Cruising Notes - Gulf of Davao

We just received an email from our friends, Walter and Ae. Their sailboat was hauled out here for maintenance and painting not too long ago. They are now on their way north of the Philippines. It will be interesting to follow their route and hear of their experiences.  I am sure a lot of cruisers who are planning to come here would be interested too. Below is their email to us, and a few pictures which they are so kind to share with all of us.

 "Hello Ellen & Kjartan Just a quick hello. Hope you are well. How is progress on the cat? We are still in the Gulf of Davao. A couple of days ago we stopped in a bay in front of a small village & had the most amazing welcome. The town Capitan, the Governors secretary, school teachers & most of the locals couldn’t welcome us enough. Out came the local coconut wine, Tuba, delicious! Even the neighbouring village send someone over to drag us away to their huts. Obviously a bit of local rivalry. Later the Governor sent his secretary back to invite us to the town hall for a formal welcome, with a request to sleep there. I declined & told him I would let him know the next day if we would attend a formal welcome at the Town Hall. Then he wanted to arrange for a police escort! So I asked if we were in danger, he said there won’t be any problems here, we are very welcome. So I told him we can’t see any reason for the police to watch over us. The next morning we sent him a text to advise we had to leave. This was just too much!

Our pos. was 06 deg 41.42 N, 126 05.33E (close to Gov. Generoso/Sigaboy).The next day I had to recover from a coconut wine headache, that’s a change! Thank you very much again for your help, Kjartan & Ellen. Still looking for the motor problem, must be sucking air intermittently. All is well here, just waiting for some favourable wind. Have fun, don’t work too hard, hello to Bill & Boboy, Ae & Walter "

Fair winds to you both, Walter and Ae.