Other Things to do in Sabang

In addition to the Sabang Marine Festival, which is only happens a few days a year, Pulau Weh has a few other interesting things to do. (Nomenclature: Sabang is the major city and one of two harbors on Pulau Weh. Pulau = Island in Indonesian)

Diving

First, we had a couple of days to kill before the Festival, so we moved Soggy Paws over to Pulau Rubiah (Rubiah Island), and did a couple of days of diving with Rubiah Tirta Divers. Several people, including Budi, recommended this dive outfit. One of the first in the area, and still run by the guy who developed diving in the area.

The Dive Center
The weather wasn't the best for diving--pretty breezy and some pretty big wave action--but we had a fun couple of dives.
A Nice Spotted Moray
A Chromodoris Nudibranch (Goniobranchus kuniei)
A Ribbon Eel (Wikipedia)
Puffer Fish
A Bright Red Crown of Thorns Starfish
Soggy Paws Anchored off Rubiah Island in the "Mined" Area
Being strategically placed on a major ocean highway, Pulau Weh was occupied by the Japanese during World War II. The chart still shows the area between the Pulau Weh "mainland" and Pulau Rubiah as a "mined area" on modern charts. We were assured that the mines were LONG gone, and it was safe for us to anchor there.

Tourists Going Out to Pulau Rubiah
Touring

Budi arranged for an all-day tour in a van that took us to a bunch of interesting places on Pulau Weh. If you want to self-tour, which some of the yachties did, you can rent a motorcycle and Budi will tell you where the highlights are. But we were happy being chauffered around by someone who knew where to go and could explain the background. I actually did the tour twice, once with Dave and Linda before they flew off to see Orangutans, and once with the group of yachties that were part of the West Indonesia Rally.

Dave, of course, is always stoked to see remants of World War II activity. But there are other interesting things--a bit of volcanic activity--a beach or two--the ferry port to the mainland, and a waterfall.

Our first stop was along the north coast, to look at the Japanese coastal fortifications.

A Signpost at the World War II Memorial
The Japanese Coastal Fortifications
One of a Number of Bunkers Along the Coast
The Large Cannon that Once Occupied the Bunker
Has Been Removed
One of the Cannons
All the Cannons are Now Lined Up Here
An Anti-Aircraft Gun in Someone's Back Yard
A Beautiful Mosque
The Local Hospital
(Established in 1912 as a Mental Hospital)
A House Built in Traditional Style, Now a Guesthouse
More Fortifications
The Big Gun at Anoi Itam
The Ferry Harbor on the South Side of Pulau Weh
Gunung Api Jaboi = Jaboi Volcano
(Now just a smoking sulfur pit)
Jaboi Volcano Remnants
Smoking Sulfur Pit
It is clove season in Pulau Weh. Everywhere we saw tarps laid out in the sun to dry the cloves.

Cloves Budding in the Trees
Cloves Drying
Driving along the coastal road toward the northernmost point, we stopped to take pictures at this pretty overlook.

What a Pretty Bay!
We Reach the Kilometer Zero Marker
(the northermost (almost) point of Indonesia)
As the next-to-last stop of the day, we hike into a waterfall for a swim.

Hiking in to the Waterfall
Finally at the Swimming Hole, with a Small Waterfall
The last stop of the day was at a little restaurant overlooking the Sabang Harbor anchorage. Sadly, no beer here! But we sampled some "rujack", an Indonesian fruit salad with soy sauce and spices. :p I like my fruit salad, au natural, thank you very much. But the view was stunning!
The Overlook from the Rujak Restaurant
Budi also helped the Rally group arrange a trip to Banda Aceh, to see the Tsunami Museum and the Banda Aceh museum. (Ferry to Banda Aceh and then a driver to take us around for the day). We covered the Tsunami Museum in our last post.

Diving Bohol (Not!)

As we started to think about heading back to Samal Island, we wanted to try to dive in "legendary" Bohol. We contacted a dive operation on the east coast, and they were excited to have us come by and dive with them. At this point in time, the Philippines were still not letting foreigners into the country due to COVID fears, so all the tourism-based operations were absolutely dying. The S Pass
Bohol had been rigidly closed during the pandemic for over a year for all but Bohol residents. But the Bohol local government had recently "opened up" with a requirement for an "S-Pass" for visitors to Bohol. This is an online "check your vax status" mechanism.

We were fully vaxxed and had the paperwork to prove it. The S-Pass site wanted verification from the Philippines Government site. Everyone giving vaccinations were supposed to be uploading completed vaccination information to the central government website. But our vax site was apparently WAY behind in uploading the data, so the S-Pass site said we were not vaccinated. As we had paid $100 USD to a private clinic to get Moderna vaccinations, we were pretty upset that our vax confirmations were still not registered on the Philippines Government site. So, we could not get an S-Pass.

