Where's Scott?

We’re running late for the ferry, and fight off the swarm of porters vying for our business to get to the Supercat counter. We meet Mabel’s sister who’s joining us for the 2 hours to Ormoc on Leyte, and the time flys by after Seb sets up his mini movie theater and we watch the […]

With the Mabel’s visa initiated, and a quick run to the Chinese cemetery for a little tourism (43 hectares, a city of mausoleums!), we’re free to head towards Mabel’s home village on the island of Leyte. The route takes us through Cebu, one of Mabel’s old haunts, and she plans on catching a few friends […]

(edit 3/10: Henage update) Another day of visa bureaucracy, but after some serious logistical nightmares and fair amount of legwork, we get Mabel the fabled “manager’s check” and head down to the boardwalk. Manila is a city by the sea, and enjoys warm, calm evenings making it an ideal city for ocean-front dining. We wander […]

After realizing that we were in Manila for a few more days for Mabel’s visa, we immediately headed out for some “real” beer and pork – both at best scarce and expensive, or at worst unavailable, in Malaysia. We ask the doorman for a direction to walk and within a block have found a Karioke […]

I’ll press on past our further scuba experience; even though it was all excellent, the merits of each island paradise are really in the fine details, and as such might prove a bit tedious in the telling (although I will mention that the beach on the island of Mantubul must rank among the most picture […]

What can I say… Sipadan is a fairyland of pristine untouched coral reefs, massive colorful schools of fish, sea turtles gliding lazily through the torquoise waters or sleeping deeply in one of the many crags scattered along the underwater cliff wall. Sipadan is small, no, miniscule – perhaps 3 acres – but there’s nothing to […]

We gear up at 7:30am and the boat leaves at 8 sharp — the scuba boat has twin 150hp motors and the water surface is very calm — in fact, the sea has almost no waves at all, and the boat tears through the water at full throttle; it only takes about 40 mins to […]

Met up with Seb and Mebal in Tawau, and grabbed an hour taxi out to Semporna. It’s great to catch up with Seb, and we jump straight into motormouth mode. Mabel is very shy at my arrival, and I think our coversation may be a bit fast for her English, so she dozes most of […]

I’ve never missed a day before… I’ve slept late, been sick and spent the day in bed, or even stayed up for several in a row… but I totally missed Feb the 5th — I never saw it! It’s a bit like having your birthday on Feb 29th, most years you wake up a year […]