We were up early next morning for a 6 am departure to El Nido by a local banca that Larry had arranged. We waded out to the boat floating in a millpond sea, shrouded by mist and overlooked by the mountainous jungle, it was totally a magic moment. But this was soon tempered by the moment the bancas aircooled unmuffled diesel fired up and we all realised this could be a difficult trip. I mean we were shoehorned into a small and narrow banca with an exhaust blasting away at a million decibles for the next 5 hours, I had mentioned to Ken to maybe bring some ear plugs which he did and I had my ipod ear buds but poor Rabbit had to endure the 5 hours on his own. But he did manage to fall asleep which was amazing in spite of the noise. Ken said it was like being in an APC in Vietnam during the war and they all managed to fall asleep then as well.
We moved off into the gathering light, heading north east passing some beautiful palm fringed islands and often able to see the coral sea bottom below us. Ken saw a large turtle swimming along which was good. We settled into a routine, enduring the exhaust noise and being amazed by the passing sea and island scape. There are over 7000 island in The Philippines and it seemed like most were located where we were passing. % hours later we passed between 2 lovely islands and rounded a point with El Nido clearly seen in the distance. I think we all had a silent cheer that soon the dreadful exhaust noise would be a distant memory, but in fact our ears were still ringing 24 hours later, can't have been good for us, particularly Rabbit. But still he managed a massage as soon as we checked into Abet and Lally's beach cottages. There was a slight problem checking in in spite of me having paid 20% deposit, there no record of us but we were given rooms only to be moved a couple of hours later as there rooms were deluxe which we had not booked when they finally found my reservation. Beach cottages was a little stretching the imagination as well, we were 60 metres from the beach surrounded by other rooms filled with noisy French and German tourists complete with crying babies. It was a shock after Port Barton. Tired after the trip, we explored while Rabbit was massaged, and found a cheap boat hire place for us to go island hopping the next day. And cheap it was, you get what you pay for I suppose. Next morning found us on board a large but distinctly run down banca while the crew tried to get the ancient diesel motor going. This should have made us suspicious but soon we were away, cruising to the first of our stops in the amazingly beautiful "Small Lagoon" where we swam and snorkled close to the Philippines Survivor series was or had just been made. Then the motor would not start, we drifted for a while, anchored, drifted some more until finally it started. This was repeated for the next 4 island stops with the crew canabalising the rest of the boat for parts to get the motor going. We eventually made it back after a sensational local BBQ of chicken and fish and beer but it did take some of the enjoyement out of our island hopping. The islands off El Nido are world famous and people come from all over to go island hopping hence El Nido town was crowded with straight tourists.
After dinner in a nice local place, Ken and Larry tried a local disco, it had a great laser, bubble and smoke light show but the music was not great so after a few more beers we left, ready for an 07:00 departure on yet another big banca bound for Coron town, a mere 9 hours away!!! Coron is where were were going scuba diving on the old Jap wrecks from WW11. But this was a good trip, relatively quiet motor, sensational island views, flat seas and cold San Miguel beer. The time went fast and we really enjoyed this boat trip but it was expensive peso 2200 each or about A$70.
