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LEG 5 Due to a few unfortunate events, including but not limited to a shortage of Diesel during holy week, and only small amounts or really watery diesel, we decided to enjoy northern Palawan at a slower pace, and get the boat back near home in case we needed any more work done on it. We did however, manage to get a user training on the “Tramigo T22” in Manila, so we will be tracking ourselves throughout the rest of the adventure! We want automatic uploads to the website next time, but little by little we are getting there! We picked up the boat in Maricaban Bay where some repairs and maintenance were carried out on her during the 10 day break. Since we arrived in the afternoon, we decided to have an afternoon dive and spend a night a Club Paradise. Steve hadn’t been diving in a while, so we decided to do another the following morning as well, after which we enjoyed the CP buffet and headed up north around Caluit and in to Conception for another night at the Pierhose Lodge and shared the coldest beer in the Calamianes with Liz & Mike before they headed off to Sweden for the season. |
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This is a Filipno version of a “Haitian Haul Out” |
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Checking all systems for take off |
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Beer inspection in Conception (guess who just arrived yesterday) |
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After we finnished all of Mike’s beer, we took Michelle and Tequila to Coron Town, and headed south on a very nice ride to El Nido through some very big swells. We had no idea where we were to be staying, but got lucky to find the Dolorog Beach Resort with 2 rooms available just as we arrived at 3:30. It is a very nice place, but they are quite strict with the opening hours of the kitchen - I had to wait for dinner at 7 to get anything except beer to eat. Edo the owner of the resort was quite helpful to help us with advice about the sea since he’s done many similar trips on his speedboat. The resort enven knocked a few bucks off of our bill for coming with our own boat. The next day the wind kept blowing, so we decided to cruise around the area near the resort. There are loads of nice coves and beaches, and even a few interesting caves swim in - just a few minutes from Dolorog. |
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After spending two days in El Nido, we headed back to the Calamianes for two nights, before preparing for the final journey. We weren’t sure about the Diesel level of the tanks since we had to remove a sender for a “jerry-rigged” repair to the fuel system, so we tried scrounging as much fuel as possible. Unfortunately there was nothing available in El Nido due to the Easter holidays, but we managed to get 40l in Halsey Harbor on the west coast of Culion Island. |
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The filling station in Halsey Harbor |
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After “topping up” at Halsey Harbor, we made our way up to Popototan Island to Coral Bay resort for some lunch and to see if they had accommodation for the night. Scored on both! Since it was early in the day, Steve and Sean decided to attempt a dive on the nearby Lusong wreck. We placed an order for 100 l of diesel to be delivered in the evening to Coral Bay, finnished lunch and headed out to dive. We ended up being really happy that we got 40 l in Halsey Harbor, because the port engine ran out of fuel about 1 mile from Lusong. Thanks to Sangat Island resort, we managed to bum enough diesel to make us feel comfortable to head back to Popototan! Above we can be seen enjoying lunch at Coral Bay, as well as the beautiful sunset while slowly limping back so as not to burn up the last bit of diesel before our supplies arrived. The picture on the right was taken just before the bottle of Tanduay blue went missing (where’d it go?). After that we complimented Monica on the new stocks in her bar, but reminded her that she needs more Stolichnaya in the future. |
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Bright and early the next moring we headed off to Maricaban again via Sangat for a dive & sandwich (and to pay for the diesel). We were pleased to see the seaplane returning Andy Pandy to the island, and also to see that even this high-tech piece of machinery uses the same refilling system as we do! |
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