Filed March 24, 2012 at 8:54 pm under by Administrator
These are pictures of Two Oceans. Sometimes coincidence can be hard to believe; looking for information on Micronesia we just happened to get to the blog of Miki, the skipper of Two Oceans, a catamaran which is travelling from east to west at an incredibly fast pace. When we read that they were in Cebu, leaving for Palawan very soon we made contact and invited them to sail by El Nido. We were glad we did, it was nice to meet Israelis suddenly in the middle of nowhere and we had a good chat, shared some good home cooking and tips both ways. Miki and his crew had itchy feet though, and after two days they were off to Thailand after leaving Yaron ( holding the big Spanish Mackerel in the picture) in Puerto Princesa where he flew home. Good sailing, guys!
Filed March 11, 2012 at 3:12 am under by Administrator
El Nido is hot and sunny, the islands are beautful and the water is clear. It is a nice place to just hang out in the peace, but there is a new sport today- some clever Philipino lads have souped up their bancas and are trying to break the Philippine water speed record!
and here is Chasamba at anchor, and Oren sailing the dinghy out to her.
Our plan is to stay here for a while, then sail round the west coast of Palawan and up to Puerto Princesa, where we will do some welding and metal work ( Oren’s good friend Hammerhead, of course). Then back up to Bonbonon in July to leave Chasamba and Sheva again. But for now we have time to swim, take walks on the sandy beach with Sheva and read Bakunin.
Filed February 29, 2012 at 1:56 am under by Administrator
And now we are here…
These are good quality images, so if they seem too small just use ctrl+ to enlarge them. We are where the grey boat is, in Corong Corong anchorage.
Filed February 26, 2012 at 6:00 am under by Administrator
It’s so nice to have Yasmin for a visit, and it has made us get out and sail! We left Bonbonon on what was supposed to be a good forecast, and had very mixed weather up to San Jose. Luckily, from there it improved although the grib files were more or less wrong totally. After a day spent bobbing around waiting for wind we caught a strong Amihan and flew over to Coron. Chasamba did over 7 knots most of the way, but it wasn’t too uncomfortable with two reefs in the main. On arrival we couldn’t get the engine to start ( story of our lives) and anchored near the port until the next day, when we managed to get round to the anchorage outside the market.
After several days touring Coron we got itchy feet again and set off for El Nido. A really good sail with a 20 knot breeze on the port quarter brought us straight into El Nido, no engine again of course but the wind was, for once, not straight out of the anchorage and we sailed in with no trouble, setting our anchor under sail and scaring an elderly Australian couple half to death!
El Nido is as nice as ever, a seaside atmosphere and funisland hopping tours. Yasmin has had a good time and so have we. On Tuesday she flies back for a month in Israel before leaving for London and her new life.
Filed January 25, 2012 at 8:21 am under by Administrator
Cold, rainy and wintry weather isn’t stopping us from exploring the bustling city of Taipei. We really have to thank the Philippine government for making us visit, because it is so expensive to renew visaand flights are so cheap in Asia that it made sense to fly here instead of staying home; so thanks Philippines, it was worth it!
We were lucky to be in Taipei for the Chinese New Year. The temples were full of candles and incense, peole burning pretend money for the ghosts, or ancestors because at this time the division between the spirit world and the real world is supposed to be permeable, and offerings of food heaped on tables and altars. I was surprised to see meat being offered- I thought the temples were partly Buddhist, but other gods are represented too. The temples aren’t really spiritual places; there are people talking on cell phones, people buying things right in the middle and all sorts. I liked that, it is kind of like a secular religion in a way.
Taipei is modern, crowded, 100% online and actually a very pleasant city. The MRT metro system works well and makes it easy to get anywhere around Taipei cheaply and quickly, as well as housing many good shopping areas in huge underground malls which stretch for kilometers and are a nice way of keeping out of the cold outside. It is 14 degrees at midday, a big shock for us after 26 and above in Negros! We have done most of the typical tourist things; Taipei Zoo for the pandas (dejected looking), the gondola for tea houses in the hills (over priced and touristy in the extreme), Taipei Museum ( lots of good pieces, many from the forbidden city), night markets (stinky tofu and sashimi, tasty and reasonable), Beitou for the hot springs ( very very good in this climate and inexpensive if you go to the public one) and both Keelong and Tamsui to look at the fishing harbours. In Keelong we even managed to find a little marina, unfinished as yet and fairly deserted apart from a few local yachts which looked unused and a lot of fishing boats taking advantage of free berths. It would be the best place close to Taipei to stay for a yacht, although Tamsui would probably be possible too.
