We're here!

We arrived in the Philippines safe and sound on Friday morning. After an extremely squally night, we made our way to a nice little cove to wait on the tides. Moving through the Hinatuan Passage requires a bit of planning as the currents can get up to 8 knots through there. If we hit it at the wrong time, we could be moving backwards. So, after four days at sea, we decided to drop the hook and spend a day catching up on some rest. We also took this time to celebrate my birthday (maybe a little bit too much). We found a really cool cave that we took the dinghy through (pictures to come when we get the internet) and got a big kick out of the drastic differences in local boats here.

Today, we pulled the hook and made our way past Surigao to a little cove on the north side of Mindanao. We expected a sleepy little village and instead were greeted with a strange Asian version of Cabo San Lucas. Not really, only in the sense that there must have been a thousand people on the beach. Little thatched huts run up and down the coast with hundreds of outrigger canoes pulled up on the beaches. Motor bikes rev up and down the street, kids are heard all around while playing in the water, and noisy inboard motors on these fishing bangkas drown out all the other sounds. We're thinking this is some sort of weekend get away for the folks in and around Surigao. We'll see what happens on a Monday when we wake up in the morning.

Overall, the consensus is that we're really going to like it here. It's so different from what we're used to. I think it's the change we all needed. As soon as we figure out the internet here, we'll post some pictures from the passage and our first few days.

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