Philippines , Overdu, Singapore

Well we made it to the Philippines in once piece. It was nice to walk on solid land again after spending the last month at sea. We were there for a vessel repair period where we had a bunch of contract workers come on board and fix a bunch of broken equipemnt and generally freshen up the ship.

The Philippines is known for being pretty cheap, and I'd have to agree with that after spending the last two weeks there. Beers were a buck everywhere, a 5 star meal at a restaurant would run about 20 bucks, and you could get the fanciest suite at a hotel for just under 75 bucks.

The streets are full of vendors selling fake Rolexes, bootleg DVDs, and fake Ray Ban sunglasses. Though everything is cheap here, you pretty much get what you paid for, the quality of even knock of brands leaves something to be desired. Needless to say, I didn't do much shopping here. I'd have to say the Philippines is the poorest country I've been to so far. I'd go on long runs and all I'd see was little shacks where people would live. 

I really didn't do anything crazy or exciting here. I meant to go to a zoo, but wound up forgetting about it. I plan on going to the one in Singapore there. You can bottle feed a full grown tiger while it sits on your lap. I think that would be pretty neat.

After two weeks of the Philippines, I was ready to get moving on again. 

Speaking of Singapore, we are en route to there now, expecting to pull in in a few days. I am 6 days overdue for relief with no relief in sight. As much as I'm hoping to get off in Singapore, I'm not counting on it. We are only going to be there a couple of days. I'm thinking it will be more like Okinawa at the beginning of June, maybe even Sasebo after that.

 As much as it irks me to be overdue, getting the extra paychecks makes things somewhat better. I've been car hunting for the last few weeks, and change my mind about every 5 minutes. I've gone from used Audis to sporty Mercedes convertibles. I think I've decided to go with a 2012 Audi A4 (though it might be a 2013 by the time I get off of here) with all the bells and whistles. I want something new and exactly the way I want it. And then go on a long, exciting road trip with it.

Singapore is the world's busiest shipping port, so its going to be pretty hectic getting in there. From what I've heard I can expect to be surrounding by a few hundred ships moving at various speeds sometime only a few hundred yards away from me. I'm slightly dreading it, but I know it'll be a good experience. I'll be glad when we are tied up at the dock.



What I'm going to do with my time off pretty much occupies 95% of my thoughts throughout the day. Its hard not think about it when you are so close.....yet so far.

So it's still business as usual. We got a new Captain on board, this makes the 4th Captain I've sailed under in the 5 months I've been on board. He seems pretty good so far, I have no real complaints. I'll post another update when we leave Singapore!