Fusion
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Another Update from Jill and Bruce,
.. but still with my paddles from PNG & the Solomons! After various delays of the mechanical kind, we finally made it to the Kinabatangan River, the longest in Borneo, 360km of river winding through jungle (and palm oil plantations -grrrrrr- thinly disguised as jungle). Check our anchor spot on Google Earth at N05'40.8", E118'22.8. So far the river has been easy to navigate, with plenty of depth, but it was just getting across the 5 mile wide, less than 2m deep bar entrance that took many years off my life, but no major dramas, fortunately. The Kinabatangan is stunningly beautiful, even though we are only at the lower reaches at the moment,which are all mangrove, nipa palms and palm oil plantations (and don't start me on those!!), we sat out at sunset last night watching all the birdlife and listening to the frogs and monkeys yabbering away. Today, even though we aren't in the "good" bit we saw macaque and langgur monkeys as well as proboscis monkeys, which have to be some of the homeliest animals in the world. The locals call them "Dutchmen" after the earlier colonisers of Borneo, and they have ginger fur,huge almost trunk-like noses and great pot bellies. The males also seem to be permanently, ah, aroused. Lots of birdlife, especially swiftlets, egrets and braminy kites. Very special. I can see there'll be lots of exploring to be done.
It is good to be out of the seething cesspit that is Sandakan Harbour - the town is fine, but the water seems to be the local trash disposal, there is a constant flow of rubbish, especially plastic of all descriptions floating past all day and night. Just gross, especially for a place that calls itself a nature haven. Other joys include being anchored in the flight path of every ferry & fishing boat, all captained by the curious who want to come past the yachts really close & at high speed to check you out - 24/7. And we won't mention the eye-watering stench of being stuck between two fish docks. However it does have a shop which sells NZ cheese and lamb (and MacWilliam's Sweet Sherry, but in the words of the prophet Kenny, you need to know when to walk away, know when to run), the location of which is passed between cheese-starved yachties (none since Honiara, apart from some very dubious bright orange processed plastic American stuff in Palau - it doesn't melt, just sits under the grill & glares at you) and takes quite a lot of finding, especially when you have just bargained the taxi driver down & he is disgruntled. So, yes, I managed to have most of my fantasy meal and it was GOOD! (A fantasy meal is the one you talk about at sea or in deprived places, and consists of the things you most want - mine is lamb rack, baby Jersey Benne potatoes with mint and fresh asparagus.) We BBQed the lamb and had it with oven roasted chips and broccoli, and washed it down with our last bottle of pinot noir (thank you Dai & Taka!) It was so good I wanted to throw the bones on the cockpit floor and roll in them! We couldn't remember the last time we had a bottle of wine, so as you can imagine it went straight to our heads, hence the rolling thing. Please note if you wine & dine us when we are back in NZ you will also have to put us up - we are such cheap drunks nowadays there is no way we'll be driving the rental car after that!
Probably the next biggest attraction in the Sandakan area after the cheese shop is the Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre. No, it isn't like the ones everyone in Hollywood ends up in, but where orphaned and injured 'tans and those displaced by the (here we go again) palm oil plantations are taken to heal and to be taught to live in the wild before being released back into the forest. It is a lovely idea and very worthy etc, but as a tourist attraction it wasn't my favourite. There were 9 million tourists gathered on a viewing platform to watch 2 'tans come down to feed - very much like a zoo. Then if you want to stay for the afternoon feeding there are walking tracks through the reserve, except they CLOSE between 12 & 2, just the time between feedings when you are bored and wandering around wanting to go for a walk. What the hell is that about???? The highlight was during lunch in the cafeteria when a macaque monkey (they hang about to scrounge the leavings from the 'tans) made a smash and grab raid: she came belting into the cafe, grabbed the display box of chocolate wafer biscuits then took off out, scattering them and grabbing as many as she could in the process. She then climbed to the gable on the roof, where she sat, out of reach, peeling and eating her loot. She looked very pleased with herself.
Much better was the dinner we went to last night. One of the Yacht Club members took us and a couple from another yacht to his home for a big Chinese-style feast. PORK! At last! An excellent meal, about a dozen different dishes, but I must remember to enquire more carefully about "special delicacies" which in this case turned out to be a) fish bladder soup and b)steamed pork with fermented fish paste. A great night though, and lovely people. Coming home that night after a thunderstorm the temperature had dropped to a chilly 26'C and I needed a jacket. I have a feeling Auckland in November is going to come as a nasty shock...
Daemon is also becoming acclimatised to Asia - she now has the requisite set of flashing blue anchor lights. As noted in one cruising guide, Asian fishermen subscribe to the "Christmas Tree" system of boat light signals. No-one is content with a standard single regulation white anchor light, no sirree! The harbour at night is a veritable disco of multicoloured flashing lights of all hues and flash sequences. Makes our two blue flashers look quite tame, although they seem to do the trick in drawing the attention of the psycho fishing boat drivers that there is a yacht about to disappear under their bow.
On a sadder note, some of you cruisers may remember Ken Bradley from the catamaran Ken-B (award for the most junk ever stowed on a cruising yacht). We just heard from his son today that he passed away in Canada a couple of weeks ago of heart failure after suffering a stroke after a "run-in with a power tool". He was a true original and will be missed, especially at cocktail time.
Well, that's it from us,
The river-rats on Daemon
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Hi Jill & Bruce
I vet them all first. Only left in the fun stuff
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Up Date
Hi all,
This one is for all those of you who keep telling us how jealous you are of us (OK, that's the two people who write to us; we're just giving the rest of you the benefit of the doubt and presuming you're dead of swine flu*) - read it and smirk with schadenfreude!
We have just had the trip from hell down from Kudat to Sandakan. It can be done in one hit as an overnighter or at a more leisurely pace by sailing for 4-5 hours each day and anchoring overnight, which takes 4 days. We chose the latter, after waiting for a week for the wind to die down enough to poke our nose out of The Pond at Kudat. The first day was to Mitford Harbour on P Banggi and was a great sail, apart from finding that the water pump for the engine cooling system which we though we had repaired in Kudat was still not working properly and needed to be bled each time we started the motor while under sail - not the most fun in a bouncy seaway. We spent the next couple of days there waiting out another bunch of strong winds, then headed to P Tigabu where we anchored in the lee of the island off the encircling reef. All was fine until about midnight when a thunderstorm hit with 20+ knots of wind and lightening etc, accompanied by a windshift of 180 degrees, so it was blowing straight into the anchorage, swinging as around so we were hanging about 20 meters off the reef and bouncing and rolling in the chop from the wind. It lasted about two hours before calming down. The next day we picked our way through the reefs, sand cays and shoals to the mainland and sailed down the coast and found a nice ten-mile long stretch of soft mud beach to anchor on. Lovely and secure until the wind changed 90 degrees during the evening and put us side on to the swell. We tried a stern anchor, but still rolled like a pig. Sleep was pretty much impossible as we were rolling about 30 degrees each way, and you had to hang on to stop being thrown out of bed, and all the stuff in the cupboards and drawers was clanking away merrily.
Next day, by this time getting slightly psychotic with lack of sleep, we moved on and found a lovely white sand tropical isle to drop our anchor by in a gentle breeze under a clear sunny sky. After a swim, Bruce went ashore and cam back to tell me we were anchored at the turtle hatchery and there were baby turtles scrambling down the beach to the sea. We went ashore and watched, which was very cool. In the evenings they had a programme where you could go with a ranger to watch the female turtles come ashore to lay their eggs; apparently about 40 come each night at the moment! We went back in later at sunset to sign up for the event, and about 8 o'clock when we were in the office with the ranger all hell broke loose outside as a major squall hit. It must have been around 40 knots in the first ten minutes, dropping to 30 after that, and of course, it was 180 degrees from the normal wind so the boat was on a lee shore being blown back towards the reef. We ran back to the dinghy and shot out to the boat, which seemed to be handling it well and not dragging her anchor, so we got the engine going and prepared to leave if we had to, thinking it would probably blow over in half an hour, as most squalls tend to do. We noted on the depthsounder that in swinging around we had gone from having 5 meters under the keel to 2.2 meters, but thought that should be OK. Of course, we didn't factor in to the equation that the sounder was near the front of the boat and that with the steeply shelving bottom, there could be considerably less at the stern. That was until the waves kicked up by the wind started rolling in to the shore, picking Daemon up and smashing her back down - on to the reef! Fortunately we were all set to go and managed to get to deeper water quickly, but she had been slammed down on to the reef five or six times before we could get out, but no harm seems to have been done. Thank god for ridiculously overbuilt yachts with full-length integral keels! Of course in the midst of it all, the water pump stopped pumping cooling water, but we were out far enough to get some headsail out and sail her to deeper water. After that we gave up and sailed on through the night to Sandakan (home of the WW2 death march) where sympathetic friends and a welcoming yacht club (swimming pool! showers!)awaited us.
So, here we are in grubby Sandakan harbour, resting up and waiting for a new water pump to come from the UK. Well, that's it from us, just off to town to check out the markets and eateries.
Cheers,
The battered but not broken Daemons.
