Labuanbajo, Indonesia - Diving at Batu Balong...
This was the most incredible diving/snorkeling we've had so far! Ernest and Neman took us out to Batu Balong, one of the best dive sites in Komodo National Park. You dive behind a small rock in the middle of the water that shelters you from very intense currents that flow on either side of the rock. We were told to follow the divemaster closely and turn around when he did or risk being caught in the currents. They could swept you kilometers away in a matter of minutes. There are also powerful whirlpools created by the currents that can suck you deep underwater and keep you there.

The coral is beautiful and the fish life is very intense. On the miniature scale we saw very colorful nudibranchs ("sea slugs") and flat worms. They ranged from one to three inches in length. One of them was nicknamed the "techni" nudibranch because it had such an array of intense colors that it was in "technicolor".

On the large scale we saw fairy bassets, giant trevally, star puffers, Maori (or Napoleon) Wraisse, unicorn fish, sweet lips, hawksbill turtles and white tipped sharks.

(For scuba people - we did this as a multilevel dive, maximum depth of 72-feet, 58-minutes bottom time.)

The boat pickup was quite exciting as we needed to swim away from the rock island but carefully avoid the intense currents. After being picked up our boat motored through one of the whirlpools. It's not a place you want to be swimming or diving!

Our next request was to find manta rays. Amazingly, Ernest spotted them within about ten minutes. We saw about 5-6 of them in a group swimming right under the boat as we passed over. They were in the same area we had cruised for hours on another boat a few days before. We were so excited that one guy wanted to jump overboard immediately to swim with them. Ernest tried to calm us down, explaining that if we jumped in the middle of them, they would swim off immediately. We stopped a ways beyond where we had seen them, donned our snorkeling gear and jumped in. We swam like madmen towards the area where we had last seen them. Later we found out Ernest and the crew of the boat were laughing at us... all we had to do was let the current take us and we would get there just fine.

We spotted a large manta ray hovering around a coral head 35-40 feet down. I would estimate he had at least a 9-10 feet wing span -tip to tip. We could see him very clearly as the visibility was excellent. He was being "cleaned" by butterfly fish. It was bascially a car wash for mantas. We were able to watch him for over ten minutes. From time to time one of us would take a breath and try to dive down as close to him as we could, but he was deeper than our abilities. John may have gotten closest. He spooked him and the manta circled , but them came back to same coral head. They are incredibly graceful and appear to move virtually effortlessly.

I followed another manta that came by the same area. He was swimming leasurely with me directly overhead. He had his front mouth flaps curled up for streamlining. At one point I dropped back and he came up nearer the surface so that I was almost directly behind him. I watched small bubbles come off of his back. It was such a neat experience that I swam with him for over five minutes until he exhausted me.

Back in the boat we had a lunch of rice with a small piece of fried chicken, a cucumber, a piece of cabbage and hot sauce and tea or water to drink.

Our final dive was to a site called "the orange grove" because of the intensity and color of much of the coral in the area. This was a gorgeous area lots of fish and coral. We did a shallower dive that lasted for 70-minutes. Besides the fish mentioned before we saw a palette surgeon and cuttlefish. I was able to get within a few feet of a rather large cuttlefish (about 1-2 feet long) and observed him closely. The are truly strange and fascinating creatures. We also saw several hawksbill turtles.

Labuanbajo to Sayabur Dive Site - Flores, Indonesia...
We met one of our guides, Nemur, at Reefseekers who had a minibus take us down to the dock to catch the boat. We stopped at an island where we picked up the owner of Reefseekers, Ernest, and all the dive gear we would be using. The island he lived on was quite beautiful. He and his wife had bought the island and moved there about 3-years earlier. They had a quite a fight to becoming established on the island in this area due to the antics of one particular person, even though they had lived in other areas of Indonesia for 15-years. Ernest is originally from Scotland and his wife from the UK.

They are building a resort with 10-bungaloos on their island. They hope it will be finished by May 2007. If it is, I'm sure it will be quite nice and, picking up on his keen interest in quality foods, I'm sure the cuisine will be quite good.

This boat was quite a bit faster than the previous one for the 3-day, 1-night trip and it made a big a difference. We got out to the dive area much quicker than we would have and cruising you had always had a nice breeze from the boats' cruising speed.

As we rode out to the dive site, Ernest gave us an excellent briefing on what we'd be looking for. He loved small creatures, like shrimp, crustaceans, nudibranchs and the like, and wanted to educate us on the sea life that most of us miss in the quest to see sharks and turtles. He had several fish books and showed us pictures and explained some of the behavior of the creatures. He was quite educational and often quite funny in mimicing the behavior of the creatures. This was definitely the best pre-dive preparation we have had. Most of the other dive shops take you out, drop you off, lead you somewhere, pointing out a few things along the way, but depend on you to know what the creatures are and how they behave.

