Tuba River

We Checked out of Porto Princesa and went on south toward Malaysia. The wind came up so we sat in the mouth of the river at Tuba River for a few days waiting for the weather to get better. As you can see this was not much of a town, just a squatter village by the barge loading area. There is a very large nickel  mine a few miles inland. They ship the raw ore out and refine it elsewhere.

As you could guess, Trinda got bored here.

7 New Wonders of Nature

While we were in Porto Princesa we took a tour to one of the "New 7 Wonders of Nature". This is the Underground River. It is a river that has eaten a path under a limestone mountain for about 8 kilometres. 4.5 Km is navigable. Our ride on a small paddle boat was only 45 minutes, about 1.5 Km into the cave. I took lots of photos inside, but the new cheep Kodak didn't think much of the dark. Twas a nice day all in all. Included in the tour was a 1.5 hour ride each way in a 9 passenger van, this time with less than 9 in it! Beautiful scenery and an all-you-can-eat buffet. What more could you ask for.

Nothing like Carlsbad though.

Larry & Trinda waiting for our banghka to take us to the cave opening.

The mouth of the river/cave.

The only photo that came out, the mouth of the cave, exiting.

In the waiting area, with signs all around and the guide saying not to feed the animals, this little monkey was enjoying  a banana.

While he was sitting on the rope, guess what Trinda did. Yep she jerked the rope! Really excited the little bugger. I thought he was really going to come after her for a minute.

While at Porto del Sol watching Denny get ready to leave, we took a dinghy ride up the river with Greg and Grace. We went about 4 miles up the river. It was completely enclosed by mangroves. Very nice ride.

Greg and Grave. Greg is the one who sent me the plans for the dinghy.

A house on the river.

After Porto del Sol we went to the old leper colony at Culion. We took a tour of the museum there. It was closed as a leper colony in the 80's. A nice clean small village now.

The emblem on the hill is made of white painted rocks. The hospital is the buildings center, up from the beach.

The grammer here is NOT the same standard as in the states, but Trinda had to pose by this sign while we waited for the museum to open.

Then last week on our way to Puerto Princesa we discovered an anomaly in the charted position of a reef! There was a seaweed farm in the bay we were planning to anchor in. They tie 6 or 8 buoys together then drop ropes down with the seaweed on them. And do this all over the bay. There were hundreds of buoys that we could not sail over for fear of catching one of the ropes on the prop. We had a track from the GPS of a friend who had successfully anchored here a few weeks ago, missing all the buoys. But the local security guy insisted we follow him safely through the buoys, so we did. Just past the buoys he said "OK. Just go that way and pointed vaguely to the back of the bay. I decided we should go back to the track we had been following. I left a good 200 yards to go around the marked coral reef between me and the track. Then bump, bump BUMP! and the boat stopped. It was the middle of the out going high tide of the day. Within minutes the boat was too far out of the water to pull it off. So we sat there and gradually leaned over. It took 12 hours to go down and come back up. About 9 in the morning we floated off.

Trinda demonstrating the angle we spent most of the night.

The horizon is supposed to be level with the solar panels!

Coron Again

Well I did get a new camera, but I didn't really learn to take any more or better pictures. Here is an update.

I finally got the wind generator mounted! Only 2 years! It doesn't seem to make much gin!

Looking around the anchorage in Coron. The black boat is Greg and Grace on Shanghai.

Looking south is Denny from Jubilant in his dinghy and Walt and  Jane on Collisto.

We took a dinghy ride to the places we had gone on the "Island Hop" snorkel trip that I broke the camera on before. You can now see what I described then. hahaha.

Trinda does like to have her picture now and then.

Again! Twice the same day.

More of the dinghy ride and snorkeling. The water is really clear.

A day resort for the "Island Hop" guys. They sell cokes and such.

They sell cokes and such.

Subic Bay at Lunch

An old friend from Majuro came by for a visit yesterday. She had a camera! We decided to go to lunch with James (also met in Majuro) and his girl Marg.

Trinda in the cockpit, in Watercraft Marina. James managed to pay for two slips and only has one boat, so we ware helping him use one of them. Ha.

James and Marg

Getting the mast ready to take down, or as we say "Prepare to step the mast".

At lunch at Dos Amigos. Actually god Mexican considering the distance!

Jenel, me and Trinda in the cockpit of the Katie Lee

James can be a little ornery sometimes.

Change of Plans

We have noticed a problem with some of the work done on the main mast step in Carmen. Looks like some of the epoxy didn't quite work right.

So we are now headed for Subic Bay, Philippines, near Manila because the yard there has better facilities to solve this minor problem. The yard at Kudat Malaysia is not reported to have an easy way to lift the mast off while we repair the epoxy, otherwise the pricing for the haulout and bottom paint job are very nearly the same.

We will go back thru Coron over the next week or so then north to Subic Bay. It is about 200 miles from here and the wind has been really light and variable. During the NE monsoon season, normally it would be against the wind the whole way, but this is just beginning the transition to the SE monsoon season.

More than 2 weeks round trip to Port Barton, about 40 miles south of El Nido. Still the sharp and pointed islands sticking up out of the water. No more than 10 miles in a day between anchorages and often as little as 3 miles. Lots of sitting, drinking coffee and telling stories. Trinda watched a lot of movies. There were tiny clear jellyfish that only stung a little, but they took the fun out of swimming.

I had to scrape the barnacles off the bottom. It took 3 days because I was too lazy to do it all in one day

More islands. We came from between these.

Another bangka hauling people somewhere.

M