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Update:
Well, we are now firmly ensconced in pirate-land. I seem to vaguely remember saying before we left, "Oh no, about the only place there are pirates is the Sulu Sea, and we won't be going THERE!", and have been trying to ignore the fact we have been cruising about the Sulu Sea for the last month or so. Fortunately most of the bad stuff took place over the other side by Mindanao (and we're not going THERE - at the moment) but the area we are in at the moment, Balabac, does have its warnings attached in the cruising guides (not in the Lonely Planet, because NO tourists ever make it down here, as far as I can tell). Balabac is the island closest to Malaysia (25 miles), and a lot of cross-border smuggling goes on, so of course, given the food chain thing, smugglers get preyed on by pirates after their loads of cargo, hence the "do not sail at night" warnings for the area. We haven't seen anyone that looks like Johnny Depp yet (damn), but a couple of days ago we anchored off a deserted islet in a lagoon in some islands off the bottom of Palawan (one being the aptly-named Bugsuk), only to notice that the village on the island a couple of miles away sported an awfully large number of big fast-looking boats for such a small settlement. This combined with several small bancas coming to ask for food and/or money gave us an uneasy feeling, so after a nervous night we decamped for the island and town of Balabac, where we are anchored at present. The people here are friendly, smiley people, and there are two Philippines Navy vessels anchored here as well, which gives a sense of security, even if they run their noisy generators day and night!
We went into "town" this morning for supplies (large bunch of bananas, 2 avocadoes and a handful of chillies for NZ80 cents), and Bruce managed yet again to display his new-found talent for locating the local beer wholesaler and doing deals for cheap cases of beer (Malaysian beer prices are not user-friendly apparently). We were wandering along the main street when Bruce dived off into what I thought was a private residence and came out with a man who opened his wholesale warehouse especially for us, and sold us 2 dozen beers for NZ$10! I was stunned and impressed - the man is the yachtie equivalent of a drug dog!
As we are getting further south, the towns are becoming more and more Moslem, meaning I have to cover up more, not so pleasant in this heat. Where we are anchored we can hear the call to prayer over the loudspeaker as the sun sets. Well, I'm presuming it is the call to prayer - either that or it is an announcement that the infidel yacht whore is having a shower in the cockpit (I'm waiting for the fatwahs...)
We had a great time in Puerto Princesa, the main city of Palawan. There was a great little yacht club there, and the local woman who owns it has some clout with the Head of Immigration, so we got away with only being charged about $NZ15 each for being overstayers, and we excused having to extend our visas, which would have been around NZ$150 each, despite the insistence of the Immigration office women who were adamant we needed to pay that as well. When they were over-ruled they got very shirty, and Bruce suspects they have put the international secret symbol for "Cavity Search" on our passports. He was most concerned about meeting one down a dark alley (he reckons they are really scary - the women and the alleys, no doubt), which begs the question of what he would be doing in the alley in the first place. However...
As well as socialising, we got some practical things done in PP as well - I got a pair of back-up specs made, and we had some seat cushions made up for the cockpit from fabric we bought in Manila. Such comfort! Just as well there are no more overnighters until we leave Thailand, or there'd be napping on watch. We are finding it hard to believe the decadence of day-sailing everywhere - we have made our way down here from Coron, and most days have only been 5 hours or so, not taxing at all. Mind you, there isn't much sailing, as the wind here is minimal (unless there is a typhoon, and you don't want to be going out in that anyway). We have done around 900 miles during our time in the Philippines and have sailed for about 18 hours: most on the first day, and then almost all the rest yesterday, otherwise it has been motoring. The trip down the Palawan coast was nice and we stopped at some interesting towns on the way.
Weather permitting, tomorrow we plan to head to the bottom of Balabac Island, where there is an old Spanish lighthouse we want to visit, then we'll hop across the Balabac Straits to the islands just north of Kudat for a day or so before heading into Kudat to clear into Malaysia, a trip of 15 miles, but we wouldn't want to over-extend ourselves...
That's about it for now, hope all you Americans had a good Independence Day!
Cheers,
Jill & Bruce
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Update:
Yup, we're aliens, illegal ones as of yesterday. Our visas have expired and there is nowhere to renew them until we reach Puerto Princesa, in another couple of days. However, the local bureaucracy is pretty lax on these things (we were in the country for 3 weeks before clearing in), so there may be some "fees" but shouldn't be a problem. According to the Immigration website the fee for overstaying is the same as for a visa extension anyway. Please visit/send care parcels if it all goes horribly wrong.
As you can tell from the above, we are a bit behind schedule. I finally got all my term papers completed in submitted just in time for the heavens to open and for it to rain and blow for 40 days and nights (OK, 9, but it seemed longer). It was good having our own ark, but relying on us, our resident cockroaches and family of geckos doesn't seem a good bet for a new world population. Actually being stuck in the cabin for all that time in rain, wind and thunder wasn't much fun but fortunately we had lots of DVDs - board games in close quarters can lead to mutiny/spouseicide. At least I got my first bath since our last visit to NZ - the dinghy filled with water, so an excellent opportunity to hop in with soap and shampoo, wearing my modesty sarong and ignoring passing bancas of tourists and fishermen. If it hadn't been for the accompanying rain and electrical storm, I would have had a glass of wine and a book too!
I enjoyed Coron (Bruce wasn't so keen) but it was good to leave - we had been there a month. The main excitement was having our dinghy stolen - someone swum out during the night and cut both the ropes tying it on. After being visited by heavily-armed policemen eager to see the scene of the crime (ie: have a nosy at the yacht) we got it back from Coastguard who had it reported found in a nearby village. We had the starter activator cord removed, so we think the thief couldn't get it going and let it drift. That was a relief as a) there is very little in the way of boating supplies around so we would have had to import another one at great time and expense and
it is a long way to swim to the shore and back carrying groceries! We at least had our inflatable kayaks for backup transport.We are trickling down the coast of Palawan heading towards Malaysia. The season has changed and we are now in the SW monsoon, which means we either have headwinds or no wind, so the motor is getting a workout. We are currently anchored off a little town called Taytay, which has a wonderful old Spanish fort on the waterfront, dating from 1660. We had a look around it yesterday, and it was quite magical. We then had dinner at a little place in town and arrived back to find the tide had receded dramatically and we had to drag/carry the dinghy over a couple of hundred metres of sand, rock and seagrass before we could float it. Not so magical...
Well, that's about it from us,
Cheers,
jill & Bruce
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Update
Having a Coron-ary...
.. which is a short break in Coron while I get my last assignments for my Semester One papers completed. Coron is a lovely wee town on the island of Busuanga in the Calamian Group, north of Palawan. (N 11"59.7" E120'11.8") It is predominantly a dive place, but there aren't many tourists here, and none of the retired alcoholic sex tourists so prevalent in Puerto Galera and Sabang: much nicer altogether! The town is quite amazing - whole neighbourhoods of it are built on stilts over the water, which solves the wastewater plumbing, but means we don't swim! They have taken a leaf from Hollywood's book and installed a large "CORON" sign on top of the hill, where it is quite at home with a giant illuminated cross (so tall it has its own red aircraft warning light) and half a dozen very unscenic cellphone towers. We won't even mention the over-water bar with about a dozen giant mermaids supporting the roof. We had dinner out at one of the dive places when we first arrived - NZ25 for 4 beers, a coke and 2 three course meals (mains were marlin & chili crab) - hardly worth cooking! You did need to turn a deaf ear to the rat fights behind the woven palm wall panels though. The market is great for veges, but Bruce came back pale, shaken and vegetarian after visiting the meat section yesterday. It either looked at him (chickens in cages, squealing pig trussed on pole) or looked as if it had been involved in a chainsaw massacre, and the market stalls are all out in the open, no refrigeration, doors, screens etc. He has been waxing lyrical about lentils ever since!
The trip down was great, the weather was sunny, but we didn't get enough wind to sail, however that meant we could spend a couple of days
anchored at Apo Reef, a deserted reef between Mindoro and Palawan, snorkeling & relaxing and avoiding the onmipresent roosters that populate this cock-fight-mad country - the peace was bliss! Co-ordinates were N12'14.9, E120'28.7 - quite weird to be anchored in the middle of nowhere, just an island in the distance. Great snorkeling though.
After Coron it is off big game hunting! One of the islands was made into a game reserve, with tigers, giraffes etc imported from Africa (they had to get rid of the tigers - they ate everything else) as well as local wildlife, such as bearcats. Apparently, although it was set up as a National park, originally one of the Marcos sons used it as a big game shooting reserve. Could be fun.
Had a great disappointment the other day - lashed out and had a girl's day out at the spa in Sabang (the vile sex-tourism/dive resort near Puerto Galera) with one of the other yacht women for 4 hours of massage, salt & coffee scrubs and a pedicure- bliss! Despite my joy at having fabulous feet after years of skanky battered calloused yacht-person feet, I found most of my tan had disappeared in the scrubs - I now suspect it may have been accumulated dirt. The horror! Now I know why we have navy or charcoal sheets (and yes, they were that colour originally!). Working on new colouration as I write!
