SY Sari Timur: Puerto Galera, finally or the Cape Calavite Experience!

As you are all aware we had set out for Puerto Galera when we broke the pulpit and had to turn back. Therefore we were a little apprehensive of leaving again. We had stories of 40 knot winds and 4 metre seas. Not what you really want to bash to weather and unfortunately Puerto Galera was to weather.

We plotted our track so we had less than 50 mile days for all but the last one. Finally after downloading every bit of weather we could, we picked our window and went for it. The first day out the weather was still a bit unsettled but better than our first attempt out, and we were happy to have snuck away. We stopped on the bottom end of Tara Island for the night and some sleep. The waves were breaking on the reefs around us but all in all we had a pretty comfortable stop here. The next morning we started early as we wanted to take advantage of the morning lull to get as close to Mindoro as possible and hopefully in its lee. Our planned overnight stop was Sablayan which offers very good protection during the N.E. Monsoon. The following morning was another early start as we were heading to Paluan Bay just under Mount Calavite. We were warned that this mountain throws all kinds of weird katabatic winds. And sure enough as we were getting ready to enter Paluan Bay the winds kicked up to 28 knots. We continued, our reasoning was that at the top of the bay though we were close to the mountain, the fetch would be almost nil so the waves could not be big. This logic proved to be right but it was rather disconcerting sitting on the boat and a bullet would pipe down on us at 20-30 knots. We discussed it and checked the grib files and one other weather site before the internet dropped out. The prediction was the weather was still unsettled ahead. The wind was piping all through the night. At about 4 am we decided to sit one more day and watch to see what the daily cycle was like and talk with some of the locals. At 5 am it rained and we played with the idea of changing our mind thinking the rain might take some energy out of the wind. We decided not to go and later found out that was the first semi calm day in over 4 weeks! This information we gathered from the various locals who came out to welcome us to their part of the world. We made the decision that we were leaving the next day and had a back up plan of heading for Subic Bay north of Manila if we could not get around the cape.

We again started early as this day was going to be long and we knew we were going to get beat up for at least part of it. Mount Calavite is very funny as it is tall enough and big enough to change the wind direction all around it. The cape is also where two major current flows collide and really close to where the South China Sea, North China Sea, and Sulu Sea meet and thus bring their own respective weather patterns. As we rounded the Cape it seemed every direction we headed we had 30 knots against us. At the bottom end of the cape we had no seas but still with the wind, we knew they would arrive soon enough. But Sari Timur with Pauline steering, hammered on. Though it was uncomfortable we were making progress. We hoped once Mount Calavite was in our rear view mirror the winds would die a bit and thus the seas. The seas, though nasty, were not as defined as they should be for winds of this strength, so again we were pinning our hopes on some logic. Again we were correct and after a couple of hours the wind started to abate. Pretty soon it not only dropped to the 12.8 forecast but veered a bit so it was about 30 degrees off the bow and gave us some extra speed. We were in a hurry to make Puerto Galera before nightfall otherwise we might have even toyed with turning off the engine. But as our arrival looked to be right at sunset we kept the engine going hard. We also picked up a current and were really getting our hopes up for an early arrival. Sari Timur was doing almost 7.5 knots in a still pretty sloppy sea which is pretty extraordinary for her. She will do more but not usually into a sloppy sea. But the wind gods were not finished with us. The distance to go to the harbour entrance just clicked under 10 nautical miles and up came the wind again on the nose. Only 25 knots but still enough to slow the boat speed back down. We persevered and finally made it to the entrance with about an hour of sunlight left. Puerto Galera is advertised as one of the members of “The Club of the Most Beautiful Bays in the World” and is the only member from the

Philippines

. It is pretty but personally I find that a lot of the attraction is that it means you are finally past Cape Calavite! It is a very quaint community and we are fitting in nicely. This is a true tourist stop and there are loads of little bars and restaurants mostly with waterfront views. San Miguel is still cheap and the Tuesday vegetable market produces some lovely vegetables so what more can one ask for. Anyway we intend to stay here for a couple of weeks, do some maintenance, diving and sightseeing before we start watching for another weather window to head further east and south.