Wednesday 11th February 2015
10 degrees 21.219N
118 degrees 59.886E
Palawan Square Point
6m depth – pleasant, sheltered anchorage with a small
village nearby
There are between
1,000-5,500 who read this blog, more or less regularly. I have no idea who most of them are, or why
they click on sailing2xs but I am
very grateful to have readers. Some of
them are, of course very well known to me – Mum! Dad!
Daughters! Friends and
relations! And the most common question
I am asked is…why do I write every single
day…. (I hope this is not in the nature of a complaint??)
Well…the reason is
very simple. If I don’t write every day
it all gets away from me and everything becomes a jumbled blur. As it is now… The last time I was able to
write, or get into the internet, was the 7th of February. Since then I have been in CyberWilderness,
and also unable to write because we have been on the move almost constantly and
I can’t sit at a rocking and rolling computer.
(And most of our anchorages have been extremely rock & roll.)
Since I last wrote
we have had a few – ahem – adventures, and I have, for the first time on 2XS,
been absolutely terrified and almost frozen to the spot.
First – and not at
all terrifying – we had a visit before we left El Nido. A canoe with some beautiful siblings – Ryan,
Brennalynne and Jannalynne. They wanted
to sell us some very tiny fish which they had caught. Alas and alack…we did not want to buy
them. But I did take this lovely photo,
and trotted downstairs to print it on my trusty Canon Selphy, so they went away
wreathed in smiles with three photos in an envelope.
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| Prettiness around El Nido |
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| Ryan, Jannalynne and Brennalynne |
We have done quite
a lot of research into sailing in the Philippines. I have scanned many sailing blogs looking for
likely anchorages, and have entered them studiously in my Navionics program, so
that I can be a little bit more helpful on the boat than I have been in the
past…I am quite trusting, so when I read, for example, that it is a doddle to
anchor in Fish Bay and to take a dinghy in to shore, where a jeepney is ready
willing and able to take you to Puerto Princesa on the other side of the
island, for maybe 150 pesos – well, I think, oh goody, let’s do that!
(For example.)
The purpose of our
trip down the west coast of Palawan was precisely to get to Puerto Princesa on
the other side, to renew our visas. So
we followed instructions, found Fish Bay (which is NOT called Fish Bay by the
locals; it is Talaudyong) and anchored, in a rolling swell of a few metres…
There were waves crashing all the way along the very long beach. We found the best place to go in with our
little dinghy was – of course – the far end.
(2XS was anchored at the other end.)
A long walk to find out about the fabled jeepney… The beach is beautiful
– wide, white, lapped by small crashing waves.
9 degrees 58.640N
118 degrees 39.620E
Fish Bay (Talaudyong)
5.4m ROCKY and ROLLY ANCHORAGE!!
The first thing
WRONG with this beach was…I could feel teensy weensy bites…invisible sandflies,
ready to cause both Pete and me much anguish and pain over the next few days.
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| Fortunately we are not in the least scared of dogs (well not fat, healthy dogs…) |
And then…out of
the blue, WOOFWOOFWOOF! We were
surrounded by big bouncy FAT dogs! (Dogs
in the Philippines are never fat…not as emaciated, mangy and ghastly as dogs in
the Northern Territory, but thin and hungry-looking nonetheless.) Rottweiler/Doberman crosses, we
discovered. Plus a small contingent of
dachshunds, all belonging to Uwe (ex-Hamburg) and Mrs Uwe (ex-China), who live
in a large acreage of beautiful beachfront garden. Fortunately neither of us is nervous around
dogs, or maybe we would have been rent limb from limb! We were invited in – by
Uwe, alerted by the barking, not necessarily by the dogs – for a soothing
coconut drink and a bit of a chat.
Finally, at the
other end of the beach, we found a tiny shop, run by Carmelita. She assured us there would be a car at our
disposal, some time between 8-9 the following morning, to take us to Puerto
Princesa. NOT a problem. Easy peasy.
So we walked back along the (biteybiteybitey) beach and flung the dinghy
into the waves to get back to 2XS.
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| Carmelita with her pride-of-place poster |
The next morning ,
bright and early, we beached the dinghy again and walked miles along the beach
to Carmelita’s shop. Mr Carmelita was
there to greet us – Mr Rinaldo Mendosa, at our service. We sat and sat…for a very long time…then I
went to chat to Carmelita in her shop…then back to talk to Pete and Mr Rinaldo
Mendosa… A teensy glitch…The village fisherman own the twin cab ute; would we
be happy to pay 2,500 to go with them?
Ummm…$80…oh OK… But then it transpired there REALLY wasn’t enough room
in the ute for us, fifteen fishermen plus their large catch, destined for the
market in town. There is another car, Mr
Rinaldo Mendosa told us. But…the driver,
just today, has malaria, and can’t drive us.