Well, that's about it from us,
Cheers,
Jill & Bruce
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Well, as they say, we have traveled far and seen terrible things. And some pretty amazing ones as well. Our "boat holiday" (Large beds! Showers! Meals cooked by other people!) to Luzon, the main island of the Philippines, was full-on; a total reversion to our 20-something backpacking days. We had been reading up on the travel (& other) literature before we left and were somewhat apprehensive: "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson - "Filipinos are a warm, gentle, caring, giving people, which is a good thing since so many of them carry concealed weapons." (True, on both counts. Manila Doctors' Hospital has a bin outside the entrance, where, under the scrutiny of guards with machine guns, you have to unload your gun before you can enter.) Lonely Planet: "It should be noted that Filipino bus drivers are among the most maniacal on the face of the earth, although the number of accidents is surprisingly low. If you are not used to traveling at breakneck speed you may well be in for a white-knuckle ride." (Not true - coming from NZ, the home of the homicidal driver, we found them skilled and sensible drivers, even on the worst road I have ever been on.)
Our first stop was Manila, which was much better than I had expected, especially around the Malate area where we were staying. Sure, the footpaths were unusable, there were beggars and one frequently met "bare-tailed kittens" (sounds so much nicer than "rat", don't you think?) in the streets, but nothing too overwhelming and there was an on-going effort to keep the streets clean although everything is grimy from the constant diesel emissions of the jeepneys and tricycles. When we came back from the north and went out to suburbs such as Divisoria and Binondo in search of cheap clothes and fabric for a new boat awning, things changed - after rain, you were paddling around up to your ankles in what we will politely describe as "mud" (in case any of you were thinking about eating in the next few days), there were people living in the streets and at their market stalls with no sanitary facilities (contributing to the "mud") and there were some pretty desperate-looking people about. This is not a place I'd like to be at the bottom of the heap in. We had seen plenty of poverty in the Pacific, but that was balanced by the fact the people still had a subsistence lifestyle from their land, so could eat and retained some dignity. Here there is no dignity, just a grim desperate battle for survival. Very sobering.
From Manila we took the overnight (air conditioned to arctic levels) bus to Banaue (pronounced Ban-ar-way) in the hills of Northern Luzon. This is home to the alleged 8th wonder of the world, the ancient rice terraces of the hill tribes, or Igarot people, who have lived here for centuries. It was unbelievable spectacular: the terraces are created out of stone or clay (depending on which tribe has made them) and cascade down steep mountain faces, often wreathed in clouds, they are so high up (think Desert Road altitude). They were built over 2000 years ago, and cover over 100 square miles of hillside - apparently, put together, the terraces would span half the earth, hard to believe until you experience the number and scale of them. We had hoped to white-water raft the Chico River which runs along the bottom of the terraces, but it was the end of the dry season, so the river wasn't high enough to raft, and to be truly perverse, the rainy season was just starting to kick in, so it was too wet to hike down into some of the more remote villages, and several places were cut off by rain-induced landslides. We spent a few days hanging out there, doing some walks and trips to viewing spots, and bought a couple of amazing old rice god statues from a dealer in the town for a tenth of the price of the same thing in Manila, and probably a hundredth of the price of outside the Philippines. The dealer was great (got friendly with him and after chatting over a couple of beers I know far more about the sex life of the modern Ifugao man than I ever wanted to)and we got details of the age (in generations) of the figures and the history of who had owned them. (Too weird to be concocted: our best one is from an Ifugao tribesman named Kevin) After fostering an addiction to fried bananas on a stick from one of the local street stalls, we decided it was time to move on before we blimped out too badly, and caught the jeepney to Bontoc, 30 miles away where we could get a jeepney to Sagada, our next stop. Now that all sounds simple, doesn't it? Indeed getting on the jeepney was no problem, and the driver was fantastic, it was the road that was hell! Three hours later we arrived, and that was a white-knuckle ride! The rains had caused many slips on the (mainly) single lane, (mainly) unsealed road, which was 95% hairpin bends around steep mountain passes and sheer drops, which most of the time were shrouded in cloud - negotiating our way through was not easy. It was probably the worst road trip I've ever experienced, and probably the most spectacular. That jeepney driver earned his pesos! It made the 1 hour 15km trip to Sagada look like a breeze.
After the Lord-of-the-Rings atmosphere of Banaue, Sagada was more of a sedate tourist place - it reminded me of the area around Manapouri. The main attraction (apart from more rice terraces) is their hanging coffins. These are coffins (mostly old but some quite new) attached to cliffsides or poked into rock crevices on the face of the mountains. Apparently the walk around the area can be quite confusing and it is easy to get lost unless you take a guide or go to a certain point and then retrace your steps, which was what we planned to do. That was, until we met our guides. We were accosted by three young boys at the entrance to the walk, who offered to guide us: "We are not like the other guides!" "No, you're eight years old." "We only charge 100 pesos, they will charge you 200!" It seemed good for a laugh, so off we went. They were very professional: one positioned in front, one in the middle and one at the rear, much concern about whether we needed to rest and so on with only a couple of lapses, the first being a couple of minutes of mayhem in a mudpool which no self-respecting 8 year old could pass up and a few cries of "Snake!... Joking!" We had a great time!
After Sagada it was the 6 hour 120km trip to Baguio through another winding mountain "highway", this one at least being paved if still full of hairpin bends. Baguio is quite a large city, very student-oriented (lots of universities) and has a great market where we got DVDs of heaps of TV series for NZ$2 per DVD. Dexter, Boston Legal, Weeds, Desperate Housewives, Saving Grace - what bliss! It was also home to one of the more surreal sights I have seen - the swan boats on Burnham Lake. This is a small, artificial lake in the middle of a park which is crammed, and I mean crammed, with rowboats, pedaloes etc all in the shape of swans, fish, mermaids etc all so close together they can barely move. Our trip back to Manila was equally odd - it was the day the Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao fought Michael Haddon for the Welterweight World Title and the Philippines had come to a standstill. There was hardly any traffic on our approach to Manila (unheard of!) and as luck would have it, we were on a bus with TV, so the excitement on board was tremendous. The conductor was sitting on a little plastic chair in the aisle and I fully expected the driver to be sitting beside him at any minute. When Hatton was knocked out in the second round the bus went nuts - it was hilarious. It was a huge deal here (there was only one crime reported in Manila that day) and there is going to be a public holiday to celebrate, Pacquiao is going into politics ("The People's Champ" party) and is the only topic of discussion when you talk to a local. Very Americas' Cup.
After a couple of days in Manila sorting out practical stuff we headed back here just in time to hunker down for a typhoon due to hit a few hundred miles north tomorrow. We had become a little blase about typhoon warnings here as it seems anything over 25knots gets an alert - in NZ there'd be a perpetual state of typhoon alert if the same criteria were used - but this one seems to be a bit more serious - all the big ferry bancas have canceled their trips and are hiding out behind us in the bay. We are on one of the typhoon moorings that the local yacht club rents out, so hopefully we should be ok, as long as nothing gets blown down on to us. A long couple of days watching our new DVDs, I guess.
All the best,
Jill & Bruce
PS: Have updated the website with photos
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Up Date
Greetings from Puerto Galera on north Mindoro (N13'30", E120'57")!
Well, we made Marinduque in time for the Easter celebrations and it was certainly worth it! What a party! After a couple of long days sailing from dawn until dusk (night sailing is out around here - the waters abound with small unlit fishing boats, unattended fishing nets and many, many FADs, or fish aggregating devices, which can be buoys, drums, rafts or poles, all unlit and haphazardly placed EVERYWHERE) we arrived at Port Balanacan at dusk, and as we dropped anchor, our jaws still grazing the deck at the sight of a 3-story technicolor Jesus (or maybe Mary - it was very androgynous and we didn't want to offend anyone by asking) attached to a kiosk on the end of the jetty, we were met by Jack, one of the local councillors in his banca. While we were chatting to him, we noticed a long line of candles weaving their way around the promontory. It turned out to be the village's annual Easter parade, so we headed in to watch that. Most of the villagers were following a group of religious statues transported by well-disguised motor tricycles and singing and chanting while weaving their way through the streets. We were the only outsiders there, so it was a pleasure to watch something that was done solely for the locals. Bruce & the Kantalans Michael & Sheila also went in at midnight on Saturday to watch the ascension of an angel taking Mary's veil of sorrow up to heaven (actually a small howling child being winched up into some bamboo scaffolding)but sleep won out for me on that occasion.
On the Sunday the last day of the Moriones Festival was being held in various towns in Marinduque, but local word had it that Mogpog, 7km from Balanacan was the place to go. Now a word about the Moriones Festival as we understand it, and we are certainly open to correction here... once upon a time there was a one-eyed Roman centurion called Longinus who was the guy who gave Jesus the coup de grace on the cross. The blood from Jesus's wound splashed in his eye and he was healed. A miracle! He converted to Christianity and was captured and beheaded a couple of days later because of his choice. A martyr! Now quite how this morphed into dozens of Filipinos dressed as centurions (more about this later!, wearing carved scowling masks and dancing wildly to Achey-breaky Heart, Billie Jean & YMCA, I have no idea, but all I know is many, many Christians were sitting po-faced in church on Easter Sunday, wishing their lives away during a tedious sermon, while these guys were having an absolute ball.
