Saturday, 31 January 2015

1st February 2015 - Coron - fuel - Culion Island

Sunday 1st February 2015



Culion Town
11.53.246N
120.01.497E
Depth – 19.2

Yes!

We have left Coron!

We are moored near a very pretty little town on Culion Island.  The leper colony beckons – that is an adventure for today!



A kindly boatload of local men brought our fuel out in a big blue Seadive dinghy in the morning.  It took the three of them about two hours to decant it into the tanks – I am SO happy Pete and I didn’t try to do it ourselves.  The sun is particularly hot today; we would have been two very sorry tomatoheads had we done it ourselves!



We did other jobs on board.  I was very sad to remove our once-proud Philippines flag from the halyard…



I haven’t been able to find a new one in the shops.  People here are nowhere near as patriotic and flag-waving as they are in just about every country we have visited thus far.


2XS on the move!
It is only about 16 nautical miles from Coron to Culion, and it was a beautiful trip.  NOT uneventful…what could possibly go wrong??  Well first of all the port motor immediately got very hot.  Pete had to clamber down into the engine hold to investigate while I manoevred the boat between the reefs and towards Culion.  The problem was – barnacles blocking the outlet pipe…Pete knocked them out with a screwdriver but it wasn’t easy, or fun, down here in the hot hot hold.

And next in our litany of woes – the brand new depth sounder (I refused to take a photo of it because I was so cross with it) just didn’t work.  It gave very random and incorrect readings all the way to Culion.  Pete wearily disconnected it and re-connected the old one, which sometimes works.  It chose a good moment to behave well and we were able to navigate around Culion Town without too much anxiety.




We followed a nice big banka called Barbara 5, and picked up a mooring right next to it.  Yes maybe the mooring belongs to another boat – Barbara 6?? – but some cheery chaps in a dinghy waved happily and make OK gestures so with a bit of luck we can stay here while we do our sightseeing trip.


Culion sunset

Friday, 30 January 2015

31st January - Coron (Philippines) - shops - mincer

Saturday 31st January 2015

Washing day on Emerson-6 (live-aboard dive ship)
So are we in Culion, all saddened by visiting the leper colony and the old church?  (We have discovered a slightly better anchorage; 16.5m depth – will give it a go!)  Well no…we are still bobbing around on our mooring in Coron.  Waiting for fuel…

It was supposed to arrive, in big jerrycans yesterday.  But…maybe today.

I spent a productive hour or so with my veiled friend in the little shop near Seadive.  I needed internet top-up, to the tune of $30, and it took her ages to phone-a-friend and get enough to top up my demanding modem.  In the meantime she sat me down on a little plastic chair, with a nice whirling fan at my back, and I examined all the goods in the shop.  Most things here can only be bought in very small amounts.



Tiny sachets of this and that.  I watched, slightly fascinated, while people came in to buy one chup-a-chup, one very small toilet roll, and even one single razor blade, a few pesos of phone top-up.  Most of the products on offer were not really for me, much as I would have liked to buy from my friend.  The moisturisers all have whitener, deemed very desirable by the poor Philippinas with their beautiful complexions  which they so (mistakenly!) wish were lighter and whiter.   The shampoo all is heavy on oil, and is always touted as being “for black hair.”  Nobody here ever goes grey… The coffee comes in tiny little packets with much added sugar and powdered milk.  And so on…

Delivering water to one of the dive boats in a small tippy canoe
We spent a bit of time in the airy Seadive restaurant area and tried to download this and that on the free WiFi.  I listened, idly, to a very interesting conversation at the next table between an older German man and a bloke from Finland in his thirties.  They were both great travelers, and full of interesting opinions and stories.  I very much agreed with them when they said how very wealthy we must appear to all of the people who see us traveling in South East Asia.  They don’t see us working, which all of us assuredly do, or have done, at home; they see us at leisure, buying $30 worth of internet top-up and vast quantities of razor blades and toilet paper, thinking nothing of spending $10 for a meal.  Wages here are so low.  The dive instructors, for example, work long days from dawn till dusk, lugging heavy tanks and equipment, looking after people in the depths of the sea, and they earn a princely $12.50 per day, if they are from overseas.  I imagine the local lads don’t get anywhere near that much…

The meat grinder, carried all the way from Tasmanian in Pete’s already heavy luggage – has come into its own.  It is possible to buy good quality meat here, if you go to the market very early in the morning before the flies have started to party too frenetically.  But it is very tough.  Hence the need for The Mincer!




Pete excelled himself.  Not sure if this photo conveys the true deliciousness of this spaghetti bolognese (surely Australia’s national dish??) but it was memorable and wonderful and I want him to cook exactly the same thing tonight.

Thursday, 29 January 2015

30th January - Coastguard - Culion Island leper colony? - Coron (Philippines)

Friday 30th January 2015

Another glorious sunset
Yes we are still in Coron but maybe today is the day we can start moving slowly away…

Schoolbus
Yesterday morning we had a visit from the local Coastguard.  Seven bright cheery young chaps clambered aboard, beaming with joy.  Three of them came into the cabin where they settled down and asked us many MANY questions. 

Coastguard formalities
They looked at every single one of our documents, plus our photos on the wall.  How old were we?  How many children?  Where is the document qualifying Pete to be Captain of 2XS?? 

Eventually they left, after giving us a document to sign saying that they had behaved with utmost propriety, had not asked for bribes, had not been in the least intimidating.  “We are here to help and protect you!” they said, a bit anxiously.  We re all for this and waved them on their way with appropriate gratitude.

Pete made the BEST loaf of bread ever!  I tried to capture its size and majesty by putting it next to my computer, for a bit of perspective, but maybe I didn’t do it justice.


Sourdough joy
We are hoping to get some fuel delivered early enough so we can go to nearby Culion, to visit the island with its historical leper colony.  Cheerful…maybe not!  But at least we will be moving and seeing something different and new…

I stayed up a bit last night and did some research on Culion.  I had found a whole lot of information last year, which I had transferred to my Navionics program (iPad.)  And then…I promptly forgot I had done just that!  


A nice way to go home from work every day

A few days ago Pete asked me to check out anchorages etc around Culion and I started, laboriously, to do just that until PING!  It all came flooding back…And it would seem that Culion is a steep island, with very deep anchorages.  We really don’t like anything above 10 metres, and in fact prefer 5m.  So it is a bit daunting to see 19m, or even 35, as the only alternatives.  So maybe we are not going to see the old leper colony after all.  Or at least, not from 2XS.

Wednesday, 28 January 2015

29th January - more boys fixing toys - Coron (Philippines)

Thursday 29th January 2015

Such a nice way to go home from school!
Today was a total boys fixing toys in exotic locations day.

Pete spent umtpy hours contriving a new bilge pump tap.


WEEHEE there it is!  With the yellow handle!  Pete is SUCH a wiz!


We went early on to the market in the dinghy and I took a photo of a bus ready(ish) to go into the wide blue yonder.  It looks as if it is in the vast plains of Africa.  In fact it is on the reclaimed land around Coron waterfront…but doesn’t it look speccy??  (A totally useless and mostly unused bit of reclaimed land but…maybe the mayor wanted Coron to look like the Sahara instead of the green and lush Philippines??)



I was very glad not to topple into the water where we tied up the dinghy…Freshly dead fish, bits of crapola…NOT enticing!



We had the sparkliest newest tricycle in Coron!  It took us across the vast expanse of Serengeti plain with our shopping, and then to…the hardware store!  They know us there now and immediately bring out a little plastic chair for me…



The day ended with the most glorious sunset…