travelogue 2007.3b

before the blue penguin (3, i think) set out for mindoro, the SiKat maiden announced that the boat would make two landings (if that's the proper term), one at sabang (magnet to scuba enthusiasts, and also the location -- so i'm told -- of a back street of, ahem, red light persuasion), and then to the pier at muelle bay.

myself, don't actually remember if i've ever been to sabang beach (faulty memory, natch); i dimly recall that one of the last previous-company-trips to puerto had us actually booked at a place on either the big or small lalaguna beaches.

...that time, a good number of us (myself not included) became spectators to what at first seemed a bit of horseplay at the shoreline that turned out to be a real stabbing incident between two suitors of a girl...

the victim was taken to a hospital somewhere; as strange luck would have it, he was also the cook of the place where we were billeted. the ultimate outcome of the incident no one ever found out, i think.

get to sabang beach in under an hour and a half. there is no beach.

...okay, there's about at most a 3 meter stretch of sand between the sea and the buildings that make their way almost to the water's edge. if not for the need for the boats to make it to the shore, the establishments could actually have marched all the way down to the sea, for a venice-type effect. but that might be difficult to engineer, to have the buildings stand and be immune from the gentle lapping of the incoming tide (and the occasional typhoon-enhanced battering).

so no venice on the shores of the verde island passage, then.

still and all, the almost inexorable march of commercial establishments from the hills to the sea and the mishmash of architecture does not an attractive result make...








good that we weren't staying there, and not that scuba was one of the affordable things to do on this trip.

after a handful of people disembarked, the penguin reversed out into the passage and we were on our way to the port of galleons. i've downloaded a map of the general vicinity of puerto galera, and there are two passages into muelle bay: the north and northwest channels. i'm not sure which one we took, but i'll try to pay closer attention next time.

our total transit time from sabang to the pier at muelle was under a half-hour (didn't really time it though).

and there we were, our starting point for our pre-holy-week vacation/outing.