The day before we had made enquiries at the village about whether we could catch a jeepney to Mogpog for the festival and were assured it would be no problem. However language difficulties meant that we (us and Sheila and Michael from Kantala) ended up chartering a jeepney to ourselves (plus councillor Jack & his son James, acting as tour guides/translators and smoothers for us). However it was only a few dollars and it meant we didn't have to cram into a public one with 97000 faithful also on their way to the festival, so we went with it. The jeepney however wasn't quite up to the task, and expired in a geyser of steam on the first hill. A replacement arrived in due course on we made it to Mogpog in time for the judging. No, not Pontius Pilate, although he was there, but of the many, many categories of moriones (centurion) in attendance. There was the oldest moriones (male & female), youngest moriones, best flowers on their headpiece, most artistic (made from trash: sweet and drink packets being the most popular)and most unique (wearable art from rattan, coconut, shells, feathers etc) amongst other categories I couldn't quite translate. There were even a bunch of teenage boy Abu Sayyef terrorist moriones, but I don't think they had their own category. Each category had to come out for the judges and danced furiously to pop music while they were being inspected. While all this was happening, Longinus was being chased around the town by centurions, making frequent dashes through the crowds, climbing basketball hoops to pee on the crowd (concealed water bottle,I think,I hope!) until he was apprehended at the end of the morning and beheaded, after a passionate plea to the crowd, with much spurting of blood. Completely surreal, but a great morning's entertainment. After that our limo (joke!) took us to Boac, the next town where we had lunch and visited the 17th century hillside fortress/cathedral, which was pretty amazing.
After recuperating for a day, we did another big sail up to our current anchorage, Puerto Galera on Mindoro, which has an active yacht club and moorings, and provides, showers, internet and a water taxi. They also have Customs & Immigration, so we can clear in to the country at last (they are very lax about such things here), although only on Mon, Tues & Wed, so we have missed out for this week. It is also a tourist town, so that is coming as bit of a shock after our fishing villages to date. White faces other than us! We plan to leave the boat here for a couple of weeks and go traveling inland in Luzon. Much easier and cheaper than taking the boat over.
Well, that's about it for now. I'm about to go in and have yet another go at updating the website. The Yacht Club purports to have broadband, so we shall see! They also have a webcam on their website if you want to check the place out go to http://www.pgyc.org and have a look.
Cheers!
Jill & Bruce
PS: Just bought some DVDs from one of the street vendors at NZ $4 each (and judging by the solicitous service we got plus the free extra one, paid way too much). One of them is The Reader, featuring Keith Winslet & Ralph Fiennes. Is there something Kate Winslet needs to tell us, or have I just been out of circulation? As my beloved asked in all naďveté, "Do you think they are knockoffs?".
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I post them because I am sure I am not the only one living vicariously through friends adventures.
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UpDate
Mabuhay!
Well, at last we have made it out of the Pacific - bet you all thought it was never going to happen. The trip from Palau was mixed - the first couple of days was absolute heaven: we couldn't keep the smiles off our faces, and we did our best-ever day of 155 miles. Then the squalls hit... the next few days we a bit untidy, lots of rain and bursts of wind in the squalls. This was particularly unpleasant at night, as it was so overcast there was not enough light to see the squalls coming, and we got hit by one with 40 knots of wind which over-powered the self-steering and crash-gybed* us, ripping our preventer fitting from the boom. Fortunately there was no other damage to crew or boat, but we hove-to until first light so we could check it all out.
After 5 days we arrived at the entrance to the San Bernardino Straits, the entry to the Philippines and the exit from the Pacific. We were stalking this, as all the pilot books put the fear of god into you about transiting it, using such phrases as: "8 knot currents" "strong eddies" "whirlpools" "tidal rips" "standing waves" "main shipping passage" and recommends "least alarming" stages of the tide to pass through, and the charts all had hundreds of taniwhas** drawn all over them. We anchored at Biri, a small island outside the pass to rest up, wait for better weather and the "least alarming" state of the tide. We spent 2 nights there and on the second day were besieged by boatloads of young locals who had never seen a yacht before. Apparently we were the first in living memory. We also met our first pirate, but he was only 6 years old, his gun was plastic and we bought him off with a lollipop.
The next day we gritted our teeth, girded our loins, dusted off all the other cliches and headed out into the pass. What an anticlimax! After all the angsting, there was only a couple of knots of current and no shipping! I almost went back through to wait for the full moon and a screaming wind and tide so I could get some value for all the emotional energy I'd expended worrying about it. The sailing was so good we did the 70 mile trip to Donsol in one hit.
We had been heading to Donsol on the Bicol Peninsula in the south of Luzon ever since we saw a promo DVD about the Philippines which showed people swimming with whalesharks there. Whalesharks are the biggest fish in the world and (THANK GOD) pretty much vegetarian, filter-feeding on plankton & shrimp & any small fish that get sucked in during the process. Bruce had been all moony about them since seeing ads, heavily featuring whaleshark photos, for a brand of watch worn by someone researching whalesharks that was on the back of several New Scientist magazines we had on board, and so we decided that would be our first stop. (Yes, actually that is pretty much how we work out our itinerary) We duly arrived, anchored and the next morning headed into town to change some money as we couldn't buy any Philippine pesos in Palau. That was when the excitement started. We were helped to tie up at the steps on the riverbank by the town by a fisherman called Potpot, who then took us on a tour of Donsol, which is a small fishing village. We didn't really want the tour, but his English wasn't good enough to explain what we needed (nor our Tagalog good enough)It became apparent that frivolities like banks were not part of the Donsol infrastructure. Minor panic was setting in, as the tour was heading to Potpot's church to meet his pastor. Just what we needed, we though, especially since it was a small break-away born-again church. However, the pastor, Noel, was great. He spoke reasonable English and told us we needed to go to Legazpi, about an hour away, to change money. Slight problem, as we had no pesos for the jeepney fare. No problem said Noel, I will lend it to you, which he did. We were really humbled - these people have no money (we went to visit Potpot's family later: he and his wife & 3 kids live in the slum by the river in a house of bamboo slats covered with plastic rice bags) and yet they trust us on first meeting to take what must be a considerable sum for them and to bring it back. (Which of course we did, with a gift to the church & to Potpot for minding our dinghy). They also had no concept of a yacht, and when we said we didn't need accommodation as we slept on our boat, they thought we meant the dinghy, as Daemon was out of sight around the corner. We bought them out to see the boat yesterday afternoon and they were so excited. They all dressed up especially and were waiting on chairs outside the church (small one-roomed broken down concrete building with a dozen plastic chairs) for us to pick them up.
Our trip to Legazpi was an eye-opener. We boarded a jeepney*** decorated in the style of a dilapidated 1970s cinema: all mirrored ceilings, padded & buttoned vinyl walls, requisite number of religious icons without which it is illegal to depart the depot etc and of course the inevitable background music at high volume. If you ever wondered where the cheesey music of the seventies & eighties went to die, it is the Philippines. They are really big on whiney white guy stuff ("Everything I Do I Do For You" "How Am I supposed to Live Without You" "Total Eclipse of the Heart" etc etc etc) which has now tragically embedded itself in my brain on a repeating loop. We were the first in so got the choice seats. It was an education to see how many people would fit in. The Land Transport Safety Authority in NZ would have a fit. I'm not sure they even have regulations about the passengers that sit between the driver and the driver's door. Bruce has now stopped sulking about my insistence on buying emergency medical and evacuation insurance before reaching Asia. This was reinforced when we got in a motorised tricycle to go from the depot to the bank. These are motorbikes with a semi-enclosed sidecar. I have seen upwards of six people in a sidecar... Right of way seems to go to the most pure of spirit, with much crossing of self by the driver at intersections, overtaking etc.
The bank was another saga that I don't have the strength to go into, suffice to say that 2 hours in a queue is bearable if the airconditioning is good. It would be even more so if they gave cash advances on foreign credit cards...
Yesterday morning we were up at dawn to swim with the whalesharks. Was that amazing or what???? We went out on a banca**** with our new friends Sheila & Mike on Kantala who sailed in to Donsol the day after us, Tim the Welshman and two German guys as well as the banca crew and Omar, our guide. We headed out about 15 minutes into the bay and circled until we spotted the first whaleshark and then jumped in and snorkeled over to swim with it. Wow. Just wow. And wow again. They are so amazing - that one was about 9 meters long and the head must have been 2 meters across. They are very chunky and covered with polka dots and very, very graceful. We could keep up with it, and on several occasions we were only a couple of feet away from it. It was almost impossible to get good photos as a) it was too huge to get in one shot
the visibility wasn't great because of the plankton-rich water and c) YOU WERE TOO DAMNED CLOSE! I have lots of photos of bits of shark that I can probably jigsaw into one photo. We swum with that one for about 20 minutes before it dived. In all we saw 5 whalesharks ranging from 4 to 9 meters and had another 20+ minute swim with one. Tim the Welshman is a real whaleshark fanatic and was beside himself as he had spent US$7000 to see them in the Galapagos Islands and had only seen 5 in a week, and then only for a minute at a time, so 5 in 3 hours for NZ$30 was a pretty good deal. Very, very awesome.Today we are motoring flat out to get to Marinduque Island in time for the Easter Sunday Moriones festival held there. Apparently it is a reenactment of the lesser-known biblical story of Longinus the Roman centurion and his miracle. Stripping it down to what actually happens, a bunch of guys wearing Roman garb and carved masks chase the Longinus character through the town and fields and catch him twice, from which he escapes both times, then catch him a third time and behead him. According the the Rough Guide, this being the Philippines, costumes are not limited to centurions and the hundreds of pursuers include Miss Piggies and Madonnas. This I must see!
