May 26, 2024
Catching up with the Nestor's!

Got to spend a nice afternoon and evening catching up with fellow Yank, Elizabeth Nestor and her husband Kevin who moved back to his hometown of Mayo Abbey, after 20+ years in the states. I worked with Elizabeth on and off, over the last 30 years, in Philadelphia. We stay in touch thru a group text, Heard Immunity
with about 10 others, all with the common denominator of Turner Construction. Elizabeth and Kevin have been married 20 years, and I found out that Kevin knew my relations the Keane's, back when we first met. In fact, his cousins live right next door to them and his brother does business with them regularly! Such a small world! Kevin & Elizabeth moved to Mayo Abbey right before Covid and have been busy renovating their home and settling in. It was great to catch up, share the gossip on all those we know in common and give them the details of my ship and the upcoming adventure. I hope they can truly join me for some segment in the future!

Yesterday we joined in with many of our fellow residents to take in some of the many water spots around Coron . We signed up through Get Your Guide, others used Trip Advisor and they both contracted with Psalms Travel Services in Coron. As I've explained before, figuring out our excursions in each port, is a big time suck for me. We prefer to find local venders without having to go through the big agencies (because you usually can get better service, pricing and customization) but sometimes it is just easier to stick with the big guys, when the excursion is super popular. Psalms turned out to be an excellent operator and I laughed when I saw they had used the below images on their Facebook page today. Didn't realize my pink dry bag stood out so much!

We are currently docked at the port of CORON , in the Palawan archipelago islands, of the Philippines . While the port itself is nothing special, and the surrounding town is hardly thriving, the people here are amazingly friendly, joyful and so happy to be around! You can see from below, they have a ton of hotels and restaurants but mostly it's their water actives that attract a fair number of tourist. Known for their crystal clear water, dramatic limestone cliffs and powdery white sand beaches. June is the start of the rainy season, but so far the weather has been good.

We only had about 8 hours of port time in KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia today, due to Port operations. I went out with Delia to see one of the most notable buildings in town, the floating mosque or Masjid Bandaraya. Our GRAB driver actually took our picture when we asked him to wait for us, and then take us to the mall afterwards.
