly the road turned into the runway where Amanda thought she could safely give it a try. This of course means she can now advise me of where I am going wrong.

The road looked less and less like a road finally making us stop to check the map. We were looking for some old ruins that can apparently be found on the north side of the island

Armed with local knowledge we got lost a second time and thinking we were close ventured out on foot.

With the help of some farmers we were directed back to the road and found ourselves back at a resort under construction by an Australian guy. Later we found out they were the ruins and the Australians neighbor from Austria was the one who printed the map as a piss take. Old ruins apparently as they have been under construction for 15 years. (...as they say back in Aussie, What an arsehole!)

I would like to say we arrived back safely however this was sadly not the case. Michelle while undertaking a u turn accidently hit the gas and shot off down a bank and into a porch where an 80 year old local was quietly peeling Cashew nuts. A bunch of old ladies waiting for a bus rushed to her aid picking up the gent, his nuts, the porch and the motorbike. Michelle somehow ended up on her feet. We got the bike back on the road and pointed in the right direction we went for lunch. 2 hours later when we passed him again he was sleeping out the front, no doubt all tuckered out after his graze with death. This crash made the skidding by the well and roaring into the undergrowth look relatively harmless.

The good news is the bike was reality unscathed so we celebrated our good fortune back at the wharf over a beer and balut (no Balut for Michele.. yet...).

Cuyo is very popular with Kite boarders between November and March and after talking to the local instructor to get the low down, we are coming back for 2 weeks next year at this time to learn the sport. Can’t wait.

At home in Bonbonon, Negros

At first life in Bonbonon was filled with jobs. Amanda getting the local goss from the other women at the nearby well over the washing and me working out how to tie 2 crates of red horse to the motor bike. By the way the gossip mostly consisted of who was getting it on with the Hubble Hubble driver. (For those not in the know a Hubble Hubble is an extended motorbike that can take up to 5 paying passengers. In English Hubble Hubble translates to pigs copulating… I wonder why?)

We did fit in some sightseeing checking out the damage caused by tropical storm Sendong and snorkeling out the front of the anchorage where we came across a colorful Moray Eel.

After 2 weeks our crew Michelle from New York (previously on the Andamans trip) turned up via 2 planes, motor tricycle, bus, peddle tricycle, Hubble Hubble, dingy… and then we headed south.

For all New Zealand readers we hit pay dirt with local whitebait that tastes like the real thing and costs less than cat food at $1.50 a kilo. Even Sloop was impressed.

Michelle fell victim to the Karaoke bug. I would like to say the fans went wild but that was probably largely because we had no change and put credit for 10 songs on the machine.

Being proper tourists we went and checked out the abandoned copper mine made interesting by the different modes of transport to get there and back and by the people we meet along the way.

Next stop Panay.

Exploring Bohol & Siquijor

Wanting to explore the cave in Antequerra further we talked Trevor and his crew Wilson into an up river exploration trip with a local guide, which included the cave. Properly equipped with flashlights we headed up stream in the dark cave for around an hour before coming back. The cave system runs for miles and branches here and there but we could only go as far as time and the bats allowed.

Stopping at the old wooden bridge for lunch we finally reached the waterfall around 3pm with the following on trail slip stats – Amanda 3, Trevor and Wilson 2 and me 1.

With gas, fuel and groceries sorted we headed south to Siquijor. Our first anchorage was a small port that we got kicked out of (restricting the movement of ships) so we headed another 10 miles around in a stiff breeze and by chance anchored near an old wreck. The resident sea snakes spent quite a bit of time trying to climb aboard ignoring Amanda’s shoo shooing.

A local venture “Fortune Metals” was cutting the wreck up for scrap. They were only to happy to let us hang around and watch even offering us a breathing hose to hold in our teeth to extend our bottom time. It takes a bit of getting used to but is doable.

With only 20 miles between us and Daryl on ‘Matana’, the decision was made to duck over to Dumaguete for a visit before his departure to Aussie.

Farewell Dinigat - hello Mantas & Tarziers!

Our new technique to find the whale sharks might have impressed the tourists however it did have its problems being the inability to avoid any stray jelly fish.