Sorry for the book-length of this, but it has been a mind-blowing couple of days!
Palaam!
Jill & Bruce
PS: A reminder that Daemon is feature boat in the April edition of the US sailing magazine Latitudes & Attitudes. Get your copy now!
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Update
Hi all,
Well,the time has come - we're hauling up the hook (well, dropping the mooring actually) and heading off to the Philippines tomorrow morning, After a couple of decidedly dodgy weather days, today was a scorcher and we got all our boat chores done in time for farewell drinks at the yacht club There are three of us leaving tomorrow and one the day after, so the cruising fleet will be very diminished - I foresee redundancies at the yacht club bar!
OK, better sign off and get some sleep before it all turns to chaos in the morning, Palau having bureaucracy down to a fine art, but not yet grasping the concept of efficiency - a nasty combination! The weather is looking great, so fingers crossed for a good passage.
Cheers,
Jill & Bruce
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Update
Hi all,
Still in Palau - we enjoyed it so much we extended our visas and have been getting all our boat chores done and hanging out down in the Rock Islands. The weather in March has been superb, much better than in February, so the place has been even more spectacular than ever - it really is a yachty's paradise. The islands are all close together, so a couple of hours gets you from town to a deserted island of your own, especially after 4pm when the dive boats go home. The reefs aren't nearly as scary the second time out, as you have some idea of how accurate the chartplotter is (not bad) and what you are looking for.
Currently the place is crawling with film crews - there is a French version of "Survivor" going on on some of the islands (you can imagine French film-making types blending into the local shorts/t shirt dive culture - NOT!) and a National Geographic crew is filming here as well. We are sorely tempted to sneak over to the Survivor area and do some food drops etc to screw up the game.
A couple of days ago we dinghied out for 3 miles to German Channel (a 3 meter deep channel blasted through the reef early last century to let ships bring phosphate in from one of the outer islands, and one of the primo dive spots)and snorkeled the barrier reef there. It was quite amazing - zillions of types of fish and coral, turtles, reef sharks etc. The real adventure started when it was time to come back and our outboard wouldn't start. Some friends had given us fuel for taking them diving, but their mix was 50/1 not 100/1 which our engine uses, so consequently after the long run at half throttle (to avoid getting swamped by choppy waves) the spark plug got coked up and wouldn't fire, and without tools, Bruce couldn't fix it. So there we were, stranded on the reef, memories of the left-behind divers on Great Barrier Reef springing to mind and wondering how long it would be before we started drinking our own urine and sucking fish eyes for liquid. Bruce didn't help matters by standing up, pointing in front of the dinghy and shouting "Look! A turtle! Oh no, it's HEAPS bigger than a turtle!" - uneasy silence as the "Jaws" theme suddenly plays in both our minds. However, the stranding wasn't too bad as a) we had a VHF radio we could use to call for help, and
it is easier to catch a dive boat at German Channel than a bus in Queen Street (Auckland). After an agonisingly long wait of, oh, about 15 minutes, one stopped and gave us a tow back to the boat. SAVED!Yesterday we discovered a hidden lake, accessible only by kayak at very low tide through a long archway in one of the islands. Very cool! Today I achieved one of my "things to do before turning 50" (next Monday! EEK!) goals and snorkeled naked with the jellyfish at Jellyfish Lake. (OK
Tomorrow we plan to head back to our secluded anchorage on Ulong and hunt out some Yapese stone money wheels that were quarried and left there, then head on back to Koror and get ready to party on Monday at the yacht club with whoever is left in the bay. I hope to get our website updated in the next couple of weeks with our photos, so will let you know when it happens.
Cheers!
Jill & Bruce
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Hi all,
Yes, it has been a while, thank you for reminding me so often! We are still in Palau, just blown away by the place - and to think we nearly bypassed it!
We finally dragged our consumer-satiated asses out of Koror (bars! shops! museums! restaurants! supermarkets with real food (OK, American & the veges are shipped from the US via Guam, so are either frozen or sludge when they arrive - the tomatoes actually peel themselves after a day in the fridge. Gross)) and have made it down to the Rock Islands, which are pretty damn spectacular! We are currently anchored in a very cool little lagoon (07'16.6"N, 134'17.7'E) formed by a bunch of surrounding islands, hiding from all the dive boats (hundreds!) that whizz past all day, every day. Water temp is down to 28' so swimming actually cools you down at last. I have just got over a foul cold from the taxi driver who took us on the trip around Babelduap last week, so that has slowed us down a bit. To visit the Rocks, we had to get a boat permit (US$20 for 30 days) and a permit each (US$25 for the Rocks or US$35 for Rocks & Jellyfish for 10 days) - nice wee money-making venture!
Well, Bruce now has tried diving, and not so keen as he thought he was, but thought it would probably improve when you had done it more. We also toured the main island with four other yachties, chipping in to hire our favourite driver for the day (hint: how to tell you have been somewhere too long - you have a favourite driver). It was pissing down when we left, but improved as we went along. Saw some very cool old meeting houses (bai) and some old monoliths which were quite spooky, but nowhere near as spooky as their new parliament buildings! If Howick wanted a parliament building, sorry, capitol building (US rules here!) they would employ that architect! It is a huge monstrosity, up on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere, and looks like a cross between the White House and Hugh Heffner's fantasy of a Greek temple with a giant dome on top. To top it off, it is made out of fibreglass, which has then been sponged in "authentic earth colours TM". There are these huge, obscenely squat columns about 6 feet across, which just echo hollowly when you knock them. The buildings have huge chandeliers hanging out front, which look as if they have come from the bargain big at a giant version of Lighting Warehouse, and the whole thing is decorated in "authentic" local symbols, such as the money bird, which unfortunately looks like a farting chook. Sorry, shudder, got carried away there. Shame they didn't use the bai as a pattern for the building - they are very cool. Long thatched structures with a steep canoe-prow roof, painted wooden sides and faces. Inside they have rafters which are painted with scenes from local legends. I have been trying to think what legend could explain three men with fish attached to the end of their penises, but am drawing a blank there... if you have any thoughts, please don't tell me.
I have decided to collect traditional local money, so now can buy a beer (or a bride, depending on where & exchange rate) in Vanuatu, Solomons, PNG and now Yap (small circular stone pendant, replica of the giant stone money wheels excavated from quarries on Palau) and Palau (woman's money beads, made out of glass and clay, in the same way ancient Egyptian glass was made. The ones I have are genuine old ones, not replicas, so rather special).
We just had an amazing day, one of those "peak experience" days, when you are just on a high, and all the discomfort and trials are worth it. The most amazing time was this morning when we dinghied past turtles, herons etc over to Jelly fish Lake where we climbed up the island to an inland lake and swum with bazillions of jellyfish. When you left the jetty there were only a couple about, and you sort of thought, yeah right, big deal, not even that pretty jellyfish, then as you got further out there were more, and more, and more, and MORE until you were hanging suspended in a green-blue jellyfish soup, where there were more translucent golden jellyfish than water! They were bouncing off the lens of the dive mask and you had to fight your way through them - it was like being in a lava lamp! They ranged in size from pea to almost soccer ball. We got back to the dock after an hour and a half and just sat there trying to work out whether we had just done that or dreamed it, it was so surreal. AND we managed to get in and out before the tour boatloads of Japanese tourists in wetsuits outnumbered the jellyfish!
We came back to the boat for lunch then went around the corner to see the giant clams. I have been fooled by that description before, and snorkeled around to look at one or two examples, but here there were hundreds of them, some about 3 feet long, and with lots of different coloured lips, and surrounded by tropical fish - really pretty.
Well, that's about it from us, we'll start making our way back to Koror to get ready for the Philippines trip, but I'm sure you'll hear from us before then.
Jelly good show!
Jill & Bruce
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Hi all,
We arrived safely in Malakal, Palau after a 15 day trip - the longest distance-wise and equal in duration to our ill-fated Fiji trip (where we spent several days hove-to in gales). Even managed to arrive Friday morning to avoid the swingeing overtime charges for Customs, Immigration, Quarantine, Health and Transport, so that was a relief!
The trip was pretty good - the last day out was horrible, with squall after squall coming through all day, with the wind reaching 35 knots then dying to nothing in the accompanying downpours, and shifting direction with each phase of the squall. As usual it happened on my watch, so I spent a miserable wet 4 hours struggling to keep the sails filled and the boat moving. It wasn't helped by a patronising voice from below suggesting I could take the boat into the wind a little in the calms to keep her sailing, and I made the 697th sail adjustment for the hour. I briefly contemplated heading below with a winch handle to beat the skipper to death, but then another squall arrived and I had to deal with that. I settled for the puerile satisfaction of shouting the same thing at him when it kept happening on his watch. The responses in his case were unrepeatable and were usually accompanied by an upraised digit. Despite this episode however, it was great to be back working as a team together, supporting each other and working out solutions to problems together. After a month in harbour staring at each other across a tiny cabin, we like each other again - the saying about harbours rotting ships and crew is very true.
