Cruising- Hinatuan Passage to Leyte Is- The Philippines-2008

June 2008
(Remember to click on the photos to enlarge them)
On the last night as travelled via the Hinatuan Passage towards our first anchorage while Fran was on watch no shipping was sighted but in the early hours of the morning when Tom came on watch he became puzzled by what he described as a " a solid mass on the radar." Daylight revealed that it was actually hundreds of small fishing vessels without lights and known in the Philippines as bancas. Welcome to the Philppines! 

We had finally arrived in Philippines at 8.30am on 3 June 2008 after 5 days and nights of easy sailing and lots of motor sailing. We spent the next couple days anchored at picturesque Lapinigan Island so that we could rest, send emails and clean up of course. We has lost track of Keturah after the second day out so we were hoping they would arrive soon. We had called them on the VHF but had no response. We were visited by lots of locals in motorised outriggers but only one lot without a motor have ask for money they just seem curious about the boat.

When the tides were right we made our way from Lapinigan Island to Ipil Island. Where we anchored at pretty Punta Bilar on Ipil Is after an exciting motor ride as we had to work the tides and ride the whirlpools because of the way the tide screams through the Passage. At some stages we were steering many degrees off course just to make headway in a sideways crab style! It really was very funny.

The motorised outrigger fishing bancas were just as amazing there as on the other island. The fishermen were wearing coolie hats as well as their bandit head gear! We anchored off a small village that had at least 23 bancas on the lovely little beach and we could see a larger village further south. We seemed to be in the bancas "flight path" as they were speeding past us continually ever since we had arrived but no one bothered us. Also we could hear " the ghetto blasters" on shore. It's funny hearing so much noise after only hearing the motor, sails and sea for days and days.

In the morning we were woken by the noise of the bancas leaving the village. It sounded like hundreds of motor mowers bearing down on us! The weather was overcast as we weighed anchor ready for our "ride on tidal stream and the whirlpools" as we motored our way out of the Passage heading for Leyte Is. Leyte Is has lots of WW11 history as this is where MaCarther returned to, to liberate the Philippinos from the Japanese.

We anchored in a huge bay near Maasin on Leyte Is. Some of the villagers came out to the boat but we were not "pestered." Again we could hear the "ghetto blasters" from the village that was strung out along the beautiful bay. There were some substantial houses as well as many from traditional materials and the canoes were the tradtional paddling ones.

On the hills above the villages were huge statues of Joseph and Mary all lit up and decked out in Catholic Regalia such as foil wind stars that shone and flashed. The sunset was absolutely brilliant so Tom took heaps of photos.