Day 72. Malapascua Island, Philippines. Another day another disco.

Malapascua is a blink and you'll miss it kind of island. Just 2 miles from tip to tip yet choc-a-bloc with tropical gorgeousness. It'll be home for the next 5 nights, and to be honest, there are probably worse places to spend Christmas.

Did some diving and loafing during the day but the real fun began at sunset when we met Boon, a retired merchant seaman from Singapore who laughs like a demented Hyena and would stroll to Gold in any drinking Olympic games. Passed a riotous couple of hours in his company in preparation for the island Christmas shindig.

Midnight mass is big news here and Malapascua's only church was filled to overflowing. We stood outside for a while listening to the singing before Roquisa - one of the local ladies - invited us to her house for some nibbles.

Quite a humbling experience. The flat was little bigger than our front room in London, yet 11 of them live happily in the 2 rooms. The people here are so open and friendly, and Roquisa thought nothing of sharing her family's Christmas nosh with 6 inquisitive tourists (we'd been joined by Anka and Renka, a dutch couple who'd we'd met diving).

Church was kicking out by the time we finished and there was a big disco starting on the adjacent basketball court. This of course gave me and the Janster (a.k.a the Travolta twins) another opportunity to strut our funky stuff.

This time the crowd remained unimpressed. Very confusing.