Apart from that and a couple of very light wind days where we had to motor, the sailing was a true pleasure, mainly 15 knots from astern,and restored my joy in passage-making after all the smitings we had down south. The sheer pleasure of sitting in the cockpit watching the ever-changing sky and waves during the day and the stars at night is hard to beat - you achieve a certain state of grace, at least until the next squall arrives to rudely bring you back to earth.
After Melanesia Palau is like dying and going to heaven! Melanesia was fascinating and never boring, and we had some amazing experiences, but it could also be very depressing with the extreme poverty and dirt and lack of functioning infrastructure, especially in the towns. Palau is an odd mix, like one of those holograms that shows a different picture depending on the angle you look at it from: it is either a prosperous Pacific city, or a seedy Asian one, or more often, both at once. However it has supermarkets with things you'd want to buy that aren't out of date/stale (in Melanesia in general only the expats get most of their food from the supermarkets - it is too expensive for the locals who subsistence farm), the streets are clean and the infrastructure works. Bliss! And to top it off, one of the tour places here, Sam's Tours, runs the yacht club, which provides free moorings, hot showers, a dinghy dock, a shuttle bus to town (all free), internet access and has a great bar and restaurant! And gives you discounts for being yachties! After PNG where they wanted to charge US$50 to anchor without providing any facilities and then wanted you to fix stuff in the village, we can't believe how good it is! The staff are all incredibly friendly and give you hugs and call you by name - after a long trip it nearly made me cry. We got moderately slaughtered on our first night in with the sheer insane pleasure of finding great hamburgers, fries and cold margaritas at reasonable prices, and being able to eat them in a very romantic setting while watching the sunset. And 15 days of sleep deprivation adds an interesting edge to it all.
The bay here (07'20"N, 134'27"E) is stunning - there are heaps of little limestone islands, and the moorings are tucked amongst them. We'll spend a week or so here sorting out our boat jobs before heading down the lagoon to the amazing-looking Rock Islands marine reserve. This place is dive central and has is full of people from all over the place who come to dive. Bruce is planning to do an introductory dive with them in a few days.
Well, must sign off, it is time for yet another real, private, stand up shower with unlimited water. The indescribable bliss of it all!
Mechikung!
Jill & Bruce
PS: Breaking news! Daemon is achieving centrefold status - she is going to be the feature boat in the April edition of Latitudes and Attitudes USA yachting magazine. We are now referring to her as Miss April, and hoping the staples in her navel won't affect her water-tightness. They bought the three articles I sent them, so really getting into this writing stuff!
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Happy New Year to you all!
We are currently anchored in a bay on Tsoi Boto, in the East Island Group of New Hanover in PNG (02'.27"S, 150'27"E) having a quiet day. We got bored witless in Kavieng waiting for our mail and other stuff, and after nearly murdering a couple of shop assistants when we tried to buy an icecream (you couldn't imagine how such a simple exercise could be turned into a textbook case of customer frustration), we decided to break free from the cruising pack and go out on our own. Although it is enjoyable to meet up with the others, traveling in a pack means you don't get to meet and interact with the local people as much as you do when you are by yourself.
We had a great Xmas Day, spent on Long Tall Sally, eating and drinking and talking crap. We talked to our families by cellphone and I got in some geriatric kitty time, feeding their 23 year old cat, Jade, crab (remarkably strong and insistent for his age, at least where crab was concerned!) so was a happy girl. Also got in parrot-time with Rowdy, a parrot belonging to the local charter yacht couple. We had another mud crab debacle, this time one escaped from his bonds and bucket on deck during the night (making us nervous about his whereabouts for the next couple of days) and the other from his bonds, and then from the pot when Bruce tried to cook him. These things are quite sizeable - one feeds two people, they have bodies the size of a dinner plate, and the claws the size of my hand, so you really, really don't want them loose in the galley! After much prodding with tongs he was encouraged back into his bucket (crab, not Bruce) and then quickly dumped into the pot where he was transformed from crab to Xmas dinner! We celebrated again on 27 December, as it was our 30th anniversary, so the standard of meals lately has been superb!
We set out from Kavieng the day before yesterday and motored a whole 10 miles to a very scenic (palm trees, clear turquoise waters, nesting turtles etc etc) island called Nusalomon, which was owned by Ranson and his family. His young son, Barfort, took us on a tour of the island and we got to see a lot of the Japanese bunkers and bombed guns from WW2 and to smell the pig that Barfort had speared a few days ago (Barfort is 9, or maybe 10, no-one can remember and distinctly feral) and which had escaped to die in the bush. We stayed and talked with them for a while and then as we were going back to the boat, Ranson's mother gave us a lovely gift of some gorgeous cowrie shells. They came out later and we had a good evening storying-on on the boat.
From there we headed up inside the barrier islands that shelter New Hanover from the sea, and these were the ones that took a battering during the recent storm surges. We haven't been ashore much yet, so can't tell how badly things are, but when we anchored here yesterday, Bruce thought the village was derelict until the ubiquitous pikinini canoe fleet headed our way. We have divested ourselves of the remnants of our trading clothes and our "deserving case" t shirts, so I am trying to convince Bruce I can use the space to buy more carvings to inject some cash into the villages. I won't repeat his comments. He is scathing about my canoe paddle collection, the philistine!
Last night was New Year's Eve and as I had had a couple of semi-sleepless nights from the heat, I was so knackered I was asleep by 8.45. Current joke is I saw in New Year on Chatham Islands time. I tried to explain to one of the locals yesterday that we would celebrate on NZ time, so New Year would start at 9.00pm local time. The concept of different time zones around the world was utterly incomprehensible to him and he sort of got the expression I get when trying to grasp the rudiments of quantum theory. Probably completely messed with his mind. Just talked to the others in Kavieng by SSB, and they sound very sorry for themselves, so I'm glad we were here!
Anyway, that's about it from us,
Take care and all the best for a great New Year.
Jill & Bruce
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But thank you all for your concern, and yes, we are aware that a certain amount of cannibalism is still in existence in PNG, but that is mainly in the Highlands, and we are out in the northern islands, and everyone here seems pretty friendly. The horror stories of robbery, rape & murder are mainly from Port Moresby, Lae & to a lesser extent, Madang, the people here are very proud of being honest. As one guy told Bruce, "One man tries to steal your wallet, the man behind him punch him in the face!" Despite this, Bruce did end up on the wrong side of the law, and nearly spent a night in gaol with three of the other skippers. This came about when we cleared in at Kokopo last Monday. As we do in every country, we notified Customs of our arrival and waaited on board for the usual boarding party to come and clear us. Normally Customs advises Immigration & Quarantine and they all arrive at once. So, five booted officials arrive on the boat, check our booze, stamp our passports and inspect our fresh fruit & veges, and then tell us we can go ashore. A mass exodus to town occurred, and we managed to secure some coffee before heading back to the boats where the resort owner greeted us to say Quarantine we looking for us and were severely pissed off. When they came out, they wanted to cart the skippers off to the lockup for breaching quarantine law by going ashore without being cleared. It turns out Customs & Quarantine aren't speaking, and the people looking at our veges were just Customs being nosy. When we explained, Quarantine calmed down and all was sorted amicably. Would have been a sight - four scrawny white guys in the Rabaul lock-up!
We had a nice week (apart from a hideous night with a surprise on-shore blow, which broke 2 boats from their moorings in our bay and gave the rest of us a sleepless night) in Kokopo anchored off the Rapopo Resort. We did a bus trip up to Rabaul to see the town, and it is a moonscape. One part of the town in buried in ash and the other end, near the port, is being kept open by bulldozers clearing the constant ashfall from the roads. Rabaul was a main Japanese base during WW2, and there are a lot of relics still here. We visited the main submarine base and also the barge tunnels carved in the hills where the transport barges were craned on to rails then hauled into tunnels and hidden. Some amazing construction work...
We are currently anchored at Mioko Island in the Duke of York group about 10 miles off the coast of Rabaul (04'13.8"S, 152'27.3"E), which is very beautiful and well-sheltered, but every second canoe wants to charge an anchoring fee, which is a bit tiresome. There has been a 150 foot superyacht complete with helicopter and about 4 motorboats in the lagoon for the last month, and the locals think everyone with a yacht has that much money. If only. We had a great day in at the school graduation/prizegiving today, although the speeches by one of the local reverends did go on and on and on for some time. No-one else was listening either - everyone was just wandering around under the trees, setting up betelnut stores, selling likliks (rudimentary ice lollies) and having a good catch up, so we just chatted as well. After the ceremony was over (9.30am - 2.30pm!) we had lunch with all the bigwigs (saveloy chow mein, a new fusion dish) and then went back out to find a custom dancing session in full swing, which was pretty amazing! Well, the inevitable happened and I ended up dancing, dragged into the fray by Salome, a very forward lass, sporting a bright red parrot on her head and a matching betel smile. How could I refuse? I dragged Fran from Melric in as well (the Melricans were the only other white folk there) and we were a huge hit, nearly caused a riot, and the big-stick guy had to beat the crowd back, literally. We were duly anointed with a cloud of talc over our heads, which is a sign of approval, when, as exhorted by one of our other teachers, Agnes, we shook our booties. The crowd roared....
