Philippines

We have been cruising around Philippines for the past 6 months, mostly in the middle islands of the country, we have had good consistent wind and have been able to sail a lot of the time between the islands and anchor in the many bays for protection.

The pink line is where we have been.....sorry it's a bit small

The people are so friendly and most can speak some english so its great to have a chat with the ones who want to talk or we need some information. The children are taught english in school so they like to practice on you and they are very well mannered calling you sir or ma'am when they greet you or serve you in the shops.

The Filipinos are very religious, we have visited mostly Catholic Churches and they vary in size and age some as old as 1570, built by the Spanish when they arrived in Philippines converting the people from Muslim. The tricycles and bangkas " boats " have God bless or "love and faith"written on them and their houses have religious symbols near the front door. The people have also said "God bless" to us plenty of times when we depart.

Every village has a church

Sometimes the church and fort are combined like this one in Tay Tay Palawan.

Most of the scenery is beautiful with tall mountains and a few volcanos, the jungle is lush with many coconut palms, the most I have seen in any other place. The water is mostly clear and the beaches range from white to black sand. 

This is a pink sand beach, tiny pieces of red rock are mixed in with the white sand, it looks pale pink when it's wet.

Everyone in the village helps with the large net to catch many small fish and they are divided up at the end 

We haven't seen many fish though, or the size we are used to, lots of small ones in the market or drying on racks of bamboo.

We broke one of our oars so we asked this man to make us a set, he was building a boat on the beach in front of his house, no workshop just a few coconut fronds for shade...he did a great job of the oars.

Do you like the anchor on the front of the boat....a large rock for weight

A couple of classic old timber houses with capize shell windows that they used before glass, to let the light in.

Rice drying on the road

The welcoming ceremony held for us, we felt like King and Queen as they sang and played guitar and we ate traditional food. 

Holy Week at Marinduque was a great way to see the parades and religious floats and street dancing over the Easter holiday time. We became friends with a lovely family who showed us around and made us feel part of their extended family.

The magnificent costumes worn by the street dancers

Catholic and Independent churches religious floats with the people walking behind carrying candles

Moriones parade through the streets of town, roman warriors in handmade costumes and masks, some decorated in local shells and leaves. The parade started in 1870 and is held in Holy Week.

Our friends from Marinduque 

Filipinos love their roosters, they spend a lot of time grooming and exercising them 

My favorite place Coron Island

Ken liked El Nido the best....

We were the center of attention when we went ashore at this small village

Hand made timber flipper....Ken tried the shell meat they cut, eaten with a big handful of rice

These fisherman anchored close to us early in the morning and we watched as they coiled their huge net after the nights fishing.

Filipinos eat rice at every meal with a small portion of fish or vegetables or eggs, the food here has been disappointing for me although I did have some tasty dishes occasionally. The pork here is very good usually roasted on a spit or marinated. The local noodles....pancit....are delicious and another local dish Adobo made with chicken or pork one of my favorites. 

East Coast Malaysia

We joined Sail Malaysia Rally to the East, which is a group of boats sailing loosely together and stopping at places along the way for cultural events. 

This year there are about 30 boats. We joined in Pangkor just south of Penang, after going on the slip to do the yearly anti foul and maintenance. 

I was in Australia at the time and Ken had Dean visit with him for a few weeks. They sailed the boat together south to Puteri marina where I joined them. 

Dean went backpacking to Kuala Lumpur and we headed out down the straits and around Singapore, there are hundreds of ships anchored and motoring in this area it is very busy. Everything was going well we had current with us, we were about half way around when suddenly a knocking sort of sound came from the stern...and we slowed down, we thought we picked up some rubbish on the prop...Ken jumped over to have a look and found the bush came out of the cutlass bearing so we couldn't use the motor, so we tacked in light winds avoiding the many ships. Ken also rigged up the 15 hp outboard motor and fitted it to the stern bracket that he had made which helped with a little more speed when we needed it.  Alan on Screensaver sailed along side us the rest of the way to the anchorage and we made it before dark.

