In the Philippines

We are happy to report that we rounded Cape San Augustine this morning at 0845 and we are officially in Philippine waters.

The marina we are headed for (Holiday Ocean View in Samal, near Davao) is too far away to reach in one day, so we needed to find a stopping place overnight. You don't sail at night in coastal waters in the Philippines--too many FADs, fishermen, nets, etc.

With S-SW winds, none of the anchorages we had marked along the west coast of the SE peninsula in Mindenao were looking very good. We picked out one--at Sigaboy Island--that looked like it might work, but the wind was too far south. The only spot where there were anchoring depths was not behind the island with the south-ish winds we had. And about the time we were looking, the winds had picked up and were howling through the area, with a bit of a venturi effect near the island. So we moved on.

A few miles north, Dave picked out a decent anchorage in a big cove, I think called something like Baksal Cove. We anchored at 06-40.6N / 126-04.9E, in about 25 feet of water, off a fishing village. "Off a fishing village" is an interesting term in the Philippines, as pretty much every bay we went by on our 25 miles up the coast, had a fishing village. Basically a row of shacks along the beach with 20-40 motorized outrigger canoes pulled up on the beach.

The Filipinos are incredible. It's hard to convey their fishing-ness. Several hundred miles off the coast of Mindanao, in very deep water, our friends on Carina passed a "FAD" with a medium-sized (say, 30-40') fishing boat accompanied by a number of outrigger canoes. And we saw them in all shapes and sizes today...anything from a one-man canoe to a giant community-sized fishing or transport vessel. Here they are called "bancas" (bong-kas)...outlandish looking trimaran things with motorized propulsion (pictures to follow).

We are getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow (even Dave!) to make the last 40 miles to the marina.
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At 08/04/2014 12:40 PM (utc) our position was 06°40.60'N 126°04.90'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm