Hi Everyone,

I might have fixed my Outlook, so this is from me.   It will take a bit to catch up and finish our Puerto Galera adventures with Carol.  But here are a few photos of our stops along the way between Illultuk Bay where we waited out Typhoon Frank and Kota Kinabalu.  I still want to send photos of Romblon and Puerto Princessa because we spent longer than an evening in both places and liked both.  I will also do a separate email about Illultuk Bay and all of its stories.  If you want to know what the area around the Sutera Marina, Golf and Country Club looks like, picture West Palm Beach.  That’s what Carol suggested from the photos of the marina she saw on the web. Much different from the small islands with just fishing huts.  But I really enjoyed our time at those beautiful spots; so cool, quiet and remote.    www.suteraharbourclub.com is the marina’s web site.

So here are some random photos of our island anchorages.  I have made them small so they will send

Not sure if you can see the black specks in the water.  They are the floats from the pearl farms.  Row after row after row! 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.      -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-    Just rows like that parallel to each other with breaks along the way so you could make a tricky turn to work your way through the rows.     You could go the length of them but not cross the lines between the points.  The breaks saved us from going maybe miles our of our way following the length of the row.  One day we did have to go way around, that was our first encounter with them.  “Dumaran Passage needs care, but is feasible in good light.”   That was the best that was written about the passage through the pearl farms there.  Other guides and especially word of mouth were less kind!  I’ll look at pearls differently from now on, that’s for sure. 

  This is what a squall looks like.  You can see them coming and prepare.  You can change course a bit and miss them.  It takes about 10 minutes to close everything up (if you rush) and 3 minutes for the squall to go by.  Actually we passed this squall off to our starboard so didn’t have to deal with it.

  This was the weather we were lucky enough to have most of the time.  Flat seas and sun.  We usually ran about 6.5 knots.  Our last week before getting to KK, we had wind in our face and rolling seas and averaged about 5 knots!

This is our North Verde Island anchorage.  Just a few fish farms and huts and us.  It is the first place that “smelled” like New Bedford and my idea of how the sea should smell.

Some other fishermen who waved and smiled for my camera.

Same island looking at the back of the bay.

  Sunset!   One of my favorite anchorages!!!