In and on the Ocean

Paolo is the charismatic, super energetic, verging on manic owner of the houseboats where we are staying for the next for 4 nights.  He greeted us with an hour of his life story.  An Italian, he lived in Florence and had a successful economics company when his sister died in a tragic accident.  This led him to sell the company and he bought a boat to sail round the world, ending up meeting April Lyn (Philippino) in Coron and together they set up home in his yacht and moored it in this idyllic lagoon.  The lagoon and surrounding land is owned by a local tribe.  He befriended the Chief allowing him to set up his houseboat hotel and restaurant.  In return he was contracted to recruit from the tribe for his staff.  But this idyllic looking life clearly comes with financial strain as he kept mentioning how expensive everything is to run the place.  We are surprised how relaxed he is about renting rooms on these very fancy yachts with all the equipment and switches around us.  We randomly tried a few to turn on the lights but later were told that one of them was to pull up the anchor and never to touch it again as we would find ourselves waking up in the morning in the middle of the Sulu Sea.

Paolo is right when he says it is special.  It is a unique Airbnb, a boating experience without the hard work and in a the most stunning lagoon, bobbing up and down watching the stars and the mirror like water around us with exquisite snorkelling only yards away or kayaking to the neighbouring lagoon or beach.  The rooms aren’t that comfortable and tonight we are sharing the boat with a Cambodian couple so there are a lot of ‘sorrys’ when we are all trying to change discreetly or keep our bags out of the way of each other.  

Waking up in our cosy cabin our first morning there, Kelty was unable to move.  He had been awake all night with a pain in his back and this was extremely worrying.  I’ve never seen his face like that before.  Pain and near tears.  We were both wondering how the trip was going to be from here.  Boat life was going to be impossible and then cycling and trekking in Vietnam was also going to have to be cancelled.

But hallelujah – it miraculously seemed to get better as the day went on and he even went diving.  Such a relief.  Maybe it was the dubious looking cherry flavoured pill that the Cambodian woman gave him.   Or as Kelty said in his blog yesterday diving therapy.  Klaudia the Polish divemaster reminded us about why we should have an interest in the ocean.  The world is 70 percent ocean and 30 percent land.  It is a no brainer.  And I think we are all becoming very attached to the underwater world.