Date: Feb. 28, 2007
Location: At Sea (Among the Philippine Islands)
Next Port: Manila, Philippines, March 1
Quick Summary: WOW!
Report: Were we in for a most pleasant surprise! Instead of catching up on our journal, photo editing, reading, etc., we had a spectacular “beach day!”
In our seven weeks onboard, we have found that there is a considerable rumor mill amongst the passengers on extended voyages. At lunch yesterday, we heard that we might be making an unscheduled stop at an island in the Philippines the next day. We didn’t pay it too much heed. But by dinner time, the rumor was pretty strong.
Before 8:45 a.m. Morning Devotionals, Jamie (the cruise director) and Dana (his wife) were quite surprised that we all had heard about the beach day…but they never confirmed it. At 9:00, in his daily “Vords of Visdom” from the Bridge, Capt. Dag informed us that we would be stopping for a day at a remote beach in the Palawan area of the Philippines.
There was no way Capt. Dag could prepare us for the absolute beauty of the region or the beach that we would be using. At about 9:30, we began to see some hazy land masses to our starboard. By 10:40, we were weaving through some of the most beautiful islands we’d ever seen. They were large and small, characterized by peaks with sharp profiles, dramatic black volcanic cliffs, lush vegetation and rocky seashores…punctuated with glorious white beaches lined with palm trees. As someone remarked, it looked like a scene out of a King Kong or James Bond movie.
Working in the background, Captain Dag, Jamie and others had made arrangements for us to visit an eco-resort in this mostly deserted island area for a beach day. Originally we were to tender to a resort and then take separate transportation to a “deserted, primitive” beach location.
Something must have been lost in the ship-to-shore transmissions. When our “scout” tender went ashore, they learned that the resort’s docks or landing rafts were too low for disembarking and embarking from our tenders. So the Voyager crew hired local speed boat launches and transported us directly from our boat’s tender platform to beach landings on the “deserted” island.
It was anything but “primitive” as this is where the resort takes itsguests to play. There were mats, cushions and low tables spread out under the palm trees and beach side cabanas (some with masseuses). There was a beach bar and refreshment area, as well as a buffet lunch (which we don’t think many of us used). There were sea kayaks and snorkeling equipment (the latter to rent for a reasonable $5). And in back of the beach, there were even locals to teach folks how to rock climb up a sheer volcanic cliff.
The sand was very, very soft and white; the ocean was delightfully warm and clear. The snorkeling was pretty good…not a lot of large fish, but lots of fun. Larry saw several blue star fish for the first time.
You’ll have to take a look at the accompanying photos…but they can never capture the whole grandeur of the natural wonderful earth we live on. Karen and I agreed that this was the most perfect beach, with the best scenery, that we have ever been on.
Maybe it was the serendipitous nature of the day…but they almost had to drag us back to the ship!
Larry
Photos of our cruise are available at the web site:
picasaweb.google.com/larryworldcruise
Photos from our surprise Beach Day have been added.
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