The first dive was at Sabyur Ketchel - Horseshoe. We dove down to the sandy bottom and rested there for a while observing some of the more shy and smaller creatures. We saw a "grove" of garden eels that rise out of the sand when they are not threatened and float vertically, tethered in the sand. We also saw gobies, cleaner shrimp, including one that Ernest let clean his mouth (taking his mouthpiece out and opening his mouth to let it enter.) We also saw large bump headed parrotfish, a juvenile sweet lips and I spied a blue spotted sting ray. (For divers, max. depth was 20-meters, bottom time 60-minutes, Ernest was the divemaster).

The second dive was at Sabyur Ketchel - The Wall. I saw my first nudibranchs, a ghost pipe fish, a moon razor fish and many lobsters. (For divers, max. depth was 21-meters, bottom time 57-minutes, Ernest was the divemaster). We had very good visibility for both dives.

That evening Hendrik, Smeeta, John and I went to the other "tourist" restaurant mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide. A 3rd one mentioned was not open. I had snapper with garlic butter and it was very good! I think Kendrik and Smeeta taught us a card game called "shithead" which I thought was quite complicated, lot of rules and wildcards and things you had to remember. I had some of the local palm whiskey (60% alcohol), called Arak or Sope, and my ability to play the new game deteriorated rapidly.

Komodo Island - Labuanbajo...
Near daybreak some of the other boats started up and departed, the Muslem call to prayer song could be heard from a village across the bay and the flying fox bats were returning and sharing their news quite noisily. I don't think any of us had a good nights sleep!

We motored over to the dock near the park station located at another area of Komodo Island. We had another guide take us on a trek on Komodo Island. By one of the buildings was another boar, and sure enough, a Komodo dragon much nearer than the boar. The dragon wasn't very active, so our guide decided to motivate him a little and poked him with his forked, Komodo protection stick. After a couple of jolts behind the rear leg, the dragon lifted up and moved about 20-feet. He then appeared to pose, standing just on his front feet. Quite statuesque!

Our guide showed us some snails on leafs. I didn't know land snails did such things! He also pointed out some cockatoos. Later on there was a Komodo dragon lying motionless in the middle of the trail. We got several photo shots, including having the guide take photos of us four with the dragon. Thenthe guide decided to motivate this dragon as well. This partaicular dragon did not want to move. Our guide tried the same prodding behind the rear leg, but finally escalated to grabbing the Komodos tail. The Komodo really didn't appreciate this and snapped it out of his hand rather dramatically. I have it on a small video I took with my camera.

Labuanbajo to Rinca and Komodo Islands...
The next morning Henrik, Smeeta, John and I had just ordered our "with the room" breakfast- a banana pancake and tea. Smeeta saw a friend at a table further away, but at the same restaurant and went over and sat with her. The waitress came back with our orders and we explained that Sweeta was now at a different table. Our waitress said, "maybe she come back" and set her food on our table. That was classic!

We boarded the boat about 8am and started the journey to Rinca. The engine was so slow you could count the individual firings of the engine. It reminded me of the sound of the engine I remember hearing on the movie "African Queen" (Humprey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn). I am quite confident I can kayak faster than this boat was going. It did not make a bow wave and perpetually produced a no-wake zone.

It took about four hours to get to Rinca. At the end of the dock we were "greeted" by a Komodo dragon lying amongst the rocks, which none of us saw except for our boat crewman. He led us to the ranger station where we paid our park and guide fees and were assigned a guide for the trek further into the island. A few buildings up I noticed a wild boar a little ways back. What I didn't notice was the three Komodo dragons quite a bit closer to us than the boar. They really blend in well with the background! Our guide pointed out a small Komodo in the bushes. He was probably about 2-years old. The big Komodos were probably about 35-40 years old. Komodos can live to about 50-years old.

On our trek we saw a band of macaques monkeys crossing a stream bed and a water buffalo cooling itself off in a mud pit. We climbed hills and got some great views of Rinca and surrounding islands. It was quite hot.

We walked back to the boat, looking for the Komodo dragon we had seen near the dock ealier. We saw him again, and then, after quite a while, noticed there was another one very close by as well. Sneeky little buggas!

We headed to Red Beach and did some snorkeling. The coral was very colorful and varied. There was a current that caused us to drift quite a bit, but it seemed to reverse itself at one point and helped us back towards the boat when we decided to turn around. Hopefully John can describe the fish we saw in his blog.

