Heading to The Philippines for quarter 3 was a long trip but with plenty of anticipation and excitement brewing, it was a new destination for most of the team and one we were all pretty excited about.
After long flights we all arrived to Manilla airport and then made our way to Republic wake park for orientation and of course a few rounds on the cable.
The following day we headed back to Manila for an internal flight to Palawan, destined for Blue Palawan resort, travelling as a team of 19 students and 6 teachers all loaded with kite gear is always a fun experience but this leg of the trip was pretty uneventful and we all arrived and got sealed into our home for the coming 2 1/2 weeks, the setting is beautiful, clear warm water, palm trees and a couple of nice park features on the spot. All the team were geared up and ready for some epic sessions, unfortunately it was not as great as we hoped, the wind gods were not on our side during our stay, we did try to ride every day but often the wind was just not quite enough for our biggest kites, when it did come through though it was very consistent.
The next destination in the Philippines was Cuyo Island, we had all seen amazing pictures and promising forecasts so the stoke level was building fast and we were all hungry for some time on the water. The island is pretty isolated and we were all booked onto an overnight ferry to get there, we got on board and settled into the fairly cramped but comfy beds, we were then told that the trip is usually 12 hours but sometimes takes ‘a bit longer’, finally 23 hours later we docked in Cuyo.
The island is just a beautiful as it looks on the pictures, and the locals are very friendly, but it is isolated, even with local SIM cards the chances of getting a phone signal or some mobile data are pretty small, we were pretty much cut off from the world for a couple of weeks, some of the team found this more difficult than others. We settled back into the school routine, but again there was something missing, the wind, after watching the forecast showing 20+ knots of wind right up till the day we arrived we were quite disappointed to say the least, but that’s how it goes, you win some, you loose some, we did get a few light wind sessions in and had to make do with what came our way, by this point we were all looking forward to our last week at CWC wake park, at least there we would not have to reply on the wind gods.
A couple of days before our departure we woke up to some inconvenient news, the ferry that was due to bring us back to Palawan so we could fly back to Manila and on to CWC was unfortunately stranded on top of the reef in front of the island and would not be going anywhere for a while, leaving us all with a bit of a problem, we have to hand it to our Program Director Ben for the next couple of days work, with very limited communication and a couple of helpful locals a new plan was put in place, and we started our journey to CWC which involved 2 ferries and 2 long bumpy bus rides, but bot us there almost exactly on time.
The final week of quarter 3 was great, a week in CWC with all its cool features riding cable, I still prefer a kite and freestyle but after almost 6 weeks with very few kite sessions a week of not being limited by the wind was just the thing, and we were all back online too.
Even though The Philippines did not deliver the wind we hoped for we had a great time in an amazing and wonderful country, I hope to return at some point and be luckier with the wind next time.
