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Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Wicked Diving Expedition part 1 of 3




Wicked Diving Expedition Part 1




The Jaya




I put in 15 dives before leaving Waisai Town and this section of Raja Ampat Park. With only one dive on the day before departing Wicked Diving Resort I had some afternoon to play with and really wanted to see town. We had gone in a few times but not really exploring and I wasn’t going to get another opportunity for a while so when a chance came my way I went. Some people needed cigarettes and I wanted to get out more cash out of the ATM for the journey to come. Not so much for on the boat but for odds and ends at any of the three stops we were going to make on the way south on the Jaya, a Wicked Diving quasi sailing vessel heading south for a 19 day diving expedition to Komodo Island and Lubuan bajo town on Flores Island.




I hopped on the back of a motorcycle and I rode the 30 minutes into Waisai the main port and ferry destination from Sorong. This is where I picked up my one million-rupee/ $100 USD permit/entry fee for the Raja Ampat Islands Park. The Wicked Dive Resort is situated well out of town and isn’t strictly diving; snorkelers, bird watchers, and exploring travellers before they jump off to one of the many isolated guesthouses and homestays on the many islands in the park. The ‘resort’ is simple, big bungalows,3 meals/day and snacks, tea and coffee 24/7. Some people come for volunteer work at some of the marine conservation camps spread out all over the islands. As we motored into town I saw the new airport they are putting in that will one day connect Bali to Raja Ampat directly and I was glad I got here in the time before that day comes.




I got to the ATM, bought smokes and lighters, and asked my driver to head down to the waterfront. I had heard things about it and wanted to check it out for myself. When we arrived I was amazed to see a well-designed boardwalk lining the turquoise water and walkways out over shallow coral beds. Behind the walkway are many shops lining the opposite side of the road and all closed. The area hadn’t been cleaned in awhile and some of the light fixtures had be broken but repairable when the time came. There were bungalow resorts, nice ones, virtually empty. It was a ghostly part of town. I found out that when the ferry began coming here the government and locals expected a large influx of tourism, namely divers and birders and that Waisai would be the jump off point for all the islands but that has yet to happen. Sorong maintained its hold on jump-off status and is building a large dive center and will remain the center of the area until Waisai gets a little further developed. No one knows it’s out here. Even in the town proper there is new wood walk ways with trellis covers with various types of flowering vines beginning to grow up the wood towers made specifically for them. The town is ready for the tourists but the tourists aren’t ready for Papua New Guinea with all the lovely hatcheting going on in some other parts of Papua, the mountains.




We left the resort at 11am for the Jaya waiting for us in the harbor. After a few of us ran in to get last minute supplies we boarded the boat and got underway around 230 in the afternoon. The group leader gave us a warm welcome, as did the crew. There were many tears between the local staff and those on the boat returning to their families and homes in Komodo and Lubuan Bajo after 7 months in Raja Ampat.




We were assigned cabins and roommates and sorted out our last minute dive gear stuff. We peeled off the dock and headed for an equipment check dive once we got a couple hours out. It turned out I have had the pleasure of diving here a few days before and the biodiversity was exceptional. It was the first day out and already we had an excellent dive under out belts. The visibility wasn’t the greatest but the fish were there in force. I saw lots of Barracuda, a white tip shark or two and as the current picked up so did the fish.




The staterooms are not exactly spacious but they will do for the next 19 nights. I was happy not to be in a bunk. In most rooms there were two beds side by side with a walkway down the middle and out to a main hallway. There are 10 guests diving, 4 dive guides, and 8 crewmembers. The rooms have air conditioning if you want it, a locked porthole, and ample storage space under each bed for your belongings and boat dry goods.




From a cook to a captain in Alaska over a 16-year period I expected a ground swell but again realized how deep into the islands we are and the waters are fairly protected. The full moon just passed and here we are heading south under the shimmer of the moon and reflections off the waves. We’re travelling at approximately 6 knots with a 14-hour night crossing to the next dive site, Goa Farondi, where we are attempting 4 dives to really get the ball rolling.