The next day we had a bus trip with the rally to the local fisherman museum, a tropical fruit farm, Sebana cove marina and a kampung ( village ) for a delicious lunch and meet the locals, we had a great day in the bus seeing the countryside.

The next day we started sailing up the east coast of Malaysia, Ken jury rigged the prop so we could use the motor until we got to Tioman Island in the marina so he could fix it properly.

Sunset on an island on the way to Tioman

The local girls I met at Tioman.... They practiced their english and I practised Malay

Malaysian breakfast Nasi Lemak, 

One of the bay's where we anchored. Tioman is beautiful....tall mountains with lush green jungle and sandy beaches with clear water.

The rally had organised a games afternoon which was a lot of fun with the locals and afterward plenty of food.

Ken drilled and tapped underwater and put in four screws to hold the bush in place while we were in the marina, we topped up with water and fuel then headed out towards the coast. 

We stopped at Cukai a small town on the east coast and anchored in the river, the rally had another day out and we visited a zoo, turtle sanctuary, fishing village and a traditional high set timber house. We then had afternoon high tea on the beach and released some baby turtles into the sea.

After leaving Cukai we sailed to the islands further north and had a nice few days relaxing, swimming and sundowners.

Next stop is Kuala Terengganau... We tied up in the marina and walked around the town and markets. 

One of the laneways in KT

The rally dinner where we were presented with a piece of the local batik. We dined like kings with the variety and amount of food presented in the smorgasbord.

Our next stop was the most northern island we went to, Redang Island, has the clearest water and whitest sand so we saw many turtles on our way in to anchor.

A nice resort on the beach

And some fishing boats for a bit of character.

The next leg of our trip going east to Anambas and Natuna Islands Indonesia, we had a good trip sailing with a few other boats and arrived after 32 hours

After a good nights sleep in the protected harbour we were treated to a welcome ceremony ashore.

Beautiful Indonesian girls at the welcome ceremony.

The anchorage in the main town 

These boys paddle out to see us on a timber raft using planks of wood as oars

The people were super friendly, so many photos were taken while we visited their island because they don't have many western tourists. See the fresh fish hanging up for sale in the back of the photo.

Another view of the town....the mountains come straight down to the sea so a lot of the town is built out over the water.

Ken celebrated his birthday at one of the islands with our cruising friends, it was a pretty place to spend a few days exploring.

Pulau Bawa.....stunningly beautiful....we anchored in the protected lagoon on a mooring, we went snorkelling and climbed the hill for this shot.

There is a Eco resort being built.... The labourers carting cement and gravel.

We started at 3 am to sail east to Natuna but we motored all day and arrived at 6pm. The sea was as flat as this the whole way.

Ken caught this huge Barracuda with the biggest teeth....we released him.

Our arrival at the anchorage on Natuna Island, took half an hour to get off the beach because the locals wanted to take our photo. They were so happy to see us here on their island.

Fishing hut built in the water.

Coast line Natuna Island, it was great to explore the island and met the friendly locals, Ken took a family out to see the boat one afternoon and they gave us two loaves of bread and some snacks as the owned the bakery. Most people that live on the island are very poor and live in simple basic ...hut / small houses....the main transport is motorbike.

We island hopped for three days to Kutching Borneo and anchored in the river. The next day the rally bus took us into town to clear in....immigration, customs and harbour master, it took hours to complete with two buses full of cruisers, we took in the sights of the town, did some groceries and had dinner before getting back to the boat at 9 pm.

As we headed north up the coast we had a mix bag of weather and after four days anchoring off the coast every night we entered Miri marina after the worst night on the boat....we rolled so much Ken slept on the galley floor and I wedged myself in the quarter berth.

We spent a few days in Miri getting fuel groceries and bits and pieces, dinners out and a pot luck dinner at the marina then off to Brunei. 

