We think the scenery is stunningly beautiful. But the down side to this type of terrain is steep drop offs making deep anchorages. Never before have we anchored in 30 metres of water but with calm weather we deemed it safe. The anchor winch groans at retrieving the anchor from these depths though. For diving and snorkelling the water is clear but much of the coral destroyed. The local people still use dynamiting as a form of fishing. They dynamite an area to kill fish for eating but the problem is that it kills more than just the fish and the area takes decades to recover. Even so we are enjoying being in our swimming togs from dawn to dusk, utilising the sea as a tepid bath and with drinks and cards to finish the day.
Amber admiring the sealife
Jellyfish galore
Sleepy turtle.............................................................Nudibranch
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Cardinal fish in the cave..........................................Cave snorkelling
White nudibranch.......................................................Lionfish
The rocky landscape lends itself to creating little nook and crannies so we have fun finding little openings that you can just swim through that then open up into large lagoons or caves. We also stumbled across the set to an up and coming Survivor series on Swiss television. Would it surprise you if we told you the contestants actually stayed in a five star resort nearby and were by no means ‘roughing it’? It was an amazing setting all the same. We were, however, less impressed a few days later when a frantically waving local on a deserted beach hailed us after we had anchored and said we couldn't stay because they would be filming there. So a modern cruising yacht was not the look they were after in their filming of a remote tropical island??? Daryl casually told them we’d be gone within the hour after a dive and he wasn’t about to listen to them try to tell us it was a private beach.
View from Mantiloc Island....................Cool Bananas in the strait
Teenagers fishing.........................................................Survivor set
El Nido is a quaint little tourist town which we enjoyed immensely. We could dinghy to the beach, dine with sand between your toes and wander through the town at leisure. They have power from 2pm until midnight so shopping in the morning meant ‘take a torch’ if you intended to explore the interiors of the stores. At the bakery they were delighted to be able to offer us a ‘sugar free bun’ as if it was an achievement on their part. They think our eating tastes quite weird, that we should want a sandwich with unsweetened bread!!
El Nido beach.............................................................Looking over El Nido town from dinghy
Daryl has found anchor butter..................................Jeepney coming through the narrow street
Wednesday market day. We hope for fresh fruit and veges
Police station and vehicle...............Through the narrow streets
Local family...........................................Scrabble (in English) by candle light
Around town.........................................................Ice cream vendor. Amber chose cheese flavour
We have tracked our first typhoon since being in the Philippines which was well north of us. Historically they seldom come this far south and even less likely at this time of the year. But still we are constantly checking for them.
Over a week rolls by and we decide it’s time to make our way up to Coron further north where there are about ten WW 2 wrecks to be explored.
Taking the local chn for a ride....................................Across El Nido bay
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