Taipei 101, nearly the tallest building in the world. We didn’t go up, it was full of tour parties and didn’t look really wonderful enough to queue for an hour.
people burning money at a Taipei temple
a market on a quiet day ( I kid you not!)
Oren having fun in the Naval Museum in Keelong
sea food in Keelong fish market
A sea urchin in Keelong fish market
The sulphur pools close to the source of the hot springs
Beitou hot springs
A new friend?
Smelling in the “Scent Library”, a good way to pass a rainy afternoon
Tamsui harbour
One of the pandas
Taipei Museum
Filed January 15, 2012 at 5:04 am under by Administrator
Oren having fun with the sink…
while I sand the new counter top
the new sprayhood is nearly finished and the non slip patches are coming along!
Chasamba looking pretty!
Filed January 14, 2012 at 5:13 am under by Administrator
This is a short film shot by Robert during the big tropical storm which passed almost directly over Bonbonon last month with gusts of 150km/h. At the end you can see several boats which have dragged their moorings and collided, one was holed above the water line, another dismasted.
Filed January 1, 2012 at 11:34 pm under by Administrator
Finally we have gotten round to doing something useful with ourselves, and the result is a really nice new look for Chasamba. I don’t have pictures of the final result because we haven’t finished the windows yet, but it is already looking really good! Here is a picture of the first fit, and then some of the building process.
Hard to believe that these bits of flimsy plywood and a bit of fiberglass could turn into a real sprayhood, huh? Next week I hope I will be able to upload pictures of the final version, but I can tell you that it is GOOD!
Filed December 26, 2011 at 11:36 pm under by Administrator
More than a week after the awful tropical storm which was called “Sendong” by the Philippines and “Washi by the rest of the world Bonbonon still has no electricity. Three fishermen in nearby Albica were killed, in and around Dumeguete more than 100 people are dead after floods and mudslides destroyed their bamboo huts, and in Mindanao, the large island south of us over 1000 people are known to have been killed, many still missing.
In Bonbonon the evening of the storm started uneventfully. It was Friday and Arlene’s regular buffet was as good as ever, chicken roasted on an open fire and fresh grilled fish, home made bread and potato salad, good conversation and plenty of beer. The rain hadn’t even started by the time we got home and it looked as though the forecast was wrong; there wasn’t even any wind. This was the calm before the storm- yes, it does really exist, I know that now. We went to bed hoping for a few hours sleep, and were awakened at dawn by a wind which came screaming into the anchorage from the north, flinging enormous drops of rain at us. Sheva retired to her winter home under the sprayhood looking at us reproachfully; she is sure we control the weather and doesn’t understand why we make it rain at such annoying times.
The light was good enough to make out yachts being flung about, straining at mooring ropes which in many cases were several years old and untended. There are yachts here which haven’t moved for 20 years, and lots that have been here 10 years, and in all that time a storm like Sendong hasn’t come along. The wind built up gradually and so did the waves, until the bay looked like the open sea on a nasty day. I was glad we were held by a big mooring and two anchors, and that we were in one of the best places in the bay, with almost no yachts in front of us. The first yacht to drag was an old sloop which broke it’s shackle, we were told later. It smashed into another old sloop, a Japanese boat, and dismasted it. Next was the old classic metal boat Black Rose, which sped down the bay and impaled itself on an aluminum catamaran, but not before hitting several other boats on the way. The huge unwieldy Russian sloop which had already dragged onto shore a few days before came off the shore again but just turned round and re-beached itself luckily- this boat is heavy enough to sink anything it hit.
The storm was over quickly, probably not more than three hours from the first whistle of wind through the rigging to the sodden bobbing aftermath. By nine o’clock people were bailing out dinghies, rescuing oars, starting to get the stray boats re-anchored. We didn’t know about the tragedy just over the channel in Mindanao for several days.
Filed November 26, 2011 at 12:05 am under by Administrator
eating….
eating again….
eating some more…
amazingly, not chewing…
Yasmin and Hilah
Inbal, Granny and Grandad and Oren
Altogether we had a wonderful time in Israel, and as you may guess, put on several kilos each! Now we have to get back in shape because we are going to Taiwan hiking in January.
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