End of day 5. Almost there.
08 July 2013 | On the way to the Philippines
Bill
About 1000, we entered the Bay of Davao on almost calm water. We've had to run the engine through the night as the winds had died out again. We did get to turn it off early this AM when we had some winds but they quickly died off. As I said before, it's going to be expensive at the diesel pump when we get in. We've covered 558 miles in the last 5 days and over 120 yesterday due to our engine. She is just humming along below decks as I sit here typing. Now that we are in the bay, it will be running till we find a place to drop the anchor later this afternoon. There just isn't enough time to get all the way to the marina.this afternoon.
Last night was another rainy night with lots of fishing boats, both big and small, most with a Mother Ship nearby to drop off what they caught. We had one Mother Ship to our port side and 5 smaller boats to out starboard during the night. As a unit, the five smaller boats slowly made their way in a line ahead of us and past our bow blocking a safe passage. I had to slow down the engine and turn sharply to starboard to avoid them. not knowing what kind of fishing they were doing. We don't want to run over a big fishing net and get it stuck in the prop. During Tracys four hours--1100 to 0300, there was a big rain and lightening storm close by. By the time I came on watch, it had passed and all I got was some rain(fine by me). This morning as we neared the entrance to the bay, a freighter came along our port side and slowly turned to starboard approaching our side. I called him on our vhf radio and he replied and changed course so that we had a safe clearance a mile or so later.
There are lots of small fishing boats in these waters. The best way to describe them is take a canoe, add on a small pontoon on each side and install a noisy outboard motor. Paint it bright colors and there you go. As loud as their engines are, they have to be deaf. We could hear them from way off in the distance.
We plan on dropping the anchor at Sigaboy for the night. It's on the east side of the bay about 30 miles from our marina. should be there about 1600. It will be nice to have a quiet night sleep. We will be up early in the morning to be on our way again.
We're almost there.