MARINA LIFE

Holiday Ocean View Marina
07°11.89N 125°42.615E
Samal Is. Davao
Philippines

We arrived here in the marina late afternoon on the 2nd of Feb. We are now adapting to another lifestyle change. What a compete difference from Pinoy Boat Service and all to the positive. We have modern floating docks, proper electrical connections, no sandblast dirt raining down and will wonders never cease water actually comes out of the hose more than a dribble. There is also a happy multi national yachtie fleet here and no listening to Zeke yelling about anything and everything.

On to the rest of our passage here. We departed Lapoinigan Is. on the morning of the 28th with a weather forecast of light to no winds down the east coat of Mindanao. Looking at the available anchorages we decided it would be best to do an overnight passage with the next planned anchorage at Pujada Is. prior to entering Davao gulf and the sixty miles up to the marina at the top of Samal Is. All was going well even though we were motoring along in no wind. We had a favoring current of 2 to 3 knots. At 1800 I changed over to a different fuel tank and immediately saw the filter bowl filling with water and sediment. I quickly changed back to the previous tank which I had topped up that morning from jugs on deck. If we had to continue motoring I knew this would eventually cause a problem. All was fine till 1100 the next day when Miss Perky sputtered and stopped with clogged filters. Prior to leaving Port Carmen I had run all the tank fuel through our filter system in effect polishing it but with all the rocking and rolling things got stirred up and caused our problems. While filters were cleaned Kathy managed to sail us along in the light wind conditions. Miss Perky was restarted and it was more motoring till we got anchored at Pujada Is. 06°47.84N 126°15.85E in the late afternoon.

We started early on the 30th again it was a motor to the anchorage at Tagbanao cove. We dropped the anchor on the reef shelf in 55 feet but by the time we had drifted back we were in 150 feet of water. We looked quite close to the reef edge. I woke up at 2230 and did not at all like the closeness of the reef. We were still sitting in deep water but perhaps 100 feet away the edges of the reef were visible. We decided to move! We continued north in to the Davao gulf and what looked to be another anchor spot. It was a bit hair raising moving through the local fishing boats but they did at least shine a light to let you know where they were and we had no near misses. We anchored near Limut point 06° 40.66N 126°04.85E at 0700 on the morning of the 31st.

We figured to spend the day and night there before moving on. I decided to do more fuel system maintenance. Once again using the electric fuel pump I drained the tank we were using into jugs and then poured it back in to the tank filtering it again thru a "Baja" filter. I did another 20 gallons from the contaminated take too. Now having 35 gallons in that tank I again ran it through the filter system. I wanted no more fuel issues!

On the 1st of Feb. we continued north up the gulf in to a steady headwind and current anchoring at the bottom of Samal Is. 06°53.68N 125°45.50E. We were underway again early Monday the 2nd. Once more a BASH in to 25 to 30 knot wind and an opposing current. At times we were only making 1.5 to 2 knots of headway. We managed and arrived here in the marina in the afternoon. The entrance is a bit tricky especially with the wind and swell that were running but Kathy managed without a problem and we were soon secured.

That catches things up to our arrival and manana I hope to compose the rest of our time here so far.

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