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a space like a ballroom. Other chambers were higher. Light came from a fissure at the top and another crevice opened to the sea. Someone, perhaps a grave robber in search of ancient Chinese porcelains, had dog a great pit in the upper chamber. A small pile of bones strewn in a corner of the cave was all that remained of the burial of several individuals.
Malapacao Island, a stunning island with a very tall narrow peak and a long stretch of beach, was our next anchorage. Ashore was the rotting remains of the Marina Resort, obviously abandoned for some time and also on this eastern side was the village. On the noth side is another white sand beach with a Detox center. If you don't care for nudity, a vegetarian diet and colonic irrigations I would give this a miss.
We returned to El Nido the next day, but this time anchored in Coron-Coron Bay, which we had all to ourselves. Again the area was exquisitely beautiful, but with at least a hundred dogs set to barking from the straggle of nipa huts behind the beach, it was a good deal nosier.
7 April 04. Big rusting, smell squid fishing boats started to arrive in the bay, rafting up in sixes. This fleet of around 90 ships had been at work in the area for the past week pulling in the fish that feed Manila. It seemed the whole fleet was coming here to enjoy a local holiday fete. One set its anchor under our stern so caution decreed that it was politic to move. However, move and more ships continued to arrive. Realizing there would be no peace but in all probability a few drunks, we picked up our anchors and left.
Pangulasian Island, the resort that had burnt down in 1999, was only six miles away. The ruins lie on a beautiful coconut tree-clad sand spit. The corals there were varied and interesting. We even saw a few nervous fish. As we left Coron-Coron Bay, Harmony hit a pinnacle of coral. Harmony has a forward looking depth finder, so they are pretty good at avoiding shoals. We toasted them that evening for their first collision. "There is always a first time," we consoled them.
9 April 04. A large typhoon was approaching the Philippines. Although heading west it was thought that it would re-curve before entering the archipelago. But already the typhoon had brought us the first flurry of raindrops in months! Believing that the typhoon would not seriously affect us, we set sail down the coast as planned, to make the first of our 20-25 mile daily hops to port Barton and then to the Underground River.
We had sailed into Endeavor Strait, the narrows between the Palawan mainland and Tuluran island. Occupying both sides of the strait is Liminangcong, a thriving center for fishermen, its waterfront crowded with large bancas, some of them fifty or sixty feet long with high prows, a central cabin, bamboo gratings out to the pontoons, and today festooned by long rows of washing. Before we had got nine miles that
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