Our first dive was a wall dive and I assumed a drift dive but in the miniature coves the water actually backed up and changed direction. The coves were calm while the straight between the islands rushed by at 3 knots. We didn’t notice until we needed to get away from the wall for our safety stop and get picked up by a skiff. (Around these parts they call them a ‘Scotchy’). We did three dives through out the day and then motored through the night to our next scheduled dive site. The sea was calm and the full moon has just passed a few days ago but still big enough to light up the surface and shimmer across the minimal ground swell.




We were back in the water off the coast of Misool by 9:45 with 4 dives planned including a night dive. The voyage planned for 2 days in the area because the diving is so good and we were not disappointed. A night dive was scheduled for the first night in a nice cove full of phosphorescent algae and eels among other critters. Obviously some dives are more difficult than others due to current but the dives are organized in such a way as to take advantage of the current and in many cases drift with it or avoid it on the lee side of an island or reef and work with it zigzag from the deepest allowed and slowly shallow up to a safety stop and back on a skiff. Around these parts they call a skiff or dingy a ‘scotchy’ and I have no idea why.




Our second morning at Misool diving Shadow Reef ranks in the top three dives I’ve ever done and it is due to visibility and the aquatic life we saw in an hour. We entered the water at 7:21 am and the current was minimal and we immediately saw sharks cruising the reef, turtles powering out of the depths, Lionfish out hunting all on our descent. Once at depth we saw schools of Travail hunting glass fish, Barracuda on patrol, big Napoleon Wrasse lumbering through the water like a barge, and a plethora of biodiversity all mixed and waiting for the current to pick up. One person saw an Oceanic Manta go by out in the blue. The colors of the corral we across the board. As we crossed the saddle of two submerged mounds we came across a reef manta heading for a cleaning station. While I was filming the Manta, Nick grabbed my fin and pointed in the opposite direction to show me a small group of dolphin just in view. I tried to continue filming the Manta but the underwater hoots and sounds of excitement spun me around to watch a dolphin on the surface not 20 meters from us get air and dive straight into the depth off the edge of the reef and out of sight. I returned to the Manta and it came closer on a few passes as it was cleaned. More Napoleon Wrasse arrived and basically watched us watch them. Unfortunately the rule is 60 minutes or 50 bar and out, these is for your safety and continued diving. This is one of those times where a couple extra minutes won’t kill you and at the safety stop, 5 meters for 3 minutes, we all continued watching in the shallows as an aquatic ballet got started. The next two dives were no less impressive with Nudibranch slugs, juvenile Emperor Angel fish, Juvenile Many spotted Sweetlips, both hard and soft corals in a rainbow of colors and presentation.




For the most part travelling from one site to another is done at night, some are 14 hours apart, some longer and some shorter but still putting us on nice sites seldom seeing other live-a-boards, just us and the remoteness of Papua New Guinea’s pristine waters without uneducated and unaware people standing on coral or touching it. This is one of the major downfalls of diving being popular; it should be mandatory to take a class on aquatics and oceans before a person can get a diving certification; this would bring everybody into the awareness fold and protect what we want to see versus destroy it.




We moved south out running a rainstorm but catching up to another some where in the night. By morning the clouds had scattered and the sunrise met me at around 6am. Most people are still asleep and I cherish the quiet with a cup of tea and the hum of the engine below me. Living on the sea for a long time in Alaska I still wake up when the RPMs change. As a cook, a deckhand, or mate the changing of RPM’s means something is about to happen and it’s time to get on deck. It doesn’t matter what time it is, it’s still automatic in my body. The engine slowed as we approached Madorang, a small reef island with an elevation of maybe 2 meters covered in coconut trees, sparse Mangrove, and underbrush. The reef reaches out to the north and you can see the clear water of the shallows surrounding most of the island. So far most of the islands have been limestone, aka uplifted sea floor and the wall we explored had many caves and tunnels and places for fish to hide and get out of the current and escape larger predators. The visibility was about 25 meters and again a slight current from the north. We dropped in and got down to about 28 meters and slowly crept along the coral fans looking for pigmy seahorses and Nudibranch. There were lots of fish and we continually looked out into the blue for some of the larger pelagic species that surely pass by. Most of our dives run the full hour unless kicking into a current. This dive was no different and we all spent the hour in 30 C water in a pair of shorts and a rash-guard, no wetsuits in our group, yet. Today is my bro’s birthday, happy birthday bro.