We provided copies of our vaccination proof to the dive resort on Bohol, and asked them if we could just anchor off their resort for a couple of days and dive with them. We asked them to get approval from the local council. Well, they couldn't manage getting around the government beauracracy and the insistance on an S-Pass. So sad, for them and for us.

So, we called up our old friend at Southern Leyte Divers at Padre Burgos, and asked if we could come dive with him. Actually, I think the same restrictions were in place in Leyte as in Bohol, but at this point, this guy didn't care. He knew if we anchored off, just dove with them, and didn't go into town, nobody would question him or us. So we stayed there for 3-4 days, had some nice dinners ashore, and some nice dives. Southern Leyte Divers Dive Boat
An Anemone Showing its Colors
A Nice Nudibranch
A Ferocious Looking Lizard Fish
We also met up with Mike and Liliane from SV Meikyo, who were also on their way back to Samal Island.
On 4 November we started the trip south to Samal Island.

Exploring N Central Visayas - Camotes to Malapascua and Catbalogan, Samar

August 2021

I am not sure exactly what encompasses "The Visayas" technically. But we finally broke loose from the Carmen/Camotes shuffle on August 12, and headed a bit further north.

Our Cruising Track for August
Our first stop north of Camotes was Calangaman Island, in the middle of the Camotes Sea. This is a pretty island that is now a park and has an access fee. We could anchor without paying a fee, but could not go ashore. We spent 2 nights here, and snorkeled the whole north coast, looking for an appropriate anchor spot. We also snorkled on a couple of the moorings. These were not really intended for cruising sailboats to stay on overnight, but for dive boats that are attended by crew and don't stay more than a few hours. But the setups looked hefty enough to hold a cruising boat in moderate weather. We anchored carefully in a sand patch on the south side. For the 2 nights we were there, there was virtually no wind, so we were OK on the S side. Our sand patch: 11°06.71'N / 124°15.03'E

The Sand Spit at Calangaman Island
(Photo courtesy of palompon-leyte.gov.ph)
From Calangaman, we made a quick trip back to Carmen, as we'd finally gotten notification that the Moderna vaccine we'd been waiting on was going to be available for only one day in Cebu City. So we hustled back, spent a day in Cebu City getting vaxxed, and hustled back out to do some more cruising.

The next stop was famed Malapascua Island, one of the most recommended diving locations in the Philippines. We had stopped here overnight in 2018 on our way to Puerto Galera, but didn't have time then to stay and dive. So we anchored in the same general area, near our friends on Meikyo and Wind Hog, on the south coast. This isn't a great anchorage in southerly winds! After a couple of choppy nights, we moved around to the SW corner, and it was much better.

Dive Bangkas Laid Up on the Beach at Malapascua
It was really sad to see Malapascua during the COVID lockdown of 2020/2021. On our previous stop there were over 50 dive boats, and hundreds of divers--boats full of divers coming and going from dawn to dusk. The Malapascua shoreline is lined with dive resorts big and small, and the beach was crowded with people and bangkas of every size. Sadly in August 2021, all but 2 resorts were closed, and those 2 resorts were barely hanging on, with minimal staff and only one boat active for each resort. Many many boats were stored up on the beach, decaying, even the really big bangkas.

The Evolution Dive Boat--typical of Filipino Dive Boats
Our friends had already hooked up with Evolution Dive Center, because they have tech diving support, and our friends wanted to use their rebreathers. So we did a few days of diving with Evolution. We did the iconic Thresher Shark dive, and actually saw a Thresher Shark and got a fairly decent picture of it. On this dive, you basically go down at the Thresher Shark area (a submerged reef in the Camotes Sea), and sit and wait at about 90 ft deep for the sharks to appear. They normally appear right around dawn, so the meeting time for the dive is at 4:30 am at Evolution!

Sherry Trying to be Inconspicuous
While Waiting for the Sharks
A Big Thresher in Profile--see the tail?
And This Friendly Guy Came a Little Closer
Our Friend Mike with his Rebreather Setup
We also did a couple of very nice "critter dives" in two good spots on the north side of Malapascua.

Peacock Mantis Shrimp
A Pair of Curious Cuttlefish
A Halgerda Batangas Nudibranch
A Nembrotha Nudibranch Feeding on Soft Coral
Our final day of diving was at Gato Island (about an hour's motor north of Malapascua). The Gato Island dive starts with a neat swim through a natural cave/tunnel in the island.

