Destination Subic Bay via a Little Touch of Africa

We arrived in Subic Bay yesterday afternoon, Easter Day, after leaving Illutuk Bay on Busuangan Island early Saturday morning. We had light conditions and were able to motor sail part of the day. However, once level with Calavite Passage which runs between Luzon and Mindoro Islands, we got into the rough stuff. From about 8.00 p.m. until after 8.00 a.m. we had strong winds 20-25 knots with gusts to 30 knots. We were able to sail on as the direction was on the beam, easterly, rather than on the nose but we had an uncomfortable night with not much sleep! Needless to say morning arrived the wind stayed with us until about 9.00 when it changed to a lighter northwesterly, died, went northeast, etc. So it was sails in, sails out and generally keeping us on our tired toes. We arrived outside Subic Bay after midday and then motored the rest of the 8 nautical miles into the marina. It was now 2.30 and it was good to be tied up safe and sound.

But, we get ahead of ourselves here. At our last blog we were at Port Culion which we left on Tuesday and went to what we thought was the Busuanga Yacht Club but now know it as the Puerto del Sol Resort (www.puertodelsolresort.com). We anchored in the outer bay but went ashore at the resort and met Mike, the owner. Since we were there little more than a week ago he had put in some markers to mark the reefs in the entrance to the inner bay which extend out from both sides of the channel. He mentioned that the Dipuyay River coming into the bay is navigable by dinghy for a fair distance so early next morning we set off with the Alishan crew for an expedition to see what birds we could see. It was a nice way to start the day and the most striking bird we saw was the Chesnut-breasted Malkoha - a bird we hadn't seen before.

Upstream in the Dipuyay River

We departed the anchorage after breakfast to continue further north into Gutob Bay. Here we found anchorage between some islands at 12 deg. 09.930N, 119 deg. 51.877E in about 17 metres of water. Quite deep but if necessary an excellent typhoon shelter. On the way in we passed several large offshore fishing boats. When the first one came into view we thought it was a wreck! We then realised that it was actually floating and as we passed not only did it have crew but it had at least several hundred crew, plus fish out to dry, roosters crowing and a very strong fishy smell! We wondered how they all got on together in such cramped conditions.

Athena is first up for a feed!

Thursday we continued north to Illutuk Bay, a deep bay with a dogleg entrance past a bank and then a reef. Here we anchored just off Calauit Island, home of the Calauit Game Preserve and Sanctuary - a Ferdinand Marcos attempt to preserve African wildlife. Unfortunately, only the zebras and giraffes, which are able to roam free, have survived since inception in 1976. The eland, topi, impala and other species have since died off due to El Nino-induced droughts. There are quite a large number of the endemic Calamian deer roaming free though, as well as caged freshwater crocodiles, civet cats, a Palawan bearcat (only one left here in the reserve) and native porcupines. The giraffes were probably the greatest attraction although the zebras were great photo opportunities. We went ashore at 6.00 a.m. the next day, Good Friday, to feed the giraffes. There are only about 23 of them left so the gene pool must be contracting. There were about 36 zebras in the herd. Unfortunately, responsibility for the sanctuary has now passed from federal level to provincial level and with Marcos being out of favour not a lot of funding is getting through. One staff member had not been paid for three months and it is obvious that the place is starting to go downhill. This is a pity, not only for the animals, as with proper funding, perhaps from private sources, it could be a great place for threatened Philippines species as well as the remaining African species.

Zebra baby only one week old

The cost of entering the reserve was P350 each (about A$8.75) and for this they allowed us to come ashore three times to wander the grounds seeing the animals and watching for birds. We also had to hire a jeepney for P1000 between four of us to view the animals away from the main centre - in actuality we could have walked as it was not that far!! We thought it was excellent value and enjoyed our time there plus the anchorage was very safe.

We had now reached the northern end of the Calamian Islands - the group of islands north of Palawan Island. They are a beautiful group and you could spend months if not years here, as some do. But we have now decided to cut short our stay in the Philippines and continue on to Japan which we have to do in the next 4-8 weeks - before too many typhoons make it too difficult. So, from Illutuk Bay our plan was to leave on an overnight passage to Subic Bay, where we now are. We will get ourselves sorted out once more and then watch the weather so we can make our way north along Luzon Island and then hop across the Luzon Strait (sounds easy when you say it like that!) to Taiwan and thence onto Japan.

See side panel for latest photos of the Calamian Island Group

Popototan Island - Say That Again?

We spent yesterday tucked inside Halsey Harbour again. The wind blew quite strongly most of the day and it was nice not to be out in it. Jon had decided to change alternators as we seem to be having voltage problems once again. The spare went on with new belts but they were chafing against the watermaker belt so he removed one of the belts from the alternator which has two. It was then that we decided to stay put. His next job was to track down some voltage leakage from the ignition switch. The faulty wiring was found and that was fixed. Just some of the things that need to be done when living aboard!

We had a fisherman paddle past and he indicated he had some fish so we waved him over. Four small fish of mixed variety were displayed but we decided to trade with him anyway. He was very happy to receive some rice, onions, crackers and to top it all off a t-shirt. In fact he was extremely happy. The fish were cleaned and scaled and later they were put on the barbecue for dinner. Very tasty and nice to have something fresh.

The wind dropped out late in the day and it stayed calm all night. We pulled up the anchor from the depths just after 6.00 and made our way back down the harbour and out into the open water. The swell had dropped considerably and there was no wind - so motoring again. The spare alternator was doing the same as the other one with the voltage up and down so in the end Jon disconnected it. We arrived at a lovely anchorage at Popototan Island, 11 deg. 59.636N, 119 deg. 51.407E, and dropped the hook in 17 metres - not quite as deep as the last anchorage. Lovely clear water, a low key resort ashore which seemed to be deserted and a small fishing community to our east.

More trouble-shooting for Jon. Maybe it was the regulator playing up. He removed the regulator and replaced that with a spare and now the problem seems to be fixed. Tomorrow will tell.

Motoring away from Popototan Island

Farewell Palawan

After considering a late start to today's passage, we were up before 6.00 a.m. getting ready to leave. A very uncomfortable swell had come up during the night so we thought time to go. We had planned to sail from our last anchorage on Palawan Island to Linapacan Island which was a fairly short run but as the wind had more easterly in it we decided to track direct to Halsey Harbour on Culion Island. The wind came up about 10.30 at 15-20 knots so quite an easy day and the wind seemed to knock the northerly swell down a bit.

We entered Halsey Harbour which has several arms leading south and east and a few islands to make it interesting. Unfortunately, no white sand beaches - the shorelines are mostly muddy and rise up quite steeply from over 45 metres depth. There are some rocky headlands with spits of shallow water, mostly rocky as well, so finding somewhere to anchor was a bit of a challenge. After realising that our chart had soundings in fathoms and that 14 was about 28 metres not 14 metres, we settled on 22.5 metres depth to anchor - the deepest we have ever had to anchor in - so most of the chain went out with the anchor. The spot we chose is just north of Gage Island, 11 deg. 46.926N, 119 deg. 57.947E, where there is no chance of any swell at all and the wind has died to about 3-5 knots.

Is it a boat? Is it a house? Bangka returning to Halsey Harbour

The low hills forming the harbour have been cleared in places but otherwise seem to be dry tropical vegetation and remind us of Australia except there are no eucalypts!