At dusk we ended up offshore of a flying fox bat colony. Once it turned dark they were supposed to fly enmass out to forage for food. We saw one or two fly by, but no mass exodus. I guess nature just isn't all that predictable!

We slept on something-like gym mats on the cover deck of the boat. We had no sheets or blankets and it chilled down a bit that evening. I think we were all pretty cold during the night.
Side Note: All the meals for the trip were vegetarian, not because they didn't like meat, but because they didn't have any refrigeration and they weren't successful at catching fish by a hand line left over the side during that day. The food was pretty good still. Noodles, rice, veges and eggs with spicy sauces. Drinks were water, tea or coffee.

Ruteng to Labuanbajo, Flores - Indonesia...
Our final day with Harun, our taxi driver, thankfully! We left about 8am and stopped at the spider web rice fields. These are rice fields built like spokes from a cental point. They're quite neat looking, but it was a short visit at a small village to take a couple of photos from a hill and move on. We paid $1 for the village fee.

We later stopped at a rice paddy that was being worked by several
women. They smiled as we took some photos.

We checked into the Gardena Hotel in Labuanbajo into the $10/night bungaloo by itself at the top of the hill. A little later on we ran into Henrik (Sweden) and his girls - Smeeta(UK), Sarah and Megan (both USA) at the same hotel. I had met Henrik first at the top of Kelimutu. He and the girls had been doing the same cross island trip as us on Flores by taxi. Smeeta actually joined up with them in Bajawa, having using a motorcycle taxi for the first two days of the trip from Maumere.

We set about working on planning our time in the area. We wanted to see the Komodo dragons, do some diving and hopefully be able to see and snorkel with manta rays. We found that Reefseekers had good prices on dive trips that already had some people signed on for two days hence. If we found another person it would be even cheaper. We also found a reasonably priced two day/one night trip to Rinca and Komodo islands.

We talked to Henrik about it and he wanted to join us for both of them. Shortly thereafter Smeeta joined us as well. The 2-day/1-night trip was about $45 each, excluding park fees which ran another $24. That included transportation, food and one night on the boat. The first diving trip, an easier dive closer to Labuanbajo, was $40 for two dives, including the boat trip, lunch and all equipment. The 2nd was $55 for the same except we went further out to a more difficult dive siteand also planned to do some snorkeling with manta rays if possible.

We had an enjoyable dinner at our hotel with Henrik and his girls (LOL). We then journeyed down to the only internet place in Labuanbajo, with it's one dial-up computer terminal. We shared an hours worth of time between the six of us. While we were waiting to use the PC, we were entertained by the owners 3-year old son, who demostrated his military knowledge by coming out with a plastic pistol, saluting and marching around doing the goose step. His father said he learned this from a TV program. What is this kid watching?

Bajawa to Ruteng, Flores - Indonesia...
In the morning we told Harun, our driver, that it would be fine to do it in 3-days as long as he returned the money we had given him for the fourth day. He said the four day trip would be fine. Basically he would have pocketed the extra $60 dollars for himself if we had agreed without asking for our money back. Our uncomfortable feelings about our driver increased dramatically.

We left at about 8:00 am for Ruteng. Hayun, our driver, stopped above a local market out in the boonies and let us walk down and explore it on our own. We were the only foreigners and were stared at the entire time. I just walked through the market not taking pictures so as not to be any more out of place than I already was. One local guy spoke some English and accompanied us part of the time. He was nice and I think he just wanted to practice his English. I finally got up the courage to buy some oranges and managed to communicate through using my fingers the quantity and negotiate the pricing. I bought three oranges for 30-cents.

We stopped at a Palm alcohol processing shop that makes it into Arak (Sope). I bought a 16-oz "water bottle" of Arak for about $2 USD. They said it was 60% alcohol. He demonstrated by lighting a sample of it on fire. The guy didn't want us to take pictures of him. In some sections of Flores there were more bottles of Arak for sale than of gasoline.

It was raining most of the way, but we still had some incredible views. They used local materials, like bamboo, for nearly everything, roofs, bridges, staging, water pipes, instruments and home construction. They use banana leaves for umbrellas and just discard them when finished. Everything they use from their environment, when returned, decomposes and becomes part of nature again.

A side note:
Most everything from the western civilation just pollutes, oil products like gasoline, oil, plastic, especially flimsy plastic bags, cars, refrigerators and washing machines. Indonesians, having come from a way of life where you just return things back to where they came from and they naturally decompose often no wonder they don't understand that if you throw a plastic bag out of a car or bus or from a boat, it's going to be there for a long time and may kill some animal that gets tangled in it. It will not go gently back into the nature. It was sad to see the beauty of the oceans in Indonesian spoiled by the odd plastic bottle, can or even a plastic trash bag of garbage.

