1st October - Coron (Busuanga)

Wednesday 1^st October

Pete has very providently stashed away a few special bottles of wine.

Yesterday we celebrated two things: 

The last day of September

The completion of our bookings for our return to Tasmania in mid October

WEEHEE!

This bottle of wine is extra special.  Penfolds Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon blah blah never mind it is DELICIOUS!!…and given to us by – Claire and Stuart, with whom we will soon be reunited!  (Christmas 2006.)  We made sure to enjoy every single drop…

It was just about cool enough for another gentle stroll around Coron after lunch yesterday.  I discovered that the many dog residents of Coron like to sleep at midday, often in the shade of a stationary tricycle.  They are not out in the midday sun…

And that maybe some of them might have...rabies!!  (I actually think rabies has been eradicated from Busuanga Island, mainly due to the efforts of Seadive Jim...)

So far they have all been extremely docile…

As have the cats.

At the far end of town we found a salubrious new resort, Corto del Mar Hotel. 

We were welcomed in by the courteous staff, who showed us one of the rooms, and apologised for the view…

The view is being demolished…

Some of the houses are already wrecked.

Others are still inhabited.

Pete & William

Pete, who describes himself as a recluse…(Nicky says, Have you met yourself, Pete??)… has already made lots of friends in Coron.  The first was William

Pete & William in William's cafe - note sign FREE INFORMATION WITH MEAL
William is FULL of information!

whose café is opposite the Seadive office, where Pete also, and fortuitously, met Jim. We had lunch at William’s café today, and received LOTS of free information…

He also chatted cheerily with some equally cheery nuns.

And some infotech students.

Reclusive and solitary…I don’t think so!

Pete and Maine - SO helpful

It had dawned on me, in the early hours, as these things do, that our visas were about to run out, just a few days before it would be OK for them to run out. William advised us to go to a nearby tourist office and check out our possible complications.  Germaine (Maine) was endlessly patient and helpful and told us we would be perfectly OK; we will just need to pay a small fine at the airport.  

Lette & Lisette

I was very charmed by the fact that Maine’s colleague Lette, was able to have her little girl at work with her.  So civilised, and, and pleasant!

I noticed, by reading the notices, that in Coron…cleanliness is next to godliness!

Mermaids are, quite rightly,  a theme in Busuanga.

This majestic wooden lady is the Mermaid of Corto del Mar...

30th September - another day in Coron (Busuanga)

Tuesday 30^th September

The tricycles in Coron make up about 90% of the traffic. There are a few motorbikes, and VERY few cars.  We went walking today, because there was a light drizzle and it was therefore not too exhaustingly hot.  So…no trikes for us.  But I did manage to spend a lot of time observing the traffic, and the wonderful names emblazoned on the tricycles.  My favourites today were:

DOUBLE ‘D’

Shapely Meek

Saint Monique  

(nobody in my family is in the least saintly – my sister Monique included)

We were able to walk around the steeper back street – thank you, light drizzle – and we found, to our astonishment, an Austrian resort. My other sister Jacqui (also not saintly, although much loved,) was in Vienna last week, and her Facebook photos are glorious.  But it could not be more completely different from Coron if it tried!   We were so gobsmacked I neglected to take a photo of the shining gleaming bright red Porsche parked in the driveway… Can you imagine a shiny new Porsche driving around the narrow bumpy roads of Busuanga, full of tricycles, children, motorbikes, chickens, dogs, potholes??

One of our missions for he day was to get our tickets from Busuanga to Manila – the vital first leg of our journey home next month.  The internet was very much Go/Slow today so we set off to find a travel agent.  Pete found a very helpful and efficient young bloke while I sat outside and looked at…tricylces…

Coron is lovely, and very interesting, but it is NOT a shopping Mecca.  This is very good for my bank account… Pete finds much to fascinate him in the shops.

One of the eight local hardware stores

Me…not so much…

A local boutique on the main street

The food here, on the other hand, is just amazing.  I have eaten seafood each time we have been out to lunch or dinner and it has been invariably delicious.

Today I had fish and chips which was so fresh and so perfectly cooked I nearly cried.  (I have been craving fish & chips after many months of nasi goreng…)  Not only delicious but…cheap.  We were in a very stylish little café and my meal was $4.56…

In the back streets we found some beautiful houses made of bamboo.

And a fence made of enormous slabs of wood.

This house is the Philippines Red Cross Centre.

When we got back to 2XS I wanted to go and have a big long sleep – how pathetic is that!  Instead I went for a big long swim, about 200 metres from the boat, out to a reef.  

The fisherman in his little outrigger - just visible in this photo - kept an eye on me as I swam around the reef near his boat.

200 metres as the crow flies… I never swim in a straight line – somehow I zigzag madly, adding much to the distance covered.  And this afternoon the current was quite strong so I had to fight against it to get where I wanted.  But it was worth it!  This nearby reef is lovely, with some big bommies, and quite a large patch of different coral with many small fish.  This was much better than an afternoon nap!

In the late afternoon – a lovely dog coming home with his crew…