We moved after the first dive and headed south for a few hours to Palau Makola and had a dive on each side of the island and both were full of life with the visibility between 20 to 30 meters. There was a cold front sitting at the edge of a shelf drop off and I did my best to stay out of it. You can literally see these cold fronts where the two temperatures mix there is considerable distortion and the photos come out a little funny. I caught a couple good shots of a Honeycomb eel while I was looking for Nudibranch on a nearby coral mound. Another diver spotted some Devil Rays cruising along in the thermal band below. I put my feet and fins in it and decided against the chill.




After our third dive we were off for Banda, considered the most beautiful archipelago Indonesia has to offer. There’s a small town on an island where we will restock after 3 or 4 more dives. We arrived at 5 am, before the sun cracked the horizon and motored a ‘rat and dog’, aka a figure 8, waiting for daylight to enter the harbor. On our first 6 days out we went through 5 tons of water, or 5,000 liters and that basically for showers and rinsing on the deck. It had to be mentioned because if we keep this up we won’t get to shower the last few days of the next 7-day section and the one after that. I know it isn’t me because I’ve only taken one shower and don’t need shampoo. I don’t feel the need because I’m in the sea for the day and a quick rinse does the trick. Things will change on the next section and everybody will be more conserving than on this section. Dawn is breaking and I’m listening to Alice in Chains, Nutshell. (Unplugged). Nice.



So we got in the water by 730 am and the visibility was around 30 meters along a wall of a small island and got down to about 28 meters and slowly came back up over the next hour. On the way we ran into more Honeycomb eels, Moray Eels, Red Tooth Trigger fish in vast numbers, I saw at least 5 black and white Banded Kraits, sea snakes, poisonous but docile. Oh and then I thought I saw a Sea Moth but it turned out to be a Devil Scorpion Fish, just another animal that can do serious harm or death. Between the eels, snakes and Scorpion fish, all-in-all a very good dive.



Our second dive out played our first dive with 35-meter visibility on the opposite side of a nearby small island where we again ran into loads of eels, coral fans, and a very chilled Hawkbill Turtle. Once we entered the 10-meter shallows all red filters on underwater cameras came off due to adequate sunlight and water clarity.




Back in 1988 a volcano blew out here and we dove the lava flow that reached the strait between the neighboring islands. In 28 years it was impressive how much Lettuce Coral had grown but there weren’t very many animals yet because the other hard corals are still quite juvenile. There are a lot of caves and hollows for clams and dark places to hide so they will come. Two Cuttlefish were protecting their eggs and trying to keep us away from their territory. Most of us understood, some of us were blinded by the sight of them and the want of film clips. We all moved on eventually and I hope they have many young.



Our forth and last dive of the day was a sunset dive off the jetty in Banda town searching for a very colorful Mandarin fish that comes out at dusk. It turned out to be a ‘muck’ dive meaning looking around in the rubble and garbage that people have been throwing in the sea since the Dutch were here gathering spices and making a financial killing while the locals did most of the work. Over time people have continuously thrown things, dropped materials and left items that ended up literally just off the town wall. The original Dutch built breakwater wall is in pieces down under the surface and then there is another wall and concrete blocks and rubble building up the slope to the seabed. This all makes for great places for animals to hide such as the Mandarin Fish, Pipe fish, Octopus, Crab, little lobster and again stacks of Red Toothed Trigger fish.




www.davidcdagley.com

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Wicked diving Raja Ampat


Wicked Diving Raja Ampat



I checked out of the Travel Hub near Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur leaving Sam and the Princess to keep the tourists in line. I hung out in the lobby for a while until it was time to go to the airport. I had a long night ahead of me with flights bouncing from KL, Jakarta, Makassar, and landing in Sorong, Papua New Guinea, a ferryboat to Raja Ampat and get picked up by car to the Wicked Diving Resort on the outskirts of Waisay Town.



