leaving port

We are on the way, away from the sloppedy slob of the dry dock, towards cleaner clearer waters.

So far we haven’t had a chance to sail but that is surely to come.

Even though it has only been 6 days we already had a small storm, saw luminescent dolphins (at night time they leave a trail of activated algae which looks amazing..also it was the first time that i saw dolphins this close), went free-diving ( i saw a manta ray and the shadow of a thresher shark…it was so exiting) had nice jam sessions, changed my sleeping pattern to 3 naps a day, was pulled on a rope at 5-6 knots through the water and had my first time breathing underwater in a SCUBA gear.
I am having a great time.

malapascua

a mahagony pipe i build…the S/V infinity

floaty the traveler crab equipped with a new sail and fresh food

marbles our boat cat

good music = good moods

one half of the food shopping…23 people for 6 month..only fruit are bought fresh

our name and logo

just chillin at the anchor chain

suddenly a load of fisher boats popped up everywhere

ruben goes down

saving floaty the traveler crab

sherif at the helm

my first little storm

our boat cat

steering time at the helm

to infinity and…. below

i should become a windows background photograph

Tomorrow we will go to Surgao and i will try to go surfing for the first time in my life, and then we make a six day passage to the diving heaven of Palau…to see big manta rays.

I feel like i am caught in a dream.
Why is not everybody doing this?
so long
Ole
p.s. I feel so healthy, yoga in the morning, push-ups during the day, standing and sitting straight, vegetarian food, warm weather…great
p.p.s. now i just need my instruments back that somebody forgot in a bus and everything would be perfect…but maybe its good that they are not there, because if so something else would probably have been messed up 🙂

Shale Warks

Oh Wow!
After 2 weeks of straight work (more or less) we got a few days off.
If you are working on a boat in dirty water, swimming is the biggest temptation.
And swimming we went…with aliens.
The locals call them gentle giants.
I am still completely spiked by my SECOND ever diving experience, so please excuse my completely exaggerated description of these calm creatures.

Everybody probably knows that i am talking about whale sharks, if not, well you do now 😀

The Place is Osob, the time some where after 4h of bus ride with 3 babies, we are happy to see clean sea.
There is some minor trouble with finding a place to seep but everything turns out fine.
We do some afternoon diving, to get some water on our dirty, dust encrusted skin.
Plans are made to get up before the ticket office opens… we don’t want to pay 1000 Piso (25$) for diving with the sharks.
It turns out we don’t stand a chance against the wakeup-skills of the workers.
So we have buy tickets for a 30min dive (in the end we were granted a full hour, so basically until we were exhausted 🙂 )

And it is indescribable!
See for yourself!

people waiting for the sharks to arrive

first contact

gentle giants floating under water

so exiting

they are not dangerous or scary just beautyful

like aliens or space ships

me and 1st mate zach

vacuumcleaning the surface

RiRi completely facinated

how couldn’t you

sharks and mermaids

find the turtle

the expedition? successful!

I really enjoyed this trip.
It was very nice, because even though there were many people in boats only a few were snorkeling and none except for us were free diving. So the 8m of water were basically left to us and the amazing animals. Whale sharks, Turtles and Fishes who also wanted to be fed.
Obviously one has to weigh the negative consequences this feeding spot has.  We had a short briefing about how we should behave around them, and there is a fine for actively touching them.
I guess they are doing what they can to support and protect the (whale) sharks, as you can still get shark-fin-soup in the Philippines.
But Whale Sharks are normally migrating animals which don’t stay stationary in the same territory.
Here they are domesticated and harvested as a tourist attraction.
The feeding ground attracts more sharks each year, so i hope it doesn’t have a bad ecological influence.
But like in all places that attract many people, i can completely understand every single person who came here!
Because I really enjoyed it.

I am exited what else is there to come!
So long
Ole

the silence before the storm

Hello Everybody,
i kept telling me that i should write something again, but as always in moments like this, watching an episode of “Game of Thrones” is way more relaxing than writing a blog entry 😉
Ok quick update: I left Vietnam.
I am in the Philippines now, on the Island of Cebu. ‘
Doing a refit on a boat called Infinity.
I met Clemens, our captain, in Phuket for the first time, we decided to meet again here.
Some Pictures of the recent past:

Mr. Sikh is on his way to the philippines

The S/V Infinity

and the messy fore deck, our space to store everything that we don’t need on the construction sites

our big neighbors

and the small neighbors

baking time…fresh home made bread, thats my capitan by the way

an Rhian one of the boat-babys

so beautyful

we set aground one day…the low tide was quicker and stronger than expected…the power of full moon

philippines!

I

I will stay on this boat till New Zealand (yeehaa!) and I will learn how to dive and do open ocean sailing (double or maybe even a triple yeehaa)
Obviously we stop in all the small little island in the middle 🙂
I feel super good here.
After the long period of idleness, i feel so good to work and create something. Also after the whole “3-week-maximum” of knowing people having a relatively constant crew for the next few month feels very relaxing. Its almost like having a family, because the 3 children (1, 2 and 13) of Clemens are also aboard.
I am very looking forward to the trip to Palau.
In a few days we will make a short break of the whole messy ship (construction sites everywhere) and do a trip to the whale sharks in the south of the island. I am exited!!
So Long
Ole
p.s. i am very sorry for this basic, short blog post, but after working every day (our Filipino workers come at 7am) i am quite tired, and happy i wrote this little piece 😉