The only danger we can see here is to the local pikininis, who don't understand the danger of approaching yachts to trade shells and limes before the yachties have had coffee. They get up at 4.30am, so think 6.00am is a perfectly sensible time to bang on the hull and call out to you. We try to keep a low profile, but as I told Bruce, a grown man crawling around on the floor of the boat avoiding a bunch of kids is pretty pathetic. He has now taken to giving the first lot balloons and lollipops on the condition they keep the others away. As Bruce says, poor buggers, their lifestyle is so different they have no idea why you come out at 6.30am and fire the flare gun though the bottom of their canoe. There is currently a small riot going on outside as to who gets first go at lime trading. Vitamin C overdose is incipient.
We will probably head back in to Kokopo tomorrow and clear Customs (you have to clear each port here, sigh) and come back up here on our way to Kavieng on New Ireland, where we intend to spend Xmas with the three other yachts we are traveling with.
Well, that's about it for me at the moment, time for sundowners on Melric. That should confuse the pikinini flotilla for, oooh, 2.6 seconds.
Cheers,
Jill & Bruce
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Update.
So Long to the Solomons!
Well, been there, done that, got the t-shirts and sure as hell want to go back there. We had no idea what to expect in the Solomons when we planned the trip, but we had a great time and met some great people.
After my last email we refueled at Noro which was great value. They're geared up to large cargo ships so the fuel was good, cheap and when pumped in the tiny amounts needed for yachts, had a seriously under-reading measuring system. After that we headed around to Gizo, the second largest town in the Solomons, and my, what a complete shithole it is! It was hit by a tsunami in April last year, but frankly, I think that probably improved it by washing some of the rubbish away. It is one main dirt rubbish-strewn street with a few stores selling general items (and none of them had coffee, which may have coloured my view of the place slightly), a couple of banks, a Telekom branch, hardware store, bakery, butchery (shack with a freezer of meat-ish products), a bottle store, a vege market and a couple of hotels. Oh, I forgot the Post Office, which after much asking where it was, turned out to be a small unlabeled blue fibro shack on the waterfront. We spent a few days there waiting for a parcel and clearing Customs and then headed up to catch up with a bunch of friends at Mono Island, in the Treasury Group at the top end of the Solomons.
Mono has a thing for NZers, as the NZ troops were in charge of liberating the island from the Japanese in WW2 and each year they have a NZ Day celebration in October. We were told that "NZ is a part of Mono" - that would certainly make it their largest suburb! They don't get many yachts up there and when we arrived with Tokimata, it made six of us in the bay, and the locals were beside themselves with excitement. When we arrived at 8.00am after an overnight sail, there must have been 30 or so canoes furiously paddling around to greet us. Not really conducive to good anchoring to have several small canoe-loads of kids paddling under your bow offering you limes and coconuts while you are having a fight over where to anchor (him - close to shore as less chain required to be put/out pulled in (manual windlass consideration), her - behind the other yachts - less flies, mozzies and kids).
There are heaps of war relics around the village and we went with one of the locals and the crew from Tokimata to see some of them. Tokimartian Peter was up on all the types of wrecked planes etc, but to the untrained eye it looked like an enthusiastic case of West Auckland fly-tipping. Has become known in-house as the "Junk in the Jungle" tour. Our guide Louis was very enthusiastic and keen to please, often to the detriment of the local flora and fauna. It got to the stage where we were too scared to comment on stuff. Admire an orchid stem in a tree? No problem, seconds later it would be wrenched from the plant and presented to you. I tried to photograph a huge butterfly the size of a swallow feeding on a hibiscus flower: "You like butterfly???" "Yes, it's lovely" WHANG - giant paw snatches butterfly from the flower. Missed that shot, but do have one of a rather stunned butterfly being held spread-winged between two huge hands.
The local girls were very friendly as well. One of the other yachties is Lars, a 40-something Norwegian anthropologist, rather good-looking and traveling alone. Poor Lars got stalked incessantly - he had canoe-loads of teenage girls paddling out to make assignations and every time he went on deck there would be impassioned cries of "Lars! Lars!" from the girls on the shore. All the local women were trying to work out how to marry off their daughters to him. He was cursing his conscience for not letting him take advantage of teenage girls. We moved down to a lagoon on another part of the island, and, as the villagers know what is happening on the boats before we do ourselves, there was a greeting committee that had paddled down to shout "Lars!" at him from the shore.
We had been trying to track down some carvings of stone net weights that we had seen in Honiara, and had thought, naah, we'll see heaps of those in Marovo, which is where they are supposed to originate. Wrong! We never saw another one, but it was a good way to rid of carvers - just hold up the one we did buy and say "We want another one of these" and as they didn't have any/didn't know anyone that made them, they'd paddle off dejectedly. So, it came as a surprise to find the one carver making them was now living in Mono (pretty much the ends of the earth, Solomons-wise) and that we knew his wife from Honiara. He made us another weight and avoided being given any of the children they offered us when they found we didn't have any, so we were very happy campers. We also got a lovely local paddle with carved handle (NZ$12), so next time we're up that particular creek, at least we'll have a paddle! There was much discussion when they were making the paddle for me - what length should it be to fit me, how big a blade etc - I didn't have the heart to tell them I just wanted it for decoration.
After a few days there we set sail for Kokopo on New Britain in Papua New Guinea. I use the term "sail" loosely - we motored for at least half of the trip, as there was no wind at all. The rest of it was extremely pleasant, sailing along on a broad reach in 7 knots of wind, even managed a BBQ while under way, a pleasant change from being hunkered down in rain and gales. It took 3 days and we arrived in Kokopo at first light this morning, and are anchored by a yacht we know, Osprey, off a resort(04'20"S 152'18"E), waiting for Monday so we can clear Customs and get some COFFEE! (We ran out 3 days ago and things are a wee bit tense)
Kokopo is near Rabaul, which used to be one of the best towns in PNG, however the area is very volcanic, and in 1994 the local volcanoes erupted and covered it in ash, so most stuff has moved to Kokopo, about 10 miles down the coast. Ken on Osprey took his boat down to Rabaul last week to check it out, and came back with it covered in ash, so we'll probably just check it out by bus. The volcanoes are across the harbour from us, and there is a constant rumbling and booming, with clouds of ash being shot into the air. Visibility is very poor because of the constant ash haze - it was very eerie coming in during the night, with all the smoke and volcano flashes, not to mention the ever-present lightening storms.
Well, that's it from us, just going to spend the afternoon relaxing after the trip, and trying to deal with the heat - we are only a couple of hundred miles from the equator, so life is pretty sticky at present.
Jill & Bruce
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Update form Bruce and Jill
I know, I know, no emails for weeks - what do we do all day??? Well, we've been bloody busy despite the fact we calculated we had moved just over 80 miles in a month!
When I last emailed we were at Uepi Resort in Marovo Lagoon, having a ball, swimming with sharks, manta rays etc and generally relaxing. When we left there we picked our way through the reefs in the lagoon to the village of Sasaghana on Marovo Island.(S 08'30.6", E 157'58.6") We had no particular reason to stop there, except to say hi to a carver I bought a head-hunting axe from for Bruce's birthday, but we had the best time! We dropped anchor and were immediately inundated by canoe-loads of pikininis, bringing bunches of flowers and fruit and veges to trade. Daemon looked like a florist shop with several bunches of orchids, ginger flowers and birds of paradise and we had a week's supply of veges - all for a few pencils and balloons! I think we were the second yacht to stop in about 3 years.
We went into the village to see Albert, the carver, but he was away showing carvings to a superyacht (place is crawling with them - more superyachts than ordinary yachts) but his wife, Jean was at home and I spent the afternoon talking to her while Bruce tried to resuscitate their outboard. She was great company - very fluent in English, and had been bought up in Honiara, so had a good working knowledge of the outside world. We spent the afternoon sitting on her verandah, overlooking the beach, swapping stories of how life was for each of us, and laughing hysterically.
From there we went to Seghe, an fairly nondescript town, whose fame is an airstrip, currently being resurfaced. Bruce spent most of his time there trying to fix a diesel leak that has plagued us, and I got the story-on with canoe job. In one of my encounters I met Paul Kito from Tiroliloso Village opposite Seghe, who gave me 3 pineapples and wanted me to let other people know he sold produce. So, if you are near Seghe and need supplies, Paul's your man!
We had met up with Gar & Nicole on Dream Keeper who had been anchored with us in Uepi, and convinced them to come around into the Nono Lagoon with us to see the artists and carvers of Mbareho Island (S 08'34.6", E 157'48.9"). We had enough carvings, but were interested in woodblock prints from the only 2 artists working in that medium in the Solomons, both of whom live on Mbareho. As luck would have it, the first person we met there was one of the artists we were looking for, Aldio Pita, who then took us on a long carver tour of the village (Gar & Nicole were looking for bowls, so no pressure on us!) and then showed us his work. We bought a couple and then traded to get a 6 foot long piece of canvas we had on board printed with his designs. It took a few days, but the result is great, and looks really good on the wall by our bed. We had a great time there - the US Navy blasted a path through the reef to the outside, which is navigable by dinghy - a real maze through groups of islands, up tributaries, tiny streams etc, but a fun trip, with beautiful snorkeling at the end.
