Last week we stopped at a little island called Gigantes Sur. Still in the Western Visayas province of the Philippines it is a small island off the east coast of Panay; a dot among several others in the area. There isn’t too much in the way of Cruising Guides for the Philippines, or at least…
Tag: sailing
Pressure Cookers; A Galley Essential?
Almost everyone will tell you that a pressure cooker is a ‘must have’ in your galley, but is it really? Sure they are economical, a great way to save time and very trendy right now but like any cooking technique pressure cooking does have it’s limitations. This month in my Blue Water Sailing column I…
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First Impressions; Philippines
We’ve been in the Philippines for almost three weeks now, which for me is just enough time to start to get comfortable in a place. After a few weeks I’ve finally stop comparing our current destination to the one we just left. After a few weeks I have gotten past the shock and awe factor…
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Goodbye Palau, Hello Philippines
After what seems like endless delays we are finally underway to the Philippines!!! The passage from Palau to Surigao, our first port, is about 500NM, so with any luck and some good winds we should be in the Philippines in 4-5 days. As always we will be dropping a GSP waypoint daily via our SPOT….
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What it is Like to be On Passage?
We are preparing to to set sail to the Philippines in a few days. Meals are cooked, cabin in stowed and we have a keen eye on the weather. But it is always a little difficult to prepare for passage because you’re never really sure what lies ahead. As we ready ourselves for sea I…
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Tales From the Crypt in Cruising Helmsman Magazine
Don’t believe it is bad luck to leave port on a Friday? Well, six years ago we tested the theory when we departed from Isla Coco’s and sailed to the Galapagos Islands. The passage was one of our worst! If you’re near a news stand Down Under you can trip down memory lane with us…
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First Impressions Palau; Conveniently Inconvenient.
Within the first week of arriving in Palau a friend asked me how life was closer to land. I blurted out the phrase “Conveniently Inconvenient” and then wondered if I was making a snap judgement about the place. I try and reserve my first impressions for at least a week when we arrive at a…
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Passages, Super Typhoons and Christmas at Sea
I once read that humans are incapable of remembering pain. That is to say that although we recall that an event was painful we cannot actually evoke the physical sensation of pain that we experienced. This surely explains why women are will to have more than one child; birth, I am told, is right on…
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POV in PNG
One of the things I like most about living on a boat is that it gives you the ability to change your point of view…literally. Sometimes it is just the wind swinging the boat around a little while resting on anchor, offering you a slightly different angle on things. Sometimes you to move to a…
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Rabaul and the Rascals
I am constantly amazed at how different each country that we visit is, especially when we only sail to the islands next door. So far Papua New Guinea has been a VERY pleasant surprise for us, particularly considering that it was never our intention to stop in Rabaul. After three weeks here I can’t even…