We visited another traditional village a short distance from Bajawa. The best part of the visit was taking pictures of the children. I showed them some of the photos I took of them and they loved looking and laughing at them. They had not generally learned how to smile for pictures or pay attention to when I was trying to get them all looking in the same direction. I guess I'm no Stephen Spielberg! Some of the boys had learned some tough guys poses and that was pretty funny to see. TV has found it's way into every town and some of the villages as well. Satellites dishes are quite prevalent. How they afford it, I do not know.

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Moni to Bajawa, Flores - Indonesia...

We visited "Blue Stone Beach" where they gather and sell robin's egg blue rocks that are found everywhere on the beach along with stones of pink and green pastel colors as well.

We visited a traditional village at Bena. Unfortunately we were able to tour the village, but didn't get any information about the traditions. They sell sarongs and stoles and some other local items. The one tidbit we did hear was that they still offer buffalo sacrafices on stone altars on special occasions, such as at funeral.

We stayed at the Hotel Korina in Bajawa. On arriving our driver suggested that tomorrow we skip Ruteng and go directly to Labuanbajo, reducing the trip from 4 to 3 days. We said we'd think it over.

We ate at Lucas restaurant, mentioned in the Lonely Planet. I had a really tough and fatty "snapper". John had very good spicy pork satay (The Lonely Planet recommended dish). I had a really tough and fatty "snapper". Henrik was there with the two American girls.

Outside our hotel a French-Canadian couples and locals Max and William asked us to join a group of them that were singing and playing guitar. They had one guitar that they passed amoungst them, as well as passing some Arak and beer that we drank from half a coconut shell.

There were about 10-people and everyone could sing! It was awesome! There was a Japanese couple, the guy played guitar pretty well. We sang La Bamba, Hotel California, Country Roads and Leaving on a Jet Plane. Very cool people and a lot of fun! Finally the guy staying in the room directly behind us got upset about the singing and we had to disperseback to our rooms.

Maumere to Arwanty Homestay, Moni, Flores - Indonesia...
Breakfast at the hotel in Maumere was a little different, two pieces of untoasted white bread with butter and jelly and a hard boiled egg. He also brought us a couple of bananas at the end of the breakfast. The standard free breakfast included with the room throughout the rest of Flores, a banana pancake and a choice of tea or coffee.

We tried changing our tickets on Merpati Air to leave on the 17th rather than the 16th. The first Merpati office couldn't change the tickets and said we needed to call the airline office at Labuhanbajo to make the change. We went to a telephone office to use a pay phone. John called the office, told they the date and they asked what day of the week that was. Don't they have a calendar in front of them at the airline office? She said they didn't fly that day so we decided to leave the tickets as they were. The Lonley Planet guide said flights often get cancelled so we need some extra days in case that happened.

The scenery from Maumere to Moni was beautiful! Very lush vegetation. The roads are "like snakes" as I driver put it, very windy. The traffic hazards are plentinous - things on the road - goats, chickens, dogs, people, cows, water buffalo and - the road itself - sometimes severly pot-holed, small landslides covering part of it or just large rocks strewn randomly as they had fallen.

The driving technique in Flores is like Bali, virtually never stop, give way to the larger vehicles, beep when you doing almost anything or when you're coming near cars, people or blind corners, and pass virtually anywhere with some beeping and quick cuts out and back in again. What takes getting used to is that they cut it so close on passing vehicles and people on a constant basis. One might say they use the road very efficiently, because on most of the maneuvers there is no wasted space between vehicles! They also pass at any location, blind corners, going up or down hills, and sometimes passing in a group of two or three vehicles at a time. The only saving grace is that most of the time they are not driving very fast.

We arrived at our lodging about 1:30 in the afternoon. I decided to rent a motorbike for the rest of the afternoon, since it was out in the country with less traffic plus there wasn't a lot to do there just walking. I had a motorcycle for over six years, but hadn't riden one in quite a while. It wasn't in the best shape and it took a little while to get it started. Until I was driving up the road I didn't realize that it didn't have a functioning rear-view mirror. This might be a bit disconcerting in the USA (and illegal), but in a place where the roads are an ongoing traffic hazard and people are passing all the time at any place, it was quite daunting. I had a full cover helmet on and could only check by turning my head most of the way backwards while driving the bike. It started to rain as well, so I decided to turn around and return the bike early.

