An interesting start to the day's passage with the first 5-6 miles out of Port Barton spent weaving between islands, pearl farms and uncharted reefs. Thanks to our trusty forward-looking sonar we were able to avoid the several rocky patches as they appeared on the screen ahead!! At least we can see the islands and pearl farms. The pearl farms are rows of floats set out in squares or rectangles. Once you can see how they are set out it is quite easy to go down the 'lanes' between them or go outside them. Our electronic navigation charts for this area put us up to a mile north of where we think we are so, with hearts in our throats (Pam's anyway), vigilance is the key word and it keeps us on the lookout.Once past these hazards we did manage to sail for almost an hour when the wind picked up then died once more and it was a nice run up to a small bay just south of Cape Ross, 10 55.981N, 119 13.795E, where we anchored in about 8 metres of water over a sandy bottom - very clear water so we had a swim to cool down. There is a tiny village of a handful of bamboo and woven palm leave houses to our north but not much activity despite quite a few small fishing boats on the shore.
Tomorrow we will go a further 20 NM north to Corong Corong Bay near El Nido. The scenery is getting more picturesque as we progress and from all accounts the El Nido area is very beautiful.
