Hobie Sailing On Taal Lake

Image Courtesy: Taal Lake Yacht Club

Is sailing a Hobie 16 your thing? If you want to get into sailing Hobie 16s then February 2013 is the best time to do it in the Philippines. Starting with the Philippine Hobie National Championships at the beginning of the month in Iloilo (open to anyone on the planet who knows how to sail a Hobie 16) and ending with the Philippine Hobie Challenge along the Zambales coast, starting from Candelaria, Zambales.

In case you did not now . . . a Hobie 16 is a fast sailing catamaran just 16 feet long. It is designed to be sailed by two people at extreme speeds (assuming the wind is favorable), although it is possible to sail it slowly as well. The spiritual home of Hobie 16 sailing in the Philippines is the Taal Lake Yacht Club, an hour South of Metro Manila on the shores of Taal

The red/orange under-layer is nickel ore; get to it by taking all above

Image By Girlie Cervantes

I recently visited Surigao del Norte to report on tourism activities there, with a special focus on water sports. I found plenty of water sports and many new ventures in the pipeline. But what really took my breath away was the rape of Surigao over the past five years in the quest for easy money.

Jake Miranda, local hotelier and scuba diving fanatic, described Surigao del Norte as “presently suffering an identity crisis”: does it want to continue to be rapped by the global mining industry or does it want to embrace eco and adventure tourism. It cannot happily

Image courtesy Girlie Cervantes

Bohol's new international airport in the south of the island, to replace the overloaded Tagbilaran airport, has been ruminated for almost two decades, and work has still not commenced. By contrast, just eighteen months after its conceptual design, a new airstrip will be opened for business in central Bohol in August 2011, in the municipality of Danao.

Not quite the Bohol International Airport that the politicians have wanted to replace Tagbilaran Airport but the new airstrip in Danao is an example of what can be achieved in an apolitical environment with 100% support of the local community (typical of almost everything that happens in the remote, mountainous municipality of Danao, surrounded by Bohol's famous Chocolate

Image courtesy Martyn Willes

New Corella is known as the “water basin of Davao Del Norte” and for good reason – its rainforested limestone hills have for aeons imbibed the monsoon rains and slowly released them, through hundreds of springs and streams, onto the plains below. The same aeons have slowly eroded the limestone beneath, creating some of the most beautiful cave systems in the World. Adventure tourists and speleologists can access the caves by hiking along forest trails or trekking up rivers, brimming with crystal clear water – filtered and pure.

Recognizing that it is the custodian of this area of outstanding natural beauty, the municipality of New Corella has created a series of adventure tourist packages, designed to allow those with a passion for the beauty of Mother Nature to enjoy the gifts that she has so generously bestowed upon Davao De

Image courtesy Teddy Aquino

The first organized Deep Water Soloing (DWS) venue in Busuanga was climbed this week. Teddy Aquino, the owner of Juju Island (about 20 minutes by speed-boat from Coron town), invited a group of climbing friends from overseas to join him in exploring the craggy limestone cliffs and walls of Sangat Island (and similar islands in the Calamianes Islands Group), for the purpose of identifying the best locations for Deep Water Soloing in the Philippines.

What is Deep Water Soloing? It is essentially rock-climbing with the objective of an eventual rapid descent into deep water. The word "soloing" is included because you are not tied to any other climbers in your ascent and you jump into the deep water at the moment that you decide is right, without reference to other climbers who may be ascending at the same time

Image courtesy Martyn Willes

This week the Big Apple Dive Resort opened an eco-sports store on Muelle Pier, from where they plan to launch a series of eco-tours around Puerto Galera – using mountain bikes, kayaks and "anything that does not require an engine".

The Big Apple Cafe Ecosports outlet will also sell mountain bikes, kayaks, scuba diving gear and anything else that might assist the eco-tourist with eco-adventures in and around the Philippines' only accredited "most beautiful bay in the World".

What gives something the right to have the prefix "eco

Image courtesy Max Makowski

The Manila Boat Club – The Philippines' oldest water sports club - will offer eight people the chance to go moonlight rowing on the Pasig River in support of Obscura Day – a somewhat obscure day of international participation where people offer insights into the World's local wonders, curiosities and esoterica.

Moonlight rowing on the Pasig River is your chance to obtain a visual perspective on Manila that very few people know exists. It is a most striking experience to travel through one of the busiest and noisiest cities in the World, yet hear only the sounds of lapping water, children laughing on the banks nearby and the occasional evening stroller throwing you their

Image courtesy Kayak Philippines

For the second year running the Anvaya Cove Resort and Nature Club will be hosting the start of the Kayak Explore Anvaya Cove-Zambales event. This is the first kayaking event of 2011 in the Kayak Philippines Series, and it is set to be bigger and more engaging than its well attended predecessor in 2010.

In 2011, Kayak Explore Anvaya Cove-Zambales will take paddlers from the almost pristine Anvaya Cove residential resort development, at the southern extremity of Subic Bay Freeport, across the mouth of Subic Bay and into the potentially wilder waters along the Zambales coast – in June the waters off Subic Bay and Zambales will be either, glassy smooth or, whipped into a frenzy by the start of the habagat (southwest m