You may not know this but there are over 7,000 islands in The Philippines and Rick and I have decided to try and see as many of them as possible while we are here. Keep in mind however, some of these islands appear and disappear according to the tides, so our list may necessarily be shorter!!!!

Well, our home island is Luzon, where we live here in Manila, so that's one. On Wednesday, Rick travelled to Mindanao in the south (that's two), to visit some key customers - mines, banana plantations etc. I flew down on Friday night to join him, so we could do some exploring around the capital of Davao. On Saturday we went whitewater rafting about an hour out of town. Apart from nearly soiling my pants a couple of times at the beginning, we had a blast (as you can see from the photos)! We only fell in once, but we did it together (awww!) and managed to stay afloat for the rest of the trip. With names like "The Washing Machine" and "Drop and Suck" (delightful huh?) we traversed over 25 sets of rapids and 13kms - and all before lunch.

Upon returning to the hotel, we were of no use to do anything except sleep, so a quiet evening was had by all. The next day we were off again, this time to another island called Samal (that's three). It's only a few minutes by ferry across from Davao, on the weirdest ferry you have ever seen (see photos). We visited the largest bat cave (no jokes about Robin please) in the world, being 'vewy, vewy qwiet', so we didn't wake them up and end up covered in bat guano! The smell was something to experience and the little b*****s make a lot of noise for a group that was s'posed to be sleepin', but it was a wonderful sight.

Then it was across to the other side of the island to the Pearl Farm Resort, which was originally - you guessed it - a Pearl Farm. Now a lovely quiet resort on the beach, with its own little island (that's four) with a golf course - we swam, snorkeled and kayaked our way around the island, planning our next escape there. There is a wreck just off the beach, so the diving is meant to be great - we'll be back there soon.

So - 6, 996 to go - this may take a while!!!