Maybe we can go to the nearby (2 kilometre…or 200 metre…or WHO THE FFFFF
KNOWS???) village) to get a tricycle.
 |
| The view from the bench where we waited…and waited... |
We can walk to the
village, no probs.
 |
| No village in sight |
How close does the
village look??
Fortunately, along
the road, we found some houses under construction along the clifftop. With a vehicle in the driveway…Yanno answered
our cries of despair at the gate, and made a few phone calls to The Boss.
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| Yanno |
After a bit of
swift negotiation, we were away with darling Benedict, our new Best Friend
Forever, who took us hither and yon.
To
Immigration, to the Swiss Delicatessen (Bruno’s), the supermarket, and the
Abanico Yacht Club, where we had lunch, and looked out to see if SV Catherine was
still there. (It is…the kidnapped
Germans have not yet returned to collect their beautiful yacht…)
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| Pete and Benedict |
 |
| SV Catherine amongst these yachts, at Abanico Yacht Club |
(We paid Benedict
what we thought was a fair price for his services and what he thought was TOO
much!!)
We got back to the
beach at dusk, and trudged – biteybiteybitey – back to the dinghy with very
heavy backpacks – beer, coffee, cheese, tinned beans, toilet paper!!
We managed to get
the dinghy into the water and then the heavy packs of groceries, then us…then
we started to make our way through the short sharp surf and…a fishing net!! Tightly wound around the propellor. Picture this…it is dark; the sea is short,
sharp, surfy. We are STUCK! Pete does NOT have his trusty leatherman
attached to his belt. Our only weapon is
a paddle. Our bailer has vanished…The
boat is filling with water. NOT
fun. Was I scared? No not at all! I had our vital documents in a drypack, on my
back. If the dinghy sank, we could swim
to shore. We would lose our coffee,
beer, cheese, but NOT our passports, our visacards, our phones or our lives.
But was it fun…no
not really… Eventually Pete (McGuyver!) disentangled us from the net, while I
kept paddling into the waves to stop us from being overwhelmed. And then we had a long long slow paddle home,
taking turns.
Maybe this should
have been my moment of terror…but it wasn’t.
I was VERY glad to get back to 2XS.
I had been worrying a bit, over the past few days, about our unused
muscles – sailing can be VERY sedentary.
Well we gave our muscles a BIG exhausting workout so they are OK for the
next few days!!
This morning we
left Fish Bay and found our way, about twenty miles north, to an Underground
River anchorage, cheerily described as a doddle by our unknown sailing
bloggers.
10 degrees 25.219N
118 degrees 59.953E
Underground River
Day anchorage only – very rock and roll
It would have been
impossible for us to take the dinghy in.
There were big waves crashing on the beach. (Not to mention the fact that there was still
a whole lot of fishing net wound around the prop…) Pete had a bright idea – hail one of the
tourist bankas, waiting for people to come out of the cave! Yippee!
A cheery lad agreed to pick us up and came over to 2XS – bounce bounce
on the waves. He held out a bamboo pole.
To join the boats. And then we had to
leap nimbly from one bouncy boat to the other… THAT was my moment of
terror! I wasn’t scared of dying; I was
scared of being crushed between hard surfaces…
Yes it was worth
it. After a bit of negotiation we were
allowed to join a tourboat for a 1.8 mile trip up the Underground River. Fabulous!
Impossible to take
good photos in the cave because it was very dark. The trip up and back took about one hour, and
our boatman pointed out all of the cave formations which resembled this and
that. Many Marys, quite a few Jesuses,
one Buddha, a few dinosaurs. That sort
of thing. He takes between 8-10 groups
in per day…he must get very sick of pointing out the formations.
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| A boatful |
There was a small
troupe of opportunistic monkeys at the site.
Long-tailed macaques – apparently the only endemic monkey in the
Philippines. Why no dusky leaf monkeys,
gibbons, langurs??
It was a fabulous
touristy thing to do, the underground river, but I knew that to get back to 2XS
the moment of terror would have to be repeated… We managed to leap from one
boat to the other, without losing any limbs, or the waterproof camerabag, but
oh deary me we nearly crushed one of our young boatmen… aaaggghhh…
Thursday 12th February 2015
11 degrees 00.595N
119 degrees 18.062E
Limincangcong Village
4.5 metres depth
Today we left at
7am and arrived at this anchorage, near a pleasant little village, at 5pm. We are no longer accustomed to such long
days…we are exhausted! It was quite a
good trip, really, although we were going against the 2-3 metres swell so it
was all very bouncy. There SEEMS to be an internet tower…I am holding my
breath…
Friday 13th February 2015
11 degrees 10.029N
118 degrees 23.626E
El Nido
9.6m
The internet didn’t
work but…now we are back in our cosy anchorage at El Nido and – connection!
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