I negotiated with the guy renting the bike to pay $2.50 for the short time rather than the $4.00 that I had previously agreed to. As happens, I didn't have exact change and ended up giving him $3.00 and, when he pressed, I just said keep the difference. Shortly afterwards, he invited me to a local wedding reception. I had no idea what this was about, but it sounded like a neat opportunity, so I said yes. He said bring $1.00 (10,000 rupees) for the wedding gift and he went to get ready. I met him a little later and he asked about my dress, explaining this was a "party" and I needed to have a better shirt (I had a tee shirt on). I ended up borrowing John's shirt and jumped on the back of his motorbike to go to the reception.

We saw many people coming from and going to the reception. When we got their there was a large tent set up with chair for about a hundred people. There were greeters at the entrance to the tent and they seated us. The other local people at the reception were very curious about me, giggling as I sat down and laughing, the kids waving at me, but very friendly. Shorthly after being seated we went up to the bride and groom and their parents, who were on a dias, and shook their hands (I made some mistakes on the handshake customs, but they were forgiving) and presented our gift into a slot in a box in front of them. Almost immediately after we took our seats, I had a shawl placed on my lap. My friend told me that this means I have to go up front with one or two others that were chosen and dance. Fortunely before I got up he received one as well. They had a huge load speaker bank and load, fast music. It wasn't hard to dance to and I tried to follow the local dancing format, that was quite simple. People seems quite entertained by a foreigner in their midst participating in this custom and were laughing and smiling. When I went back to my seat several women were kind enough to encourage me saying, "you did good!".

We were led to an area of the tent and given plates for food. They had rice, chicken, beef, chili sause, vegetables and prawn chips. It was quite good. I was presented with the shawl one more time and danced once again. Afterwards I presented it to the another person, as is the custom. We stayed about an hour and then went forward to give a final greeting to the bride and groom and departed.

It was a very warm and memorable experience.

Kuta, Bali to Maurmere, Flores - Indonesia...
Our taxi driver picked us up at the hotel at the exact time specifed, 11:30 a.m. on the dot. I was impressed. When he pulled into the airport he immediately headed towards the international terminal. He asked if we were going to the international terminal and we said no, but I guess they don't get many foreigners flying domestic, so he didn't appear to understand or believe us and drove to the international gate. We finally convinced him we really were going on a domestic flight and he re-entered the airport and took us to the domestic terminal.

There was a $3 per person passenger fee, which on the return from Labuanbajo was 50-cents. I'm not sure why the big difference. Our flight was over an hour late. We ate Indonesian food for lunch while we were waiting.

The flight was full. It was in a turboprop F27 aircraft. I had a window seat with a large but hazed plexiglas window. Even so, the view of the islands we flew over was incredible! It looked like there were hundreds of beautiful beaches and potential snorkeling areas throughout the islands. The flight was about 2-hours to Maumere.

From what we saw of Maumere it looked like one of the dingiest towns we had ever seen. We stayed in a hotel for $6 a night with a beautiful courtyard, but a bathroom where the shower didn't work at all (use a bucket of water for showering), no sink and you had to put your hand in the water holding tank to flush the toilet. I also wasn't able to plug into the only electrical outlet.

Our driver took us to a local Indonesian place to eat and this established our set menu items for the next few days, since the places we were eating at were local and had a very limited menu. John got chicken and rice and I got fish and rice both with a spicy sauce. It wasn't bad, but it did get old eating it for about three days every day. The good news is that, with soft drinks, it cost about $2.80 for both of us!

We went to the only internet place in Maumere and tried doing email and blog entries. I was able to read and send a few emails and post one blogs, but the next blog entry that I wrote was lost two times because of the system. They have a notice about it and provide no discount for any problems with the service. I basically lost 15-minutes if work twice and paid for it. We didn't spend very much longer there.

Trawangan Island, Indonesia - Day 6 to Kuta, Bali...
It's sad to leave Trawangan. We had a such a good time and could have stayed for quite a bit longer. Our UK friend Patrick was nearby the boat dock and wished us goodbye. We were traveling back to Bali on the same boat and ferry as the Canadians, so they were there as well.

On the 2-hour journey on a minibus from the Lombok boat dock to the ferry terminal I sat next to Kim, a really neat woman from the UK. She told me how an around the world trip had totally changed her life a few years earlier. After talking about some of the personalities of her pre-trip boyfriends and how she was now, I can tell that it was quite life changing! The sadest tale she told me was a boyfriend who was very cheap. He had an old frying pan that she would cook some of his meals with and she kept asking him to get a new one for himself. For her next birthday, as a serious and the only gift, he gave her a small frying pan. He loved the USA because you got free food (peanuts or other munches) at the bars where you drank. I cannot picture help putting up with a person like that at all now.

Her new question to potential boyfriends is, "if you could travel to anyplace in the world, where would you go?".