The impressive mosque in Brunei

We anchored at the yacht club which has wonderful facilities, pool deck and restaurant. We did a city tour and saw the Palace, water village and museum. The standard of living here is much higher than Malaysia. Also the Brunei dollar is nearly the same as the Australian dollar

This is where we got fuel at 30 cents a litre..... Very happy with that. We anchored close by.

Next stop Labuan which is a duty free island so we stocked up with cheap beer and $ 3.00 bottles of gin.... Should have enough to get back to Australia now. 

After Labuan we sailed to Palau Tiga which is where the TV show was filmed....nice clear water and sandy beaches with a few cheeky monkeys who wanted to join us for sundowners.

The anchor winch was getting very slow and our next stop the luxury 5 star marina at Kota Kinabalu so Ken decided to pull it out and see what was going on.....the alloy adaptor plate was badly corroded 

and acted like a brake on the shaft so we had a new one made, which took longer than expected.

This is one of the resorts with the marina, there is another one one the other side so we were spoilt for choice which pool we would have a swim at. We ended up staying 10 days, it was so nice for a change

Ken enjoying a beer after a month on the dry.

Margaritas at sunset

We sailed one day and motored the next to round the northern tip of Borneo and headed east.

For the next three days we had strong winds on the nose which meant lots of tacking and avoiding the many reefs and islands in the area, I hated it as you take all day to get anywhere.

At the end of the third day we anchored near a sand cay with about 8 fishing huts

The people that live there came out in their small boat to trade with us....small crabs for kids clothes we had on board and other bits and pieces, we gave them plenty because they looked so poor

This girl wears the local sunblock on her face.

The afternoon storm was building and it started raining by 7.30 pm we had the buckets out so we could top up the water tanks, the storm seemed to be over and Ken was in the cockpit when we heard the loudest bang.... Ken looked up to see sparkling bits raining down from the mast....OMG we have been hit by lightning...totally shocked......then we wondered how much damage was done, we had to wait till morning. The boat anchored next to us also was hit.

Ken went up the mast next morning and found no VHF aerial, wind intstrument or anchor lights, we also discovered later the tuner box for the HF radio was damaged. 

We were lucky really as some boats have much more damage than that, the other boat had exactly the same damage so maybe we shared the strike.

Next stop was Sandakan, the yacht club had great facilities but the anchorage terrible with boat traffic and currents, some boats dragged anchor.

We took a trip out to see the park dedicated to the prisoner of war camp, very sad what those men went through, only 6 survived out of 4000. I also went to the Proboscis monkey sanctuary, these monkeys are only found in Borneo.

Tun Surakan Marine Park was our pick of the coast line, we stayed 5 days. We went snorkelling the water was very clear and we saw lots of small fish.....but thought the Great Barrier Reef was better.

A cruisers get together

The last port of call was Tawau close to the Indonesian border, the best yacht club so far, cool swimming pool, tennis court, Ken played with some cruisers, restaurant and large deck overlooking the  water. Unfortunately we copped two bad storms the first and second night we arrived, we dragged anchor and ran into our mates boat, lucky we didn't damage his boat, we bent our Bimini support that Ken was able to bend back into shape. We anchored further out next morning and survived the second storm that night so the anchor held for the rest of our stay.

The deck overlooking the water was the scene for the last rally dinner, the other boats are heading further east to Indonesia then some to Australia, others to Philippines or back to Malaysia. We met some great cruisers from all over the world and enjoyed the rally except for the hectic pace....we saw many great places by sea and by land.

We had a fun day out lunching and afterwards a relaxing massage.

Dancing on the deck at Tawau Yacht club..... Johnny one of the cruisers kept us entertained all afternoon with his awesome singing.

After all those sea miles, I need some land time.... I'm going to India for two weeks with Chelsea, and Ken is sailing to Philippines with a few other boats and I'll met him there when I return.

We have booked tickets to return home for a few weeks in December as Jenna graduates from vet science and we can spend some time with our family's and friends at Christmas. We hope to see as many of you as we can.

Take care of each other and enjoy life

Love Katrina & Ken