043
- Filed
- 30 August 2026
- From
- Site 01 · Northern Palawan
- Reading time
- 7 min
The Habagat Is a Systems Test
Every June the southwest monsoon arrives and audits everything we built in the dry season. This year’s results.
From roughly June to October the habagat brings wind, swell and days of rain in a row. Boats stop. Solar drops to a third. Every shortcut you took in March shows up in August.
§This season’s audit
- Solar yield: down to 30–40% on the worst weeks. The generator ran 11 hours all season — down from 60 last year, after we added battery capacity.
- Water: tanks full by week two. The problem was never supply; it was a gutter overflowing onto the kitchen path.
- Logistics: 9 of 14 planned boat runs cancelled. We’d pre-stocked for six weeks. We needed seven.
- Crew: two roof-leak call-outs, one coconut tree across the footpath, zero injuries.
“Build in the dry season like you’re already in the wet one.”
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