Kim and I continued our conversation on the 5-hour ferry ride. It was a lot of fun and it also made the time pass quickly. She doesn't believe she belongs in the UK and hopes to open an upscale hostel in Spain. She promised to let me know when she does it.

After the ferry arrived, we were routed to minibus for the trip to Kuta. I sat next to Peter and his friend from Austria. They were nearing the end of a 6-month surfing safara covering Hawaii, California, Australia and Bali. As can happen, things did not work out quit as smoothly as planned. In Australia they had rain 3 out of the 6-weeks that they were there. They didn't rent a car and were fairly restricted to the areas they could surf at just due to lack of affordable transportion. The bus charged $50 extra for their boards. They found the most famous surf areas to be very competitve and were sometimes forced out of the area, them being beginner level surfers. Their best experience was in Kuta on Lombok Island. They stayed there for six weeks. They said they had great weather, friendly people, cheap food, inexpensive accomodations and a great beginning surfer area.

Peter, who climbs back in Austria, set up a slack line between trees near his bungaloo. A slack line is like a tight-rope except it isn't tight and it is set a very low level, about 2-feet above the ground (to avoid very painful injuries, if you know whta I mean!). His was 18-feet long. The object is to gain the balance skill to walk the length of it and back. From what I've seen, it is very challenging. He said by the time they had left everyone of the locals had tried it, from kids to grandfathers. Some of the local teenagers actually became quite good at walking the entire line. People accomplished the skill as well.

We got back to Hotel Sorga and I tried to get some money out of an ATM. It refused to dispense any money. After several attempts and trying a different machine, I surmised that they had put a hold on the ATM access. I searched out and found the only place in Kuta, possibly, that sells international phone cards, purchased a card and tried calling the Bank number. After 40-minutes of trying to get through to several different numbers and going to a nearby internet place to find more bank numbers, I called a friend, Tony, in the USA and had him call the bank on his cell phone. He was able to reach them but they would not do bank transactions through a 3rd party, so they gave me a number to call back. I was able to reach them directly, but it took about 10-minutes to go through all the security questions, like, when did you first start your account in Georgia? I don't normally keep that kind of information in my memory banks. They said they froze the account because of the foreign transaction taking place and they didn't have any note (I called them before I left the USA) of me traveling. The fact is, I had been traveling for 3 1/2 months and they did nothing, why suddenly freeze my account? Whatever, I'm not too impressed with my credit cards' security division. I'm not impressed with there knoweldge of geography as well, when I told her I was in Bali, she said, "that's in South America, right?". Eek!

Trawangan Island, Indonesia - Day 5...
I woke up this morning and felt tearful. Don't know why, it may have been all the cats. I thought of my Alaskan cat zero who passed away a few years ago. Went to the dock, as usual and it was quite windy. Waves picked up quite a bit compared to other days. The earlier mood passed quickly and it was just another beautiful day in near paradise!

I had an Advanced Buoyancy dive with Matt today. Instruction started at 10:00 a.m. He was teaching the course to and Italian girl, Kika, and myself. I had read the material and answered the questions correctly. He went over all of them. We took a pony drawn cart to Coral Beach. We started checking our buoyany, taking off our weight belt, having the regulator in ours mouth, taking a deep breath and holding it. We should float with our eyes (inside of our mask) at water level. If floating higher, we would need to add weight. After adding weight, you try it again. It worked out that I used 4-Kg while wearing a shorty wet suit in salt water with an aluminum tank.

We then dropped to the bottom, which was fairly shallow, 3-m or less and practised carrying extra weights by increasing the amount of air in our lungs. I had some trouble with this exercise so he decided to take us along the channel and practice buoyancy maneuvers along the way. That was quite fun. We would practine using breath controls to go under mooring lines and, in one case, to do an underwater somersault around the line. Matt said that I maintained a streamlined position and had a consistent depth for most of the trip. The current was fairly strong so it only took about 50-minutes to make the journey back to the dive center.

During the dive we saw some shrimp fish and Matt was able to "herd" them quite effectively with his hands. They float vertically in the water and maintain that position as they are herded. We also saw a clown wrasse, mantis shrimp and lots of types of puffer fish.

After the dive I tried editing the previous days underwater photos in Photoshop on Rob's PC, but it keep crashing. I was finally able to burn a CD of the images. I talked to Matt and Stephanie and they told me about diving in Komodo, Sumatra and Malaysia. Stephanie had been to Sipadan in East Malaysia and said it was amazing. They said the best dives were between 24-40-meters, an advanced diving level. Both recommended doing a deep dive somewhere else before doing it at Sipadan. The reef drops off to a 800-meter deep ledge and that is where the diving is done, along that wall. They said you must be competent and be able to rely on yourself. Some of the dive companies will not really look out for you. Stephanie suggested renting a dive computer.

