Philippine Windsurfing Championship, Puerto Galera

Image courtesy John Smart

Every year in February, Puerto Galera traditionally hosts the second leg of the Philippine Windsurfing Championships on the waters off Boquete Beach. In 2012 the event will be expanded into the Puerto Galera water sports festival, to include all manner of wind–powered and human–powered water sports.

In addition to the windsurfing championships there will be competitive kite–boarding, dinghy racing and paddle banka racing and potentially dragon boat racing. The goal is to make February the on–water eco–water sports tourism festival month in Puerto Galera and to provide a vacation–extension for windsurfers and kite–boarders who usually travel to Boracay for the Funboard Cup in January and then have nowhere els

Image courtesy John Smart

In this modern age of deceptive advertising and spin, finding two genuinely free things on offer on Panglao Island was a very pleasant surprise. Mostly, free things are built into the price of something that you have already made the commitment to purchase, i.e. you have already paid for it and the label “free” is actually a blatant deception. Tourist incentives are rarely genuinely free because tourists, by definition, are alien to the place and most frequently display a lack of intelligence by not investigating the real cost of an item or service in advance.

At the Billabong Hotel on Panglao Island, along the road to Alona Beach, I chanced upon a sign on the bar that read “Free Introduction To

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 Peter Stevens

The Philippine Sailing Team may have been the smallest team at the Mirror Class World Championships 2011, (held in Albany, Western Australia, over the New Year period) but they put on the biggest show and outperformed almost all others in the Overall, Youth and Silver Fleet divisions.

Ridgely Balladares and Rommel Chavez, previous participants in Albany, fought fearlessly for the Philippine Sailing Team. For much of the event they were in third place overall but on the final day inched ahead of rivals to finish in second place, with a total points score better than the first place finishers from Ireland. Scoring no less than three 1st place finishes out of fifteen races they flew the Philippine flag

Image courtesy Villa Malasimbo

The Malasimbo Music and Arts Festival is a two-day festival aiming to blend traditional and contemporary arts & culture with musical performances. At the same time the Malasimbo Music and Arts Festival will highlight the need for us all to work towards the protection of the diversity and sustainability of the natural environment in the Philippines and around the World.

To be held at Villa Malasimbo, at the foot of Mount Malasimbo – the predominant mountain whose extent provides pictorial splendor to the most beautiful bay in the World – the Malasimbo Music and Arts Festival is an all-outdoors event, set in one of the World's rare, natural amphit

Image courtesy Martyn Willes

The Puerto Galera Yacht Club (the Cruising Yacht Club of the Philippines) has announced the first of a new Cruising Yacht Race Series aimed at stimulating more, competitive sailing in the Philippines. The new Cruising Yacht Race Series will comprise twelve nominated races throughout the year, with the best seven results counting towards the overall championship (Did Not Start a race can be a discarded result).

Designed primarily to attract all those who enjoy "cruising with intent" but who are not equipped with high-tech racing sails and fanatical crew, the Cruising Yacht Race Series will follow the pursuit-racing rules format that has made the Puerto Galera Yacht Club famous around Asia for fun

Image courtesy Martyn Willes

The All Souls Regatta 2010 in Puerto Galera will be the largest All Souls Regatta yet organized, the news that the Philippine Hobie 16 fleet (from Taal Lake Yacht Club) will be joining the racing & cruising keelboats and multihulls is a guarantee of extra color and fun during this legendary sailing event.

The All Souls Regatta was first held in Puerto Galera, in 2004. It was specifically designed to be the first sailing regatta of each Philippine racing season. The Philippine racing season starts with the arrival of the drier northeast monsoon in October and runs until the following May, when the wetter southwest monsoon blows in . . . competitive sailing still continues throughout the year around the Philippines but the southwest monsoon weather keeps some of the less hardy sailors

Image courtesy Asiapix

Ever since the Puerto Galera Yacht Club was founded, in 1991, there has been an Easter Regatta held every year whereas the America's Cup is only held once the current America's Cup holder has deigned to offer it up for competition.

The PGYC Easter Regatta is unique in that it actually extols the virtues of the sport of sailing and leaves hundreds of sailors and as many spectators wishing the America's Cup could be so friendly and civilised. Unlike the America's Cup, where every recent event has featured lengthy and costly court cases, the Puerto Galera Yacht Club Easter Regatta in 2010 will be no different from last year except it will mark the event's 20th anniversary,making it even m