Last Sunday, we had a fun day sailing on SV Backchat, a 48 ft. catamaran, to Holiday Oceanview Marina. Jock was kind enough to let the whole family invade his boat. There were 10 of us, lots of food and drinks.
It started off with only a very slight breeze. Against the current, we could barely move at about 2 knots. It didn't matter, we had all day. The marina is less than 10 miles away. To pass the time, we were munching away on the lechon (roast pig). We were ready to drop the sailing and motor straight to the marina when the wind came just as we hit the top end of the island. The sails went up again and we SAILED!! Going 10 knots speed, it felt good to have the wind blowing on my face again. No noise - just the sounds of the water as Bachchat sliced through the ripples and waves. Watch my video, and you can see all the smiles on our faces - that tells it all!!
target="_blank" title="Sailing to Holiday Oceanview Marina">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od2NUxsEEw4
The top end of the island, northernmost part of Davao Gulf, is a great area for sailing. It is a wide area, deep, no shoals and very very few boats to watch out for.
Holiday Oceanview Marina just recently opened up the entrance to let water in. Dredging is done and it seems deep enough at 2.75 meters, but that was not yet the lowest tide. Kjartan dove down and stuck his hand into the bottom and his whole arm went right through. So the bottom was silt from the excavator. The layout of the marina has been revised. All the slipways will now be uniform at 14.4 meters - no more small slipways for smaller boats. With this new layout, it can fit up to 60 yachts in there. From the video, it doesn't look big enough for 60 boats in there, but a picture was taken from up the cliff. Unfortunately, I don't have the picture yet to post, but in it, Backchat looked like it was just a speck in the middle of the marina.
I don't think the marina will be ready by the coming sailing season (November - March). But I will keep on updating as we go along, now that construction will be focused here from now on.