07° 11.89 N 125° 42.615 E
Davao, Mindanao Is.
Philippines
YES, we're still here and I don't foresee us moving on with our planned return across the pacific for quite awhile. At least if you are stuck in a marina/boatyard this is a nice one.
The marina has two finger docks with a capacity for about fifty boats. The large concrete area is used mainly for a hard stand area. Since I took this photo not to long after our arrival the number of boats out on the hard has about doubled. Sometime in the future we'll be up there to complete some needed work. Far off to the right is the workshop and the two story building on the left has a clubhouse above with bathrooms, showers, laundry and storage below. As noted in the previous blog entry we pay about $320 for our slip including electricity and that's with the air conditioner running 15 hours a day. The clubhouse has TV, a drink cooler with beer and sodas, 30 and 12 pesos respectively. So a bottle of San Miguel is about $.66 US. There are also two chest type freezers in the clubhouse for our use.
Last Friday night BBQ we had about forty participants followed by live music provided by the musicians of the fleet. Last night we were treated to an IMAX formatted movie "Journey to the South Pacific" about The Indonesian island of Raja Ampat to which many of the current boats here will be headed to soon.
Today Kathy has been off on one of the van shopping trips to a large mall in Davao. the shoppers are transported in, SHOP, then brought back with boxes of goodies. Easy provisioning, done four times a week to a different mall and it's FREE.
OK, now on to what has been going on in the last nine weeks. The cap rail project was finally completed and the genoa track re-installed. No more leaks from there. We did find and fix a leak that has been plaguing us for quite some time. It turned out to be where the hoses for our aft shower go through a tube on the deck. Kathy has continued to work an shades and since we received our box shipped from the states, thanks again Lisa, they were able to be installed with the correct hardware.
The next major item on the list was ordering the new standing rigging, that's all the wires and fittings that hold the mast up. Not having done this before it turned into a lengthy process with emails back and forth with the vendor, Rigging Only, that we used. All of that is now in San Diego, Ca. waiting to be forwarded here along with lots of other stuff. Our next box of goodies will hopefully be shipped next week, that means arrival here in 8 to 10 weeks and then the process of completing the job. We have decided to move the boat onto the hard and have the mast pulled and painted before completing the re-rig. More of why we will extend our time here in the Philippines. As I said it's glad we like it here.
While out of the water we also now plan to remove all the build up of anti fouling paint on the bottom, check and repair any osmotic blister. We have had no blister problem before but it's always something to look out for.
Of course there are another number of things on the unending list to also finish up. the new auto pilot, wind instrument, re-do the engine oil seal etc. etc.
Living the cruising lifestyle dream sure can keep you busy. I'll attempt to be a little more regular in my posts but hey you can see we're busy on Po oino Roa.
