Philippines 2009 On the way to PNG

We cleared out April 16 and left Davao Tuesday 21 waiting for good winds. We had a good start, motored in the gulf of Davao to come out of thermal winds blowing the wrong way.
Passing cape St Augustin we encountered a strong counter current of 2 knots for 2 hours. Then we had comfortable winds from NNE 10 knots, and little counter current. Every thing is doing well on board Pui getting her sea legs.










Third day 2 o’clock in the morning, my 7 month old brand new autopilot failed (Raymarine not to mention the brand). The fuse from the seatalk blows. I check the system as requested in the RTFM and find nothing wrong. 2 blown fuses later we had to make the decision to steer the next 1200 NM to PNG to organise repair or come back 160 NM. Guess what we decided?

We motored back and next night went thru thunderstorms with no damage. Every thing was shut off and unplugged. One time is enough.

Friday 24th at 4 o’clock in the afternoon I call Davao Pilot station on CH16 to give an ETA at Sta Ana Warf for 0700 PM, They organise the officials. I asked them to do it for Saturday morning.


Landfall

Saturday morning nothing happens. I send a text message to the custom and immigration officers who cleared us in the first time explaining that we are back because of technical problems. I got an answer from both, the first one telling me he will meet me the same day in the afternoon, and the second one to ask me how long will be my stay, I answered one week I guess.
Saturday evening a party was going on the Warf and we are still not cleared in.
Sunday morning 26th at 9 o’clock I call Pilot station again to inform them that we are anchored at Sta Ana Warf waiting for clearance. Nothing happened.

Monday morning I contact custom by phone. In the Philippines text message are number one.
Finally after many TM exchanges with our favourite custom officer Mr Ebert Montero, he send us the quarantine officer because we left Philippines territory (of course you can catch a lot of diseases out at sea). He boarded us Monday 27th at 16h00. It was not the same than the first one.
For the fees he asked me how much I was charged first time. ??? I answered I must look in my papers and I have no cash on board. He answered me, you will be here for a wile and we will meet at Sta Ana Warf. You pay me then. I came to the conclusion that even with a recipe it’s not sure that this fee is official.

Then I TM custom again and finally got permission to make landfall. Later I gave him the clearance paper and it was no mention about compliment.Being a polite boy, one week later, I contact immigration again to clear out our arrival. Finally a lady officer (the boss of the one who cleared us in the first time) came at the Warf and stamped us in and told us that we may have to pay something at the office (what? Compliment I said for myself, of course).