All went well until I got to Sorong where I had to hire a taxi to get to the ferry pier on time. I needed mosquito repellant because Malaria is still a clear and present danger out here in the remote edges of civilization and I’m not carrying Malaria pills because they are as bad for you as Malaria. We got the repellant at a store and continued on to the pier where a man came running to the car, opened the back and grabbed my bag.  I told him no thank you, ‘Tidak. Teramakasi’ and he put the bag back down. The driver offered to watch my bags while I got a ticket. I should have just taken my bag because I was getting on the ferry. I didn’t, I trusted him. Bad move. When I returned I noticed my bag had been tampered with and opened it to find 2.5 million Rupee/ $250.00 USD gone and there was nothing I could do about it. The porter was nowhere to be seen. I was angry mostly with myself being a seasoned traveller and not on my game. I know better.




I boarded the ferry grumbling the whole way but in the end considered myself lucky because $250.00 is a small price to pay for what else was in the bag. The bag now stays attached to my back, as it should have been the whole time. Lesson learned; I’m not in Kansas anymore.




I didn’t pay for a VIP ticket just a deck ticket and watched the sea as we moved through islands and open water. A Pin whale crossed the stern of the boat and I went inside. I saw two foreigners, one man sleeping and a German woman on the Internet. She was on her way to visit friends and we got to talk. She goes by the name of Ana and runs www.wakatobi-hoga-diving.com. www.hogaislanddiveresort.com.  There are two Internet pages but they are the same in the end. To get there one would fly to Makassar and take a Lion Air plane to Wakatobi. (+62811460986). Talk to Ana she also speaks English and Bhasa Indonesian.




When we got to Raja Ampat she helped me get a hold of Wicked Diving Resort because I was on an earlier ferry than expected and so no one was there for me. She made a few calls and all was sorted. Ana went off to visit her friends. Thank you Ana. Wicked Diving had a car in route for other purposes and I got in and ran to a few ATMs before actually getting money out and off we went.




Wicked Diving has bought a small resort with eight bungalows 20 meters from the edge of the pier. When you come here to dive the price includes room and board and diving. I set myself up to dive 15 dives before the expedition heads south to Komodo. I didn’t see the point in coming all this way just to leave without seeing Raja Ampat and the waters surrounding the islands.




I basically had three dives per day with the last day off to decompress and be as close to normal as I get. There were drift dives, caves, walls, and the animal life is spectacular for a few reasons. No commercial fishing allowed around the islands although I did see big fishing vessels in Sorong. Out here only the locals can fish and they get down right angry if someone else arrives. The government is the same and may arrest a captain and possibly sink your boat if caught. The locals fish in small narrow boats with hand lines and feed their families and sell a little bit on the side but well within the ocean’s means. This is the right way to preserve a simple way of life. On out first day out we saw lots of dolphin and one with a baby at her side.




We visited to a small island called Arborek where there are a few homestays. One in particular is called Mambarayup Homestay and part of the volunteer Barefoot Conservation group doing research on Manta Rays among other things. There are a few foreigners wandering around this little island in the middle of a strait. We had fun with the kids on the dock and I was impressed by the cleanliness of the island. Below the surface we watched Mantas hit up a cleaning station before moving off back into the blue.




Some of the staff at Wicked have returned to the Jaya to prep the boat and I did some dives with a local who had amazing eyes and found Pigmy Sea horses, Nudibranch, and a plethora of sharks, Napoleons, all kinds of stuff. My new camera is definitely taking batter pictures than any GoPro but the movie quality of a GoPro still rocks.




