18th February - day of R & R in Coron

Wednesday 18^th February 2015

For the first time in a very long time we have spent the day not doing very much at all.  Pete has actually been reading peacefully.  No crouching in a hot cupboard under the starboard aft bunk (that was yesterday…an all-day struggle with the Xantrex which suddenly stopped working and which needed to be re-wired more than once…)

He seems to be enjoying “Us” by David Nicholls, very much, and I am very much enjoying seeing him relaxing, for once!

We have also spent quite a lot of enjoyable time watching OTHER boats struggle to attach their mooring lines…

It is very windy, here in Coron Harbour, so we are waiting for a bit of calm before we hop into the dinghy and make our way into town, to visit the ATM, and maybe the Seadive restaurant…For most of the day the wind has registered at 20 knots.  If it doesn't slow down there will be no dinner; we have just about run out of food.  There is a small tin of tuna, one packet on 2-minute noodles, a bit of garlic, some eggs...

Our last taxi driver in Manila had a beautiful hand-crafted tree stuck on his dashboard…A green lemonade bottle, carefully cut away into a tree shape!  His daughter had made it and he was more than willing to rip it off the dashboard and give it to me.  But oh deary me…I did want to admire it, but I didn’t want to have it!  A photo would suffice…and if any of my friends and relations want something to do to while away their idle hours – some sharp scissors, a lot of patience, an empty lemonade bottle and – voila!

So far we are really liking Philippine food.  Delicious flavours!  I am quite taken with a local sausage called longganisa while Pete is enjoying the more fatty meaty ribby dishes.  Rosie has cooked chicken adobo for us, and we all loved it.  Many subtle flavours, enhanced by…lots of black pepper, garlic, soy sauce, and copious amounts of – sugar!  Rosie herself prefers…fish heads!

This sort of thing appears on menus, and so far I haven’t been rushing to order from this section…

Pork innards simmered in pork blood??? I think not...