Trawangan Island, Indonesia - Day 4 ...
I went down to the dock and watched the locals fishing, as had become my ritual. They were fishing with a homemade bamboo pole using a spray can or plastic bottle as a reel. It was quite ingenious. One of them caught a orange-colored grouper.

I later rented the digital camera from the dive shop and did another snorkel from Coral Beach, getting a lot of good shots of turtles. John and I saw 6-turtles in all. There was a strong current and a lot of mixing of cool and warm water. The temperature differences were quite dramatic.

In the afternoon I had the dive with Rob, we went to Halik Reef again instead of another location because of an issue with fuel for the boat. We did a weight check at the surface, went down and knelt on the sea floor and established neutral buoyancy before beginning the dive.

We had the digital camera with us and shared taking photos. I was able to get very close to a sea turtle and got several clear shots of it.

While showing me a small hole with a sting ray in it, he pointed and I thought he meant for me to hold onto the reef for stability in the current, but what he was pointing at was a poisonous scorpion fish camoflaged into the surround reef. Fortunetly I recognized it before putting my hand on it. It's not deadly, but very painful. We saw a couple of lionfish as well.

This was by far the funnest dive I have had!

Trawangan Island, Indonesia - 3rd Day...
Woke up at 7:30 am, showered and went out to the dock. Some of the locals were fishing trying to catch a squid. I took several photos of the squid, it was quite beautiful! They're translucent, speckled, iridescent and quite graceful in the way they propell themselves through the water. I read that they don't have a natural buoyancy mechanism and have to propell themselves slightly upward constantly or they will sink. I didn't see anyone catch a squid while I was there, but one of them told me the next day he had caught one and had it for breakfast. I also saw coronet and needle fish from the dock.

Dogs are banned on the island, but there are plenty of cats. Almost all the cats appeared scrawny by American cat standards and many have odd length and/or crooked tails. One woman from the UK who works on the island at a dive shop said that the kittens were born with the weird tails, probably a side effect of the inbreeding that occurs in the island environemnt. I shared my meals with many of them. Some of them could be petted while others just wanted the food and couldn't be touched. My previous cat, Yoda, at 13-pounds would appear like a monster cat on this island!

Much of the coral in the Gilis has been destroyed by two factors; fishing using dynamite and global warming. As recently as 5 years ago people were using dynamite to kill or stun fish and then netting them when they floated to the surface. Thankfully, the diving community raised a protest and was able to get it banned, but much of the damage had already been done.

I made my first dive in Indonesia, Halik Reef, with Ong as the divemaster and three other divers. It was a bad day for diving for me personaly. I had trouble with maintaining the correct buoyancy and my gear felt unbalanced as well. I ended up using a lot more air than I should have and had to share air with Ong from his octopus in order not to end the dive early for the others.

In looking back over my very brief diving experiences, I realized that almost none of my dives had been enjoyable. My certification dive was in zero visibility down an anchor line in rough seas. The next few dives in the same period were in rough seas with poor visibility. In Fiji my intro dive, after not diving for over 10-years, was OK - very basic, but the open water dive the next day was in the rain and again with poor visibility. I did fine diving, but didn't enjoy it because of the visibility. Why was I paying all this money for something I didn't enjoy?

I talked with the owner of the scuba shop, Rob (of course also a divemaster) he said it was a fairly common experience and offered to take me for a dive the next day with just he and I.

After talking to Rob and deciding to do the dive the next day, I grabbed my snorkeling gear and hired a pony cart for a ride to the top of the island for a snorkel back to town. I a wonderful time, as usual. It took about an hour, but most of the time I just floated with the current. I spent over five minutes following a sea turtle, then watched him ascend for air, grab a few breaths and dive to the bottom leaving me behind. The reef next to the channel is always full with fish and other creatures. I saw some more mantis shrimp and lots of puffers as well.

That evening the power went out in the Trawangan. I thought it was power system fault, like in the USA, but later found out that they often turn off the power if they are running low on fuel or trying to conserve fuel, since it is very expensive. Some of the restaurants and stores had generators and were still open.

John left for his night dive, and I had dinner at one of my favorite, generator powered restaurants. It was a good meal of tuna steak with garlic butter, salad, baked potato and a fried banana as dessert. It cost about $3.50 USD.

Trawangan Island, Indonesia...
This was our first full day on the beautiful island of Trawangan. We had banana pancakes and tea, which would become our regular, supplied with the room, breakfast for the next 5-day. The weather was sunny and calm and we decided to go snorkeling a little later on in the morning. I thought I might get hungry, so I bought a local brown paper bag meal for 5o-cents. It consisted of a meal-size quanity of rice, a few noodles, a chunk of spicy fish, tofu and vegetables. I ate it with my fingers and it was quite messy but delicious.

