Gripfile for April 30, to give you an idea

For a small boat, it's not a good idea to travel from the top of the Philippines to Taiwan with "strong" NE winds. Due to the ever flowing strong NE current, the seas aren't friendly in the Bashi Channel. (water between Taiwan and PI). So we wait an other day or 2.
No Rush Here.
The red arrows are 20+ knots.

Sunny Sandy Subic Stories

Alishan is still hanging onto one of the pontoons at Subic Bay Marina.
Hmm, have seen better places but it will do for now until departure... probably our ETD is the end of this week.
It's windy most days, wind that brings kilo's of sand/dust on the just cleaned decks. It's good we have the water hose standby. The garbage place still burns happily, grgrgr, so you understand we do have some motivation to leave this marina.
One of the reasons we are here is to do the paperwork to sail into Japanese waters. Japan Coast Guard are quiet strict ever since 9/11. Well that's done and we got the okay from the JCG. Funny: us having some sort of Dutch background, we got an extra warning not to bring that green/brown stuff people like to smoke or put in cake.... Can't see the connection, can you?
Daily we check several weather charts, our favorite is: http://www.jma.go.jp/en/g3/
Socializing is a big thing here with old and new cruising friends around us: Vahalla, Lotus, Tweed, Dagon, Quiver, Acanito, Lightfoot, Phoenix, Bannister, ....

Salute

hey, psssst...... from Subic

Yes pssst, there are some new pix and stories at www.syalishan.com Q1 report 2010 part 1,2,3
Mind you, all is still a bit under construction....

What else?
Well, Alishan is shining here in the marina: Hull, stainless steel and deck got a good rub and wax. Some teak deck repair was also done.
And once the HP is finished...?? more time to play??
Marijke has been birding a little around while Jaap refound his running shoes;-)) TJeee, did those shoes became slow!
The weather is still +++ windy from the E, bringing us hot and very dusty air. A not so healthy fact is that they are also burning off the garbage..just upwind from us.
Oh yes, we met up with a boat we looked at when we were living in Japan and dreaming about something bigger than Jan Haring. (2003) At that time that boat turned out to be a No-No for us...(and still is: bad condition) and that was lucky for us because only 3 weeks later we found Alishan!!
So that some from here, don't forget to tell us what you think about the new HP updates.....
Salute

Subic Bay

What happend since our last update??
Yes indeed we saw some African wild life (zebras and giraffes) at an island just north of Busuanga Island. Years ago, Mr Marcos thought that it was fun to have a private safari park. Too bad: the next generation leaders of the Philippines didn't agree with that idea and so the place is sadly run down due to financial short comings. Caretakers and animals are suffering. But we enjoyed our short stay at the park and Marijke was double happy to spot many birds that were also using the park as a "safe heaven".
Saturday morning showed a weather window to make a 150 miles run North. The first part was pleasant sailing until night fall, by that time we were west of the passage between Luzon and Mindorro: Nasty waves and 25+ knots of wind,luckily on the beam so we were able to move along nicely. By midday Sunday we arrived here at the Bay.
14 degree 49.39N
120 degree 17.36E

Alishan found a box @ the Subic Bay Marina. The place is a left over from a USA naval base (they left in 1992).
Hmmm, the marina is falling apart, but ashore many good things are still to be found. Like clean wide roads, plenty of well stocked supermarkets etc etc and yes there's even some rain forest.

AND of course here we met up with so many old cruising friends, some we haven't seen since 1990! (that's why it took so long to write this update...)

Some boat projects are on the list, probably we will be here for 2 weeks or so...and let me tell you: it's nice to have plenty of fresh water again...Can you smell the difference?

Salute