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
