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!