1st Taal Lake Expedition
This was supposed to be my first real point-to-point sail on Ceol Beag. Objective: Taal’s volcano island.
We were supposed to leave earlier than usual at around 7am, but I was only able to get in from the previous night at around 5am and Andrew got in at around 4:30am so scratch that. but we were eventually able to get our act together and were able to leave Las Pinas at around 08:30. not bad, with only 3 hours of sleep.
Leaving later than planned wasn’t such a bad idea after all, when we got to club 
lake the water was dead calm. But we proceeded to set up the boat anyways, hoping for the wind to pick up later. The beach was a mess by the way, from last week’s typhoon, one of Gil’s boats was partially sunk and his fg banca was on the beach and so was loads of other crap from wrecked fish cages etc…
at around 11:00 we were ready to go, but the wind was not there yet, so we broke out the paddles and see if we can try to paddle to our objective, after about 10 minutes of that, it was obvious that we should forget about that idea. So while waiting for the wind, we decided to have lunch. so we broke out a couple of chicken fillet sanwiches and 
had a quick meal. followed with a couple of cigarettes. here you can see how glassy the water was, despite the feeling action pose we were not moving at all. after a little bit of aimlessly floating on the water, I noticed that there seemed to be a steady wind line near the shore, so we decided to just head for that so we could atleast get a little sailing in. By the time we got to where the windline was, I noticed that the wind was starting to pick up everywhere.
So with wind finally in our sail, we headed out. time check: it was 13:15. the wind picked up fairly fast and soon we were on a broad reach for volcano island, too bad mario the living anemometer wasn’t there to tell us how fast the wind was. around three quarters of the way there, the sheet came loose from my hand and slipped out the block, we had to sail the rest of the way without a purchase on the sheet. Andrew was holding it the whole time and he said the load on it was unbelievable. We could actually have fixed it by pointing into the wind, but we decided to leave well enough alone. Other than that incident with the sheet it was smooth sailing all the way, we were aiming for the tourist center on the island but there were just too many boats parked at the shore, so we chose a spot a little to the west. as soon as we were spotted by the locals 
everyone was directing us to different places to beach, we eventually took the one the was dead ahead of us. Time check: it was 14:00. 45 minutes to cover around 7 kilometers, not bad. I was pretty surprised. we could have probably have cut that a little bit more if I remembered to raise the db since we were going down wind anyways.
We were met by a guy named Jason who was was into the horse hire and guide business, When I told him that we had no plans to head up to the crater today, and would rather prefer a beer or a coke, and rest our weary bums, he then led us to his back yard and set up a couple of chairs and a table and got us a couple 
of cold pale pilsners.
So we enjoyed our beers and settled our adrenal glands, as we were still fairly giddy from the trip. I couldn’t beleive it, WE MADE IT!
The original plan was to stay overnight and climb to the crater, but we just didn’t have the time or the supplies, atleast now we know now we can get there. think of this as a scouting expedition.
We just had two beers each, and soon it was time to head back, the wind died down a little bit, and I noticed there were no more white caps, (there were lots on the way there.)
It was a close hauled course heading for TLYC on the way back. and the wind was calm enough to be able to snap some pictures. 
we decided to keep on that heading, and just start tacking when we got closer to shore. bad idea, the wind was pretty shifty near the shore I had a difficult time keeping a straight heading. now I know that it’s better to plan your tacks earlier. 
route was something like this, but don’t expect it to be accurate though as I don’t know where the hell we landed.
On the way back we passed by several hobies and a couple of topper dinghies on the water by TLYC. no pics though.
after around two hours after we left the island we were back at club lake.
I learned tons that day, and my confidence in my sailing skills and the boat has greatly improved. despite the gusty conditions we had on the way to the island and the big banka wakes we had to roll over, the boat was pretty dry.
I’m really contemplating on making a cleating system for the sheet, so I don’t have to hold it all the time. one’s hands can get a little stiff after a while. I’m also getting seat cushion, for me at least, as as of this post by bum is still a little sore.
