We had to spend an additional day at Boracay looking for a pumpboat. Prices at Boracay are expensive. We finally managed to get a boat for P5,000.

The crossing to Caluya Island was a bit surrealistic. In that morning just before sunrise, the wind was blowing hard. I thought to myself, if it’s windy here at shore, I can’t imagine what it’s like out there in the open sea. I braced myself for a long hard day.

I said goodbye to Wee Leng and kids. It’s hard to leave them after having them with us for 2 weeks. Sheng Feng and Sheng En have experienced so much. I hope this will open their eyes to the wonders of the world. They would be flying home that morning.

Miraculously, after breakfast, just as we started to prepare, the wind stopped. So the longest crossing in this expedition of 38km was completed in calm sea without any incident. We were really blessed. When we reached the shore of Caluya, I said “Thank you God”.

But that’s only halfway to Mindoro. From Caluya, we have 2 more crossings of 15km each. And again, we had problem looking for a boat. The weather looked fine. Instead of waiting, we decided to cross without a support boat. The support team would catch a passenger boat and meet us in Mindoro. We prepared to be on our own for a day and brought sleeping bags and extra food.

The crossing to Semirara was again in fine weather. In fact, it was mirror sea condition. A huge coal mine greeted us at Semirara. Now, only 15km separated us from Mindoro. We started the last crossing. With 10km to go, the weather changed. We could see storm clouds sweeping in from the front and the back, Wind picked up and soon, white caps appeared. I paddled as hard as I could. It started to rain heavily and Mindoro was disappearing in poor visibility. Just as things seemed to be getting worse, the wind died down. We reached the shore of Mindoro safely without a support boat. We were a bit cold from the rain but happy to touch land again.

From here onwards, only a short crossing to Luzon is on the route. As we entered Soguicay Bay, a boat came from behind and surprisingly, it was our support team. It was a perfect ending for the day. The Governor of Antique has got the Mayor of Caluya to lend us a boat at the last minute.

We enjoyed perfect weather for the next 3 days as we worked our way up the east coast of Mindoro. This coast has some rugged terrain – mountainous and cliffs.

At Pola, the LGU hosted us and took us on a little tour, including the beautiful house of the Mayor overlooking the bay.

Our good-weather luck ended on the day to Calapan. It was headwind most of the day. The last 4km turned out to be very rough sea and to make it worse, it was beam wind and waves. I asked Buzzy to paddle close together in case I capsize. Luckily, we reached the resort safely. 54km. Long and hard day.

The sunny and calm weather returned the next day as we headed to Puerto Galera, our last stop in Mindoro. Sabang Beach is nice with lots of dive operators. It was a short day and we spent the rest of the day relaxing and recuperating from yesterday’s hard work.

We are close to 2,000km mark. The last big island is awaiting us, Luzon.