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Well talent night was special. It was the last nght on the island for many of the expedition, and so we had a large party. Live music from the house band of course.

This seems to have gone so quickly. Day 9 already. I'll probably be posting this from Dumaguete, as the globe signal here is so unreliable and slow. Missed yoga this morning, to my shame. But then everyone else did too. Sorry Valerie. Whisky does that. Body doesn't feel like a temple this morning..

What a busy day.

Starting with the previous night - Bats. The lecture was very well done and informative, but the real surprise was the two real live bats that Tikyo netted and brought in to show us. Emily held one and Tikyo the other. They were fantastic, and no trouble at all.

A fine day. Blue skies – gentle swell. Last night we had clear skies with a great view of the milky way, Centaurus and Scorpio. Also the fireflies are back.

A lazy morning with a survey dive at 15m off Typhoon Beach. The camera didn't handle that too well with a noticeable concavity to the back panel. Hard corals mainly – Montipora, Echinopora and Pectinia. There was one I do need to look up – a beautiful one like crisps or fried curly Kale, which is on the tip of my tongue - I miss “Corals of the World”. Spotted a crown of thorns during the safety stop. (turned out to be Pavona Cactus)

Danjugan came good for us today in many ways. Today's blog entry comes from the sunset deck, glass of wine in hand. The sun is a handspan from the horizon, there is blue sky above and the sea is back to a semblance of placidity.

(Storm and comms problems mean these are being posted in batches)

This morning saw the return of Blue Sky and sunshine, albeit in brief periods after some bad squalls and thunderstorms overnight. I failed to wake up during the most severe one at 2:30 am which proves you can become accustomed to anything. The Typhoon wind has dropped, but we're keeping the hatches battened down just in case. The swell also dropped during the day, making a fun dive in the afternoon on the North Wall possible.

Today was a bit of an extreme in both directions. I managed to slip and fall down some concrete steps. Even following the rule of “one hand for the ship” on the hand rail I still had a nasty knock. Still - things improved from there. The kids did a nature walk

The storm really blew through last night. Horizontal rain and high winds. It's not called Typhoon Beach for nothing. This morning was a different side of Danjugan Island. Yoga class was moved from the front cabana to the old kitchen cabana due to flooding. Unfortunately halfway through the rain started again, and those of us at the back started getting 'a little' damp. None the less with stiff upper lips (as well as necks and lower backs) we battled through to the end.

Today was rather different. We woke for Yoga and high winds at 06:00. We rapidly established that I’m not a flexible as I used to be and that my chakras are all out of whack. I could only look on with envy as on the next mat Pete ‘another beer?’ Raines smoothly transitioned from flying locust to downward dog ending in the crying baby position. Looking forward to more tomorrow.

(Due to problems with comms and the storm, these are somewhat delayed in being posted).

Here we are, all on Danjugan Island – the adventure has begun. As I write this, there’s a gentle breeze coming off the sea, and we’re helping ourselves to a buffet of Filipino spaghetti, and fish and calamansi and rice