|
nary stores are available here along with real German bread and Delicatessen foods! Ferries to Luzon depart several times a day so one may go there easily if required. We did, leaving Sea Quest in the care of a boat-boy for a week while we visited friends and made the rounds of the museums.
Manila, though, was a frustrating place to do business.. Traffic jams are infamous. Taxis always wanted to negotiate 'special rates'. The city is spread out and in fact, not very well stocked. Nobody had anything on our list that we were looking for! We would have done better to order from overseas. The highlight, in addition to the museums, was the Intramuros Quarter within the walls of the old Spanish fort. Today horse drawn carriages still clip-clop along its cobbled streets.
Friends from Japan had sailed down to join us for our trip to Palawan en route to Malaysia. Norio and Seiko Takada along with their 12-year old daughter, Ai would accompany us on their sloop Harmony.
29 Feb 2004. We left Puerto Galera to sail around the north end of Mindoro stopping our first night at Paluan Bay just inside Cape Calavite. A sizable river lets out in this area flowing through the provincial capitol, Mamburao. We did not go ashore here, but enjoyed the spectacle of brightly painted fishing bancas charging close past us. They were large and small. A few had awnings and long dipping poles for nets. The water around us sparkled in the azure shallows of the reef where men, scorched black by the sun, their heads swaddled in cloths against the heat, patiently fished.
The next evening we rounded Sablayan Point to one of two offshore islands. Panyan Island is a resort run by the Frenchman Dominique Carlut and his Filipa wife, Marina. Ashore the beer was cheap, the guests all Germans, and the sunsets superb. We were made welcome and took the service boat the next day to the town of Sablayan on Mindoro's mainland. What a surprise. Approaching the coast only a few buildings were visible. But when we rounded into an estuary the river banks were crowded by bancas of every size and color waiting for the incoming tide. Although the town was sizable and hummed with activity it was very old fashioned and had nothing so modern as a supermarket. We shopped for almost everything we needed in the huge open air market, even buying a couple of tuna fish.
5 March 04. Apo Reef lay 20 miles offshore. A 30-mile trip would take us around its southern flank into an anchorage partially protected by low islands and the extensive shallow of the surrounding reefs. No only would we have the opportunity for some swimming, but the next day's run to the Calamian Group of islands north of Palawan would be reduced to about 40 miles instead of nearly 60. At Apo Reef we found giant clams to be so plentiful we harvested one to cut up for a raw treat. The water was like crystal, the coral beautiful and unspoiled, but as usual, we saw few fish.
|
|