From there we went to Matakuri Lodge (S 08'39.7" E 157'52.02")(Bob: Benjamin & Jilly say hi to Pam Oliver) where we sat out a 24 hour thunderstorm, with one of the most spectacular lightening displays I've ever seen. I guess that is going to come with the territory now we are getting closer to the equator, but it doesn't mean I have to like it!
From there we headed over to Rendova Island, finding a quiet, uninhabited bay where we could hide from carvers, and then on to the bright lights and big smoke of Munda/Lambeti. Well, it has three stores, a bakery (foul bread, more air than substance), a petrol station, a beer store, a police station, a bank (with ATM, which was embedded in a giant 12' x 12' cube of concrete to prevent any entrepreneurial "self-service") a Telekom (internet computer in Honiara being fixed, no lines to NZ available), a vege market, which as Bruce pointed out was more of a drug market than a vege market, as it specialised in betel nut) and a diving resort with cold drinks and a great view. However neither of the 2 things we desperately needed - cooking gas refills and ground coffee! A pall of desperation is hanging over Daemon!
Bruce decided he wanted to go into VonaVona Lagoon to Zipolo Habu Resort for his birthday, so we picked our way through yet another series of reefs and shallows and anchored at the resort, where we are the only guests! (S 08'18.3" E 157'09.8")This means I get to commandeer the best beachside hammock with book and resort dog while Bruce goes exploring and photographing gross insects. It is pretty amazing - white sand and fish playing a couple of meters off the beach. (I'm running out of superlatives for Western Province!) We are having dinner there tonight as a birthday treat - coconut crab!
This morning we did a dinghy excursion to Skull Island, one of the local tambu (taboo) sites. It is where the skulls of the old chiefs and warriors are kept, as well as the graves of some more recent deceasees. It was quite magical - it is only a small island, and you follow a path for about 20 meters where you come across a huge mound of coral, with the crevices studded with skulls. On top of the pile is an old shrine, pyramid shaped and about 3 feet high, filled with skulls. There are also traditional artifacts, such as conch shell war trumpets and shell money in the crevices. Mind you some has been replaced with non-traditional stand-ins, unless teapot handles were a traditional treasure for headhunters.
We now plan to diesel up at the local fishing port, Noro, where fuel is the cheapest around, then head to Gizo to pick up our mail, reprovision (god, I hope they have coffee!) and clear for PNG.
Well, that's enough for now,
Love to all, and if anyone feels like emailing us, well, we wouldn't be averse...
The Daemons
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Update:
.. and I know it is going to bring me the usual hate emails, and Bruce has just called me a bitch, but for once we are actually living how you imagine we are living, so I need to confirm all your prejudices.
We at the most beautiful place we have ever seen, Mbili in the Morovo Lagoon(8'39.7"S, 158'11.24"E). The sea is calm and turquoise, the sky blue and cloudless and the huge lagoon is spotted with hundreds of tiny jungle-clad emerald islets. At night the sky is stunningly clear, with millions of stars and a very bright moon. Last night we had yellowfin tuna chasing little fish around the boat, and at our last anchorage we were adopted by a school of several hundred squid, who stayed around the boat for 3 days, squirting little jets of ink every time we jumped in to swim. The snorkeling is great, millions of tiny (and not so tiny) colourful fish, huge giant clams with brightly-coloured ruffs and lovely coral, all in crystal clear waters. When we go in the dinghy, millions of tiny raindrop-sized fish jump out of the water ahead of us in a little rainbow arch. On the islands by the boat the birdlife is prolific- parrots, herons and hornbills, and the most unusual thing yet - no roosters! And to top it all off, we are now sick of eating lobster!
The downside is the ceaseless flow of carvers, all selling their wares, but as we now have enough carvings, they are very good-natured about us saying no. We have been here a few days, so are becoming part of the scenery and pretty much everyone who wanted to come over, be nosy and "story-on" has, so we are getting some peace at last. Tomorrow (subject to intense financial and trade negotiations) Daemon is joining the ranks of her tattooed crew and getting her own design! We have a carver teed up to come and carve her lintel around the companionway with a local design. Our initial thought was to have what is called "Spirit of the Solomons", which is basically a bunch of different fish. However, that had been niggling me as being just a bit too Remuera (with apologies to the bros in the 'hood!) and when we went to the carvers workshop this morning, I fell in love with a storyboard he had carved depicting local traditions. So yes, now Daemon is on for a story mural of a head-hunting canoe trip, complete with weapons, heads, canoes and other custom objects. Much more us!
So, everyone with yachts, you need to get your arses up here! It is insanely beautiful and the security problems don't seem too bad, certainly better than we had thought. Even if you haven't got a yacht, there is an ecolodge (local name for basic small house with about, oooh, no facilities) here, the Tibara Lodge, run by Chief Luton which will do accommodation & 3 meals a day for NZ$40 pp per day. The setting is stunning - one of the houses is over the water, with a verandah you can snorkel from, into a cloud of tropical fish, giant clams and even his enormous pet sea cucumber (not something I would have chosen for a pet, that there you go...). There is also a pretty well intact (apart from being wrecked) wrecked US WW2 bomber plane a couple of hundred yards away. Luton and his brother Clive seem to have been hit with the talking stick from an early age so have spent a considerable time here "storying on" and you'll get lots of stories from them.
Going for my afternoon snorkel now...
Jill
PS: Have learned another of those valuable yachting skills you never knew you needed to know. I can now shower and wash my hair using our new shower device - a 1.25 litre soft drink bottle with holes drilled in the lid. Yup, a measly 1.25 litre to be fresh and clean. Impressive!
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FYI from Jill and Bruce
Hi all,
I have just republished the website, but we have a new web address - we are now www.yachtdaemon.co.nz NOT .com - some bastard flogged that while we were out of touch and unable to renew it.
Cheers,
Jill
Yacht Daemon
in MarineTalk
Posted
Cont.....
Wow, what a special place! We had a great time on the Kinabatangan: we could almost kid ourselves it was deep jungle and not a stretch of regenerated bush a couple of hundred meters wide each side each side of the river. As environmentally reprehensible as this is (you could park by a seemingly intact piece of forest and hear the plantation machinery working behind the trees) it does have the effect of concentrating the wildlife in a narrow area. The river was easy to navigate - broad and deep once you passed into the main river. During the day we would meander slowly up it (not much else we could do with a 2 knot current against us), sun awning spread, doing our African Queen impression, admiring the scenery (and dodging barges and giant logs hurtling down the river) and wild life spotting. After we had done an exhausting 3 hours or so, we would pull over to the side of the river and anchor to watch the evening monkey show. Around 4pm there would be a loud crashing in the trees and monkeys would start appearing to feed and socialise before settling in for the night. They were great fun to watch - the large proboscis ones were the most impressive and would do some amazing flying leaps between trees, but the macaques were the most fun - lots of little babies learning to climb and nearly falling out of trees, mock fights etc. One night we were most peeved because the proboscis monkeys came to sit in the trees about 30 meters behind the boat and while we could see them, we couldn't get decent photos. The next morning we got up at dawn and went outside with our coffees to see if they would come closer, but to our amazement, the trees by the boat were inhabited by three orang -utans quietly feeding in the branches. We watched them for an hour or so until a speedboat came past and frightened them away.
After 4 days of progress, we made it to the small village settlement of Sukau, where most of the wildlife lodges are located and anchored off the village. While we were there we took the dinghy up one of the tributaries and got to see millions of monkeys (and tourists). We also went on a night trip with one of the local guides. He had the most amazing eyesight and could spot tiny birds in the trees. We saw lots of birds really close-up, as we would sneak up under their trees in the boat then spotlight them and photograph them, poor buggers. Also saw a pit viper way too close up for my liking - the guide parked the boat right underneath the branch it was curled around (about 3 feet above us) and extolled the venomousness of it and encouraging close-up photography while we were both cowering back in our seats. I had my exit route planned...
After a couple of days we headed back down the river, hoping to spot one of the herds of wild elephants that live by the river, and as we went past a likely spot I spied large brown shapes moving in the trees. We did a fast u-turn, dodging floating logs and fighting with the current to come alongside the bank where I'd seen them. We peered in with binoculars to see big brown eyes peering back curiously - it was a herd of cows (henceforth known as "cowlephants") that was the closest we got to big game. One of our downriver anchorages was beside the entrance stream leading to a huge and very beautiful oxbow lake, which we planned to explore by dinghy. Coming in to anchor we spotted what we initially assumed was another "logodile" (log which looks like a crocodile at first inspection) but when we looked closer, it turned out to be a 3 meter crocodile basking on the bank. Bruce offered to set the dinghy up so I could go in and photograph it, but I declined his kind offer. We still had to go near its sunning spot to get into the lake, which was a little frightening - I had my oar ready to repel boarders.
We left the river with no untoward incidents, a far more relaxed trip than the ingoing one, as we knew we could follow our track in and have deep enough water, and headed back to Sandakan to clear out and provision up for the overnighter to Kudat. The trip to Kudat was uneventful (I love that in a trip) and we are here now catching up with friends we haven't seen for ages before heading around to the west coast of Borneo.
So, that's it from us!
Cheers,
The Daemons