Friday 12th of December. Higatangan Island.
We arrived on Higatangan Island soon after eight and had the usual welcome of many dancers and singers. And also unfortunately, someone with a very loud annoying voice over a megaphone all the time. After we had watched a group of 15 or so girls dancing, David put the boys down on the floor in front of them and there was immediately a rugby scrum to gain ownership of them: one of our crew members had to step in to rescue the lads and they seem to be no ill feeling on their part anyway.
We were given purple ice cream, a Philippine delicacy. It was better than it looked. The purple ice cream is Ube Ice Cream, made from the purple yam (ube), a staple Filipino ingredient known for its vibrant colour, creamy texture, and unique nutty, vanilla-like flavour. It's a popular flavour used in desserts like halo-halo and is loved for its cultural significance.
We then moved on to a place where they made canoes/outriggers and so how this program process was achieved and had the opportunity of painting one of them with designs and the word Coral Geographer. Then in a tuk-tuk to another place where there was a fishing demonstration, how they made the nets, caught the fish and dried the fish. Then to the "horticultural garden"s but these turned out to be just a small herb garden where we saw how they use the herbs to make various patent medicines . The herb garden was very well kept. But given the name horticultural garden we had expected a long quiet walk away from the annoying man with his loudspeaker.
The final stop before a very early lunch was at a lighthouse which seemed to be inland, but presumably is not far from the sea. Here we had a coconut drink. Earlier on the walk to the fishermanâs village we had seen monkeys and men climbing trees and throwing down coconuts. We then had our lunch before 11 am: It had been scheduled for 11:30 am. It looked very very impressive though I was not particularly impressed with what I ate. However there was some good fresh mango and the coconut rolls were excellent. Then another tuk-tuk ride to the beach beside the pontoon, where they were many straw umbrellas where we could sit and change for swimming. I thoroughly enjoyed my swim, although it was difficult to get in and out and I had to have assistance. I used a noodle and this made swimming breaststroke slightly difficult. After all these activities we were back in the ship by 12.30 and I felt quite hungry during the afternoon. At 3 pm there was a briefing and then a talk by Stella on "Rice growing in the Philippines".
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
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Later, there was a cocktail making demonstration where we tasted an Aperol , a Negroni and a Cosmopolitan. Dinner at the usual time of 6:30 pm we took outside where it was very much warmer than inside, but unfortunately the engines were again making excess noise this night but still managed to have a reasonable conversation.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
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Our Philippines Cruise on Coral