A few people began to show up and do some warm up dives before boarding the Jaya for 19 days of diving in basically pristine conditions on our way to Komodo Island and Flores Island. There are only 10 guests on the boat instead of 12. There are three female dive guides and one dude. Basically there is as much crew as guests on this journey.




I won’t be putting any blogs up for 3 weeks but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check out some blogs into the past. Go to my blog site and see what I’ve been up to for the last six years mostly wandering around between Mongolia, Ireland and South East Asia writing. www.davidcdagley.blogspot.com.




I’d like to show you more pictures because they speak louder and better than I can ever so enjoy and I’ll see you in 3 weeks with a lot of fun stories and amazing pictures. Don’t fly too far away. J





www.davidcdagley.com



www.davidcdagley.blogspot.com

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Tioman Island To Singapore


Tioman Island To Singapore



I hopped on the first ferry at 730 am from Tioman Island but the schedule changes with the tide. The tide isn’t the issue round Tioman, it’s getting back up the river to the ferry dock in Mersing. If the tide is out the big boats can’t get up river so always check with your bungalow owner or find a reliable source or schedule that follows the tide. It was a Saturday morning and the weekend was underway with the Malays and folks from Singapore coming in droves. They would all be leaving tomorrow but this morning the ferry was almost empty on the way back to Mersing. I was on my way to Singapore and a bus was the easiest way to get there. I was told Transnational bus line is the simplest way to go but I didn’t see their bus so I just hopped on one heading for Johor Baru, JB. In JB you run through Malaysian Immigration and catch a second bus for 3.30 Malaysian Ringgit to take you through Singapore Immigration and on to your final destination bus stop at Queens Market basically between Little India and old Chinatown. There are a few guesthouses about but nothing real cheap. I paid 40 Singapore dollars/night for a light blue cell with no windows and air-con. The Hawaiian Hostel boasts the cheapest prices in town but that is not particularly true. http://www.hawaiihostel.com.sg. The one great thing about the HH was its location at 171-B Bencoolen St. between Bugis and Rochor subway stops on the inner city line that connects to all the other lines. There is a free breakfast of toast and tea/coffee but I just had tea and went out into the heat. There hasn’t been much rain in the last two months so things are a little tense. Many of the freshwater fish farmers throughout Malaysia and Singapore have basically run out of water or been advised to move their fish cages into deeper water if they have that option.



The bus ride down was basically void of jungle and animal habitat and replaced with Palm Oil plantations. Including the ferryboat, bus transfers, immigration and I arrived in about 8 hours from Tioman Island to Singapore and cost a total of 75 MR/$25 USD.



Lucky for me I have a few friends living in Singapore, an Indonesian woman I met in Thailand, a Scotsman I met in Kuala Lumpur, and a woman I grew up with and her husband. On the corner of Bencoolen St. and Rochor Canal St. there is a massive electronics and photography building advertising Nikon, Cannon, and so forth but the prices were higher than KL, even though it’s a ‘duty-free’ island, so I didn’t buy anything but another memory card. I was in the market for a new underwater camera.



I walked into a gourmet shop below the Hawaiian Hostel looking for tea, brown sugar and milk for tea when I noticed rounds of Brie and Camembert cheese for cheap and couldn’t get passed the refrigerator door without opening it. Cheese is by far my biggest weakness and when all you’ve had is some local form of Velveeta for the past few years it’s even more difficult to get passed the door. Once I broke I looked for crackers, grapes, apples and a bottle of wine. At the counter the woman pointed up the road to the next block and told me there was a bakery there so off I went for bread. The evening was shaping up into a light dinner and a movie and that suited me just fine.



I only planned to see friends and spend 3 nights in Singapore and there were only a few things I wanted to do; 1) Go to the world renown zoo, 2) visit the Botanical Gardens, and 3) possibly get to the Art & Science Museum down near the main harbor area.



