Day 3 - Sarangani to Kawio

If we had planned to make one overnight hop the last 100 miles to Sangihe, as we did the last two times we made this trip, we would have left late morning for a short overnight to Sangihe. However, Dave decided that he wanted to try to do this trip all in day-hops. So we decided to try to stop at Kawio Island, one of the first small islands south of the Philippine-Indonesian border. We had hove-to in the lee of this island last year, waiting for Soggy Paws Australia to catch up with the catamarans. But that was in the middle of the night. We had a good Google Earth picture of the island and felt we had pretty good anchoring options, if we arrived in daylight. So we got started from Sarangani at 6am. Thankfully no bad coral wraps, and we were away on time.

I was amazed to find that the strong Globe Cell signal persisted to almost 20 miles south of the southern tip of Sarangani. They must have that antenna mounted high up on the island with a good antenna!

Waves were choppy for the first 20 miles due to funny currents and wind. Same as every time we've been in this stretch of water.

We had a pretty nice sail, and helping current, and so arrived in the middle of the afternoon. We had good light and calm winds in the lee of the islands. We motored around and checked out two possible anchor spots. We ultimately decided to drop in a nice sand spot mostly in the lee (basically the sand spot between the two islands on the west side). It was a bit rolly at high tide but will be fine for an overnight stay.

We took a short snorkel late in the day (too late for much visibility). It was good to get in the water and get some exercise, but nothing worth shouting about, underwater-wise.

Dave was happy that we were spending the evening of our 10th wedding Anniversary at anchor, so I could serve him a nice dinner! We had a nice happy hour and a beautiful sunset, with even a little green flash.

Anchorage position: 04°39.60'N 125°25.86'E

We'll get up at 5am again tomorrow and make a day hop into Sangihe. Not sure whether we're going to spend one or two nights there.

We have been trying to keep a radio schedule with another boat, Ariel IV. The are in Samal and headed south to Bitung a few days behind us. We set the schedule up without much thought--around convenience vs best propagation. 7pm on 4143-49 has NOT been working out. There is a loud broadband signal on that freq that wipes everything out. 4054 sounds much better, so we'll stay on 4054 for 5 minutes and then switch to 6224. (Once Ariel IV got out of the marina, from behind the big island, we were able to talk to them on 4054).