"The lethal cost of saving a Philippine paradise"

From South China Morning Post, 8 March 2011.  Click to enlarge

Disturbing stories from the paradise of Palawan, a favourite cruising ground for many Hong Kong sailors.

Getting ready for the San Fernando Race

Xena powering out of Victoria Harbour, SFR 09. 
Photo by Guy Nowell from this site. Click to enlarge.

Just starting to get the crew list together for the San Fernando Race, 20-23 April.
Updates here as we move along.
So far we have 11 more or less fixed and that's fine for us. We might stretch to 12 or come back to 10: depending on if Rick or Stevo can get their Safety and Survival at Sea Course Certificates before we leave.  The Notice of Race now requires 50% of the crew to have the SSSC and at latest count we only had FIVE of us with the Cert....
And WOW: I just went to Google Images and googled "San Fernando Race" and guess which boat comes up all over the place!  That's right, the Warrior Princess herself!... Give it a try....  The photo above was taken by Guy Nowell, at the start of the '09 SFR, and graced the cover of the next month's RHKYC Ahoy! magazine.  It was also at several places on the Google results for "San Fernando Race".  Nice to see it again...  The silver hair on the rail is yours truly.  Closest to camera is Paul "Hetho" Hetherington.  Ross Dawson next to him. [you can click it to enlarge then click again to enlarge even more: it's a high-res copy].

Guest Post from Grant & Iris

Grant and Iris's Cadillac charging across the Bay on Day 3

Below, report in "Regatta Ramblings" of the Bay of Islands (NZ) Race Week, which Grant went back to, straight after the delivery of Xena back to Hong Kong.