1st Snorkel trip of the day...
We started snorkeling at the far end of the beach at the beginning of the channel between Trawangan Island and Meno Island. The visibility was excellent. I would guess 60-feet or greater. We spotted a variety of marine life, including squid and a unicorn fish amidst the other more regular tropical fish. We also experienced minor stings from some type of jellyfish. Very minor, more like mosquito bites.

Then we started seeing large, slow moving sea turtles. They are truly calming and mesmerizing. They did not seem to be noticibly disturbed by us and I followed several of them, watching one as he made a long ascent to the surface for some air. We saw four of them during this snorkel and each one was quite beautiful and peaceful. It is amazing how graceful these large creatures are!

The channel between the islands has a deeper, mostly sandy bottom and the color of the water in it appears a very deep blue. We experienced a farly strong current that moved us along the channel towards the center of town.

We had lunch at a local restaurant and ended up sitting next to Patrick, who we had met on the ferry the day before. I had an excellent honey fish curry that I shared with one of the local felines. The cat hardily approved of the choice, as did I! It came with rice and a small salad and cost about $2.00 US.

2nd Snorkel trip of the day...
We rented mountain bikes and bicycled to the other side of the island to a beach near Halik Reef. We swam towards the reef and encountered a steep trench and stayed slightly inland from it. There were a series of coral heads and hundreds of fish. In areas it was quite deep but still very clear. The experience was like being in a huge aquarium.

3rd Snorkel trip of the day...
I liked the first area we had gone to better, so later on in the afternoon we returned there. We encoutered a couple more turtles and I had some awesome views of the turtles body coming up in a vertical position for air backdropped against the deep blue water. I could surface and see the turles head poke out of water for a breath and then see him descend again. It was very cool!

We also saw more unicorn fish, giant puffers, 3-moral eels inhabiting the same coral head, a lion fish and more squid.

That evening we encountered the Canadians that we had met in Fiji, saw again in Auckland, New Zealand, ran into at an Internet cafe in Ubud, Bali and now found eating at one of the local restaurants in Trawangan! We just can't seem to lose them nor them us! We had dinner with them and a few drinks and caught up on our similar experiences in Australia, even though we didn't end up meeting in that country. The food available in Trawangan, like Bali, often covers Indonesian, Chinese, Thai and western food. This evening I chose the Red Curry with Chicken and rice.

The local beer is Bintang and a pink bottle goes for about $1.40 US at a restaurant.

We had a full day, a good meal, and some beer and retired early, about 10:30 pm.

Kuta - Bali, Indonesia to Trawangan Island, Indonesia...
We were picked up by a 6 am taxi for the ride to the ferry terminal. We had breakfast at a local place before beginning the 5-hour ferry ride to Lombok Island. On the trip over we saw dolphins and flying fish. It was a nice day. The sea was very calm. The ferry is quite slow, or I guess you could call it "relaxing".

We met Patrick, originally from South Africa but now living in London. He was planning his trip while on the ferry. He was trying to find out information on how best to get transport to the area and climb a 12,000 foot peak on Lombok Island. This is one of the tallest mountains in all of Indonesia. He found that they arranged trips from Trawangan, where we were going, so he decided to try to get a bus and boat to Trawangan.

Simple food pleasures can help on a journey. When we arrived off the ferry and were loaded onto a small, non-air conditioned minibus I bought a fresh pineapple that had been excellently carved into a pinapple stick, all the rind removed and the base made into the handle. It was quite juicy and delicious. We later stopped at a store and bought a package of REAL Oreos! Quite a treat.

While waiting for the small ferry boat from Lombok to Trawangan, I decided to engage and conversation with one of the locals and expected that I would end up buying some small piece of handicraft. It was interesting, got into the bargaining stage and still enjoyable. I bought a small hand crafted necklace with the figure of a gecko carved into bone. It was quite nice and ended up costing me about $3.00 US. Unfortunately one of the other teenage vendors saw me buy it and beseiged me intensely to buy another necklace for several minutes before the ferry boat arrived to save me. It was quite sad, pathetic and annoying all in one.

We came over to Trawangan on a very long wooden boat amidst some fairly large waves as we were crossing the channel between Meno and Trawangan Island. One of the swells came over the side and drenched two of the passengers and their backpacks.

We found a room with two beds, a bathroom with a toilet, air temperature shower, and a fan for $4.50 USD a night. Not bad! Meals were between $6 and 12$ for both of us.