On the Bow of the Dive Boat
Cave/Tunnel through Gato Island Behind Us
In the Cave
Beautiful Iridescent Anemone
Fire Urchin
One of the last things we'd done in Carmen before we left was to get our kitten, Charlie, spayed. This turned out to be a real disaster--after 3 hours on the operating table, the "vet" declared she couldn't find Charlie's uterus, and so was just going to sew her back up and hand her back to us, unspayed. How traumatic for both us and Charlie! But it's my own fault--the vet hadn't wanted to do the surgery until Charlie was older. But after researching on the internet "Best time to get kitten spayed", I had pressed her to take care of Charlie then (at about 6 months). Little did I know that she was not competent to do so, no matter what age Charlie was.

So, the morning of our last day at Malapascua, about a week after the "surgery", Charlie started having trouble urinating. She was straining to "go" and only producing a few drops of urine at a time.

Charlie Did Not Like the Oral Antibiotics!
We should have aborted our diving that day and taken care of Charlie. But we'd already signed up for the dive, the dive boat required a minimum of 6 divers, and if we pulled out, our friends wouldn't be able to go. So we went, but I fretted about Charlie the whole day.

On returning from the dive, the dive shop tried to hook us up with a vet on the Cebu Island mainland nearby, but the only vet answering the phone was closing soon (it was already late Friday afternoon), and would not agree to see Charlie on Saturday morning, no matter how much we begged. What to do? We could go all the way back to Carmen (a full day's motor sail), but we'd still be faced with the same problem of getting access to a vet other than the one that butchered Charlie in the first place.

Meanwhile, we'd been talking to a contact at our next planned stop on Samar Island. Dave was looking for adventure, and had heard that Samar had a bunch of caves, and a "Caving" Tour company in Catbalogan City. He contact the famous caver... Joni Bonafacio and had asked him about anchoring in the area. Joni had put us in contact with Gary Munoz who lived at Buri Island near Catbalogan. When we explained to Gary that we might not be coming to Catbalogan because of our cat emergency, he said he knew of a vet in Catbalogan that lived on Buri Island, and he would arrange for that vet to look at Charlie when we arrived. We checked the charts and found that the distance from Malapascua to Catbalogan was far (almost 60 miles), but we could do it in a day if we got started early. So at the crack of dawn the next morning, we set out for Catabalogan and Buri Beach.

It was a long and tiring day. For awhile we were making great time--able to sail and doing 6-7 knots. But after we rounded the northwest tip of Leyte, we encountered a squall and wind on the nose at about 20 knots. Normally in those conditions, we would find an anchorage and just hole up and wait for better wind, but Charlie needed urgent attention, so we HAD to get to Catbalogan. We eventually made it in to the Buri Beach anchorage at around 4pm, wet and salty. Gary had arranged for the vet to meet us on the beach soon after our arrival, and take Charlie back to their office for a look at her incision. Remember, this is Saturday afternoon... the vet was crazy worried about COVID, so they didn't want us to accompany Charlie, but promised to keep her overnight and do what they could for her.

Long story short, it took 2 surgeries and about 2 weeks for this vet to fix the mess that the previous "vet" in Carmen had made. The immediate problem--Charlie's urinary tract being pinched due to a breach in the stitching--was solved on the first surgery.

Charlie Going in to the Vet for a Follow-Up Visit
It turned out that the non-invasive approach the vet took the first time was not enough to repair the total damage. A second, more invasive, surgery was required to open up the abdominal wall, try to properly position the organs that had been floating around in there, and re-stitch the abdominal wall and the outer skin covering. On the second surgery, Charlie's uterous was finally removed. This second surgery took a couple of hours, and the exhausted vet was not sure Charlie would pull through and recover completely. She does have some major scarring in that area, but she did thankfully recover completely.

The Husband and Wife Team at Cinco Family Clinic
(Pets Unlimited)
Treating Charlie on the Beach
These wonderful people literally saved our kitten's life--a husband and wife team who went WAY out of their way to help us out--evenings and weekends--and then refused payment for the second surgery. We are forever grateful!

A Month After the Original Surgery, Our Charlie is OK
Catbalogan and Samar Island are technically on lockdown due to COVID. All the normal tourism routes are shut down. But coming in by private boat and anchoring off a small island away from the city, we were flying under the radar. By this point in time we both had been double-vaxxed and had one of two planned Moderna vaccinations as well. So we didn't feel we were endangering anyone by traveling to Samar. Our mode of travel was very safe--little chance of catching COVID on our private boat vs traveling by crowded bus/ferry, or plane.

Next: Our Samar Adventures