I went to the zoo the next day via the Singapore Rapid Transit, the initials are MRT and I don’t remember why. The zoo is a little ways out of town and can take an hour to get to from downtown. The MRT gets you to a bus terminal where you look for the 138 and hop on that and go for another 45 minutes, depending on traffic, and it takes you to the zoo entrance.



The Singapore zoo is vast and the engineers and designers did a great job replicating some of the animal areas. Some of the animals seem to be roaming basically free in the treetops with rope walkways, sleeping nets, and towers for the Orangutans. Lots of large birds seem to be nesting and flying freely overhead and that still puzzles me.



I’m not a big zoo person for the very reason that animals are taken from their natural habitat and put in a zoo for our entertainment and curiosity, but still, they are captives and don’t interact as they would in the wilds. I took the walk around the circuit and that took about three hours not including a break for a smoothie and a lite lunch. I did see some beautiful animals and the zoo is massive. I could have spent a lot more time there with some of the other zoo options available but I just paid the basic ticket price of 35 MR. There are actually other attractions and ways to get around the zoo besides walking; they offer guided tours, shuttles for those who don’t want to walk and connections to other areas of the zoo such as a river safari, a lake tour, etc.



The Australian section was closed for renovation.



I returned for a shower and caught up with my friend Anna whose boss gave her two vouchers for the movies. We went out for a beer and I signed my latest book for her. We watched ‘Eye In The Sky’. I hadn’t been to a movie theatre in a long time and the air-con was turned way down so we all froze. Anna curled up in a ball in her seat and the cold kept me awake. The movie was okay and the company outstanding. We made plans to meet up the next day and go for a wander through the Botanical Gardens and Anna made a picnic lunch that was over and above the call.



The botanical gardens are huge and you certainly don’t feel like you’re in a booming metropolis. Lots of birds calling in the trees, turtles watching you warily from the middle of the several ponds and lily exhibits, butterflies flitter in every direction, and everything is peaceful. There are many tour groups heading in and out of the popular orchid garden. Many local people use the gardens for exercise or find a nice quiet bougainvillea covered gazebo to read a book out of the sun.



The Botanical Gardens are pretty old and the trees are mature. I wandered through the gardens back in 1989 on my way through Singapore. Much has changed in Singapore but not so much in the gardens, the trees are just bigger and more variety. I’m curious how many gardeners it takes to keep the gardens maintained.



I met up with a friend I grew up with and her husband. They had lived in South Korea for some time in the past and that was the last place I had seen her. It had been at least two years and here we both were in Singapore. They made a reservation at the American Club and had dinner and discussed the up coming election in the U.S. We also touched on Singapore and how it, as a country, has run out of room for growth. The only way they can grow now is demolish buildings and move businesses around for a more compact arrangement, it’s a lot of money but investors seem to find value in the practice.



We all said our good-byes and off we went back to our paths. It was great to see everyone. The Scot and I didn’t get a chance to meet up and we should have. I take the blame because I don’t have a smart phone to make contact when I go out. I could have easily sent him a message to meet me at the Drunken Poet, a British style sports bar with Guinness down the street from the Orchid MRT stop and below the movie theatre I had gone to the night before. Next time.



I was actually looking forward to getting back to KL to buy a new camera and to get sorted for my adventure. I didn’t need much and I knew I’d be spending some time doing a little triage with my belongings, throwing out more clothes to make room for the camera and keeping the weight of my bag down below 15 kilos.



I took the bus back across the Malay border in reverse and headed for KL. The bus terminal is out of town but connects to the KL rail system so it was easy to get into town and back to the Travel Hub. I had two nights before I was scheduled to fly to Sorong, Papua New Guinea via, Jakarta and Makassar, catch a ferry to Raja Ampat and a ride out of Saiway to the Wicked Diving Resort for five days of diving before hopping on a boat and sailing and diving for 19 days back south to Komodo Island and the Indonesian Island chain.



I bought an Olympus ‘Tough’ and an underwater casing at the Low Yat Electronics Plaza. I’ll let you know how it goes on the 21st.



www.davidcdagley.com