Pom explores

Saturday 7th January 2017

I woke up at dawn because…I had to run to the toilets!! Also because of the cold. That night, I wish I had a jumper. It was a systematic answer at brekky with everyone: ‘Did you sleep well?’ Answer: ‘Yeah, but I got a bit cold.’ It was the only night in Philippines where I felt cold to the point of needing a jumper actually. When I woke up, I ran into Priscilla, Judith and Andi who was sitting contemplating the morning’s stillness.

I walked towards the left, with the sea on my right until I found a spot to capture the sunrise.

On the way back, the golden light of the early minutes was shining on the path.

The Tao boat in a beautiful light.

I arrived back at the camp and saw Berghain starring at my hut like if he was waiting for me to wake up. I wanted to shout: ‘Hey, you stupid, I am here!’
I went to check what he was looking at, and here was a cat!

I walked to the breakfast table and there were fruits to snack on while waiting for the real breakfast, beautifully laid on a palm leaf.

Jhun-Jhun was running a handcraft workshop explaining how to make fishes, grasshopers and birds with some leaves. There was this funny moment where everyone laughed when Lorenzo touched a branch, willing to cut a leaf of it and the entire branch broke. Oops. Ahah.

Mike gave us an introduction to the breakfast which included star fruit jam that morning which was really delicious.

Breakfast time

Yummy brekky!

Part of the breakfast was some plantain banana flower so we went to see it.

Jeff also showed us the ripe coconut which is used when it gets brown to make coconut milk.

After breakfast we embarked on the boat. Everyone was looking at something in the water.

It was various school of sardines hanging around the boat, on a constant move.

PJ, Mike and Than were finishing to wash the dishes with salt water.

And off we went!

We started first by a geography lesson during which Jhun-Jhun showed us on the map where we were and where we were heading to.
There were 2 kids from the nearby village paddling around on a bangka.

We stopped at the nearby village / island community to buy some fresh fish for the lunch and dinner of the day. Salome and Teresa went to see it, followed by Daniel and David.

While we started cruising after our fish shopping, Jhun-Jhun made a hat.

The result 20 minutes ago only after this picture was pretty cool.

During this morning ride, I was sitting on the upper deck reading a book and we got served some boat-made kind of ice-cream but not ice-cream which was really delicious and very well presented.

We stopped before lunch near this paradise island.Here is the itinerary we followed that day from Culion to Linapacan. On the map, the number 1 is where we slept on day 1 and then number 2 is where we were heading to to sleep on day 2. The 2 red dots on the way were the snorkelling spots.

Zooming in in google maps on the islands north of Linapacan. The first snorkeling spot might be where the Patoyo Kitesurfing Nature Camp is based.

During this first snorkel, my go pro battery was flat but I saw this juvenile rockmover wrasse fish I had never seen which was really interesting.

When we got back on the boat, we were served a delicious lunch, rice,  potatoes, some green veggies I don’t know, delicious squids and fish bought in the morning from the villagers.

We cruised around after lunch and saw this other Tao boat heading to Coron.

We stopped for a second snorkel here which according to the maps would be near Dimanglet island. Andi jumped from the boat with the buoy on.

The snorkel was great, the coral was really beautiful. With David we spotted a turtle towards the end and shouted out: ‘Turtle, turtle!’. Ben and Urs were nearby and finned fast to come see it. Salome came slowly and saw 2 turtles on her way to us! Here is a video of the turtle.

After that snorkel, we were served plantain banana with vinaigrette. It was yummy! All these boat-made snacks were incredible and healthy and we were constantly happy to eat ahahaha.

While we cruised, we were chatting with Judith, Lauren and Tristan about high level sport competition and other topics around the main table, some were having a nap, some reading, some chatting, some chilling out contemplating the view. Jeff and Jhun-Jhun were playing chess.

The way ahead.

We arrived at this island where we were about to spend the night.

There were fishes jumping above the water.

We all jumped in the water and snorkelled to the island then grabbed sleeping gears, went for showers and with Andi, Judith and Priscilla we headed to the sunset point hoping to catch the sun before it would be down. Unfortunately, we arrived when it had just gone down. There were JC and Betti and David and Teresa and Daniel already there, Ben joining us shortly afterwards too. We had brought some beers and drunk watching the light change enjoying the quietness of this spot. The moon was pretty, becoming full soon.

We walked back to the camp and a big fish was on the barbie.

We had a nice dinner and then played Uno and a game called Spoons in English where each person has 4 cards in their hands and passes one card to the person on their left and picks up the card from the person on their right and this keeps going until someone has 4 of a kind and grabs a spoon and everyone has to be quick grabbing the spoon as there is one missing and the one who didn’t grab a spoon is eliminated and it keeps going until the end. It is a very fast-pace game and really funny. The joke is that at the beginning we didn’t have spoons and were playing with forks which was a bit dangerous but Jhun-Jhun got us spoons pretty quickly. After that Alex and Michael who were from Germany were chatting with Lauren and Tristan who were born and raised in Sydney and they were comparing Germany and Australia and it was very humbling for me to listen to real Aussies talking about Australia and realise that there were so many things I still didn’t know about that country where I have been living for 4 years! After that a few of us gathered around the fire that the crew had made, alternating between contemplating the flammes and the beautiful sky. While some went to bed, including me, some others went to sing karaoke a bit further. We could hear them sing and they did kill ‘Hotel California’ ahahahaha. It was one of the important topic the next morning at brekky: ‘Mmmm, guys, euh…who was singing Hotel California last night???!!!!’ Ahahahahah.

Next day, let’s keep going!