In the end it was the local spotters that came up with the goods and we got to swim with the whale sharks again. We did however go one better than them with a swim with the manta rays we found a few miles further on. We were told that as they are edible they are extremely rare.

Managing to sail most of the way to Bohol we passed under the power lines safely except for Amanda’s wobbly knees and anchored in Basiao Passage. The next morning after Sop I Pea (Chilean dish shared by Christian and Mane) while preparing to depart to town for supplies, the discovery of my missing wallet that Amanda was last in possession of resulted in a trip to the internet to cancel credit cards etc. While heading down the west coast of Bohol a few days later it turned up. The Red Horses had hidden it in the wardrobe.

The main town of Tagbilaran was a good spot to hire motorbikes for some inland travel. Unfortunately ours broke down an hour into the journey. We abandoned ours and borrowed Pontus’s machine, which we were on for 1 minute before it got a flat tire.

Eventually we did manage to see the Tarzier’s and the Chocolate Hills that are still quite green with all the rain.

After finding Tagbilaran through all the cooking smoke that blanketed the whole island at dinner time and accidentally traveling up 1 way streets the wrong way, we parked up our machines for the evening and went out for dinner to celebrate our survival. The next day we rode to some closer waterfalls on quieter roads.

We also found a cave that we attempted to explore using the camera flash as our source of light. With better equipment it is possible to go into the cave for 1 hour before it disappears.

With Robin and Pontus scheduled to depart soon for Japan, we headed south to Pacmilijan Is for a sail and snorkel and even managed to rendezvous with Gadfly mid ocean. With coral reef around we were unable to anchor but a small Banka kindly tied all 20 tonne of us to his bamboo outrigger – even towing us when the Banka up the front actually on the mooring headed off. We enjoyed a good sail back, where a farewell and birthday party was planned.

Thirsty in Dinigat

With no information on the area except the vague arm pointing from some people in the drunk town we flipped a coin and deiced to head north. The chart showed a long finger that looked to be a good anchorage. There we found two ladies fishing one of which spoke English. Once they had finished inquiring if we had come for the treasure she said that the owner of the land (Peter) could guide us to a lake and cave nearby the next day. The whole family and a puppy turned up in the rain with breakfast the following morning and once that was over with we set off. When inquiring about Peter it transpired he was long dead and was guiding us in spirit. That’s not Tanduay Robins drinking with a sprite chaser at 10 in the morning.

The whole area is Lava rock… very sharp Pontus. It made for great exploring with caves everywhere some we could drive the dingy in and others we had to swim in. Any with dirt in them appeared to have been excavated. Fishermen in the area told it was foreigners looking for the treasure.

With so many good spots to explore our travel time each day was not more than a couple of hours. Plenty of time for monkeying around.

After 3 days we found a pond that we could just squeeze into amongst lots of small rocky islands to anchor in. The chart showed us well onto the land.

Most of the islets had small huts on them where the fishermen stay.

This so far has been my favorite anchorage in the Philippines. There were heaps of places to explore. We only allowed a week for the area and have decided to come back next year to spend more time here. That’s the only thing that made me feel good about lifting the anchor to head back to Leyte… and the need for a Red Horse.

Why was there no beer in Dinigat?

In 1965 Ruben Ecleo founded the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Assoc (PBMA) on Dinigat Island. After his death in the 80's his son, Ruben Jnr who followers believe is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ continued leading the Assoc receiving an estimated $35m in entrance fees from the million or so followers.

In 2002 Ruben Jnr was accused by Police of murdering his wife placing the body in a bag and throwing it from a cliff in Cebu. He fled Cebu to hide out in Dinigat. When Police attempted to arrest him for questioning his house was surrounded by PBMA followers ending in a shoot out which killed 17 before he gave himself up.

Apparently the PBMA has healing powers. Also it's believed Jesus Christ was baptised in the lake we visited. Try listening to that with a straight face!

Still to this day the island is largely governed by the movement resulting in alcohol and cigarette restrictions. We did however get to taste some underground local palm spirits - strong stuff!