James takes on the world!

I arrived on Palawan Island after a 9 hour bus trip, a 4 hour sleep in a bus station with my bag padlocked to me and a 2 hour flight. I had to stay for one night in the capital, Puerto Princesa and then I took a 7 hour minivan to reach paradise (a.k.a El Nido) . It was well worth it and I would have quite happily traveled twice the distance to reach this place.

The only problem I had when I arrived was that paradise was full. I didn’t realise that it was actually peak season, although peak season here means that the 3 beach side huts were fully booked. I was very fortunate to get chatting to a local Filipino lady who told me that her friend had an annex that I could rent. Although it wasn’t right by the beach, it suited me fine as it was a lot cheaper that staying in one of the huts.

Yesterday I took a private boat trip to some of the surrounding islands in the Archipelago on a Bangka (a small outrigger boat). It was stunning, we visited various hidden lagoons and beaches and snorkeled around the many coral reefs which were teaming with hundreds of different species of fish. They say here that you will see more in 10 minutes underwater that you would see in 10 hours above.

I got taking to a guy in one of the local bars who was looking for paying crew to head up to a another smaller island north of where we were called Basuanga. He had already found one crew member and he was looking for 1 or 2 more. I said that I would join them and we are heading out on his 1971, 12.9m Sparkman and Stephens designed sloop called Remington tomorrow. We will take 4/5 days to reach a town called Coron which is famous for its WWII wreck diving. Along the way we will be stopping frequently at many of the tiny islands to do a bit of fishing, snorkeling and beer consumption.

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