Trav's Travels: November 2015

Day 1

11/7/15

We caught a 1:30am flight from Jakarta to Sarong, which is in Irian Jaya on the island of Papua. I had been to Sarong before as it was the starting point for a flight to the center of Papua where I hung out with some of the still traditional hill tribes famous for their penis gourds. Here’s the link to my blog on that if interested.

http://www.travisjguy.blogspot.com/2009/10/penis-gourds-bones-in-through-nose-and.html

We arrived into Sarong at 7:30am and were transferred to the boat we were going to be on: Sea Safari 8. I got everyone their rooms and then we waited for the rest of the guests to arrive (some from Bali, and others who had been in Sarong).

I have been to Sarong and Irian Jaya (West Papua) before back when I was doing my yearlong trip through Southeast Asia. This trip would lack all of the cultural experiences that I had back then as it was basically flight to airport shuttle to fancy hotel shuttle to airport flight to airport taxi to boat and then in reverse again. West Papua is super interesting b/c it still has most of its traditional tribal life intact in the interior. So when I visited before I flew into the center and then did a trek through some of the hill-tribe villages where they still go around mostly naked, (the men wear only penis gourds and the women only skirts) live in little thatch huts, and where a chief offered to trade my headlamp for one of his daughters. Super fascinating place. If you missed reading my blog about it back in the day, you can read it at this link: it’s my most viewed blog by far of any of my blogs (goes to show what most people are googling, hint, it rhymes with genus)

The boat is of course insanely fancy (for me though some of the guests don’t agree..but that’s just how it’s going to be with extremely wealthy folks). And of course the meals are amazing! My cabin is small as I’m in the bow, but very nice and cute how it’s arranged. I spent most of the afternoon running around, feeling a bit like a chicken with my head cut off trying to solve problems (people who couldn’t figure out the aircon, room issues, etc) while not really knowing much about the boat. I made sure to introduce myself to everyone and tried really hard to remember everyone’s name. The divemaster/local guide on the trip is Dalton, and I am lucky b/c he is a super great guy and very helpful to me.

I’m in charge of 13 guests. 2 from Australia, 2 from Vancouver, and 9 from California.

During the dinner we set sail for 15 hours to reach the island of Misool

Day 2

11/8/15

The snorkels are set up so that we snorkel in the morning from 8:30am-11:30 and then again from 2:30 to 4pm. The snorkels today were in just some purely amazing coral gardens full of such colorful and diverse hard and soft corals. Raja Ampat has the great diversity of corals anywhere in the world and also has some of the most pristine reefs in the world, which is why it’s famous. The water is very warm, which is nice. Most people are using very thin wetsuits since we are in the water for such a long time, but I haven’t felt the need to yet.

Snorkel Highlights (Parondi Reef on Parondi island):

-2 banded sea snakes

-a couple spotted stingrays

-several nudibranchs

-so many clownfish (nemos)

-octopus

-school of squid

-those corals!

In the evening I gave a lecture of fish and coral ID. It seemed to be well received and I think I did a pretty good job, and it was a relief when it was over b/c I had been pretty stressed.

The boat left in the evening for another 15 hour sail to Batanme island

Day 3

11/9/15

Another 2 snorkels.

Snorkel Highlights (Dayang Island)

-2 sea turtles

-banded sea snake

-lots of giant clams

-amazing cuttle fish that I watched for a very long time as it is constantly changing color as it moves over different corals. It changes colors so smoothly and it seems so magical. The sweet grandma lady who I showed it to exclaimed through her snorkel “holy sh*t, that is f*cking amazing” That made me smile a lot. She is one of my favorite guests. Her and the aussies of course.

-giant school of Scads

-lots of pipefish (same family as sea horses)

In the late afternoon we took a boat ride around some of the islands looking for birds. We saw a couple hornbills and some sea eagles. We also walked around on a little sandy island. Most of the islands in Raja Ampat, however are very steep and made out of sharp karst rock (mom, similar to El Nido Philippines and Krabi, Thailand).

In the night we set sail to Batanta Island.

Day 4

11/10/15

Morning boat ride to look for birds. Saw some parents. Beautiful scenery though through karst bays with gorgeous blue-green water.

2 snorkels.

Snorkel highlights (Anita’s Garden on Penemu Island and Keruwo Channel on Keruwo Island):

-Lots of box fish

-some large sweetlips

-blue spotted stingray

-a couple nudibranchs

-really fast drift snorkel

Hike up to a viewpoint that had a most magnificent view of the karst bay with it’s blue-green water. When we got back, Joanne who is 82, was sitting under the air conditioner sewing this nativity scene blanket for one of her grandchildren. It had been a hot hike and she said that sitting under the air con felt wonderful but that she'd truly be in heaven if she had a vodka tonic. She was unaware that the boat had a full bar, so I had one of the guys make her one. The look on her face was priceless when they delivered it to her.

Gave a lecture on coral reef ecology in the evening and then watched stars from the top of the boat

In the night the boat sailed to the Fam Island group.

Day 5

11/11/15

Morning boat ride to look at birds, again through pretty karst islands.

2 snorkels. A lot of jellies in the area, so a lot of us got stung. I got stung quite bad and I had bumps all over my face and hands, and they were all really swollen.

Highlights (Aljuy channel and Aljuy Reef on Aljuy Island and White Arrow reef on Waigeo Island)

Swim through cave

a couple moray eels

beautiful wall corals

Saw some dolphins from the snorkel boat, which was cool

Red snapper for dinner. We have fish for almost every meal other than breakfast.

Gave a talk on fish behavior and biology

In the evening the boat moved to the Dampier Strait and Gam Island.

Day 6

11/12/15

Started the day with a 4:30am hike through the jungle in search of the red bird of paradise. We found them! And in fact found 6. They are beautiful birds, and it was really cool watching the males do their courting dance with their long tail feathers. On the way back down, we saw something that was of even more interest to me and that was a cuscus, which is a marsupial with a prehensile tail. There was a cute traditional little fisher village at the start of the hike that we hung out at for a bit on the hike back.

Saw some dolphins swimming around the boat while eating breakfast

2 snorkels

Highlights (Swingkrai reef on Gam Island and Friwin Reef on Friwin Bonda Island):

2 sea snakes

Wobegong shark

Black tipped reef shark

Cleaner fish going all the way inside a large titan triggerfish’s gills.

Later afternoon boat ride to a small island to look for birds and flying foxes (aka fruit bats). Dalton said they used to have thousands there, but they recently started building a small resort there, so there aren’t many anymore. We did manage to see 4. They are such cute little guys!

Crab for dinner.

In the evening we set sail to Mansuar Island.

Day 7

Friday the 13^th

2 snorkels

Highlights (Kri Reef on Kri Island, South Mansuar on Mansuar Island):

-6 sea turtles

-1 huge banded sea snake

-4 black tipped reef sharks

-big school of giant bumphead parrotfish (these are GIANT parrotfish)

-some big groupers, tunas, trevallies, and snappers

1 dive 50min 200 bar-80 bar 80F water, skin suit, 4kgs, 20.5m deepest. 12:00pm

Amazing dive!

Saw a turtle right away, several black-tipped reef sharks, a spotted eagle ray!, huge schools of barracuda, lots of large tunas, lots of trevallies, 2 Napoleon wrasses, 1 giant bumphead parrotfish, a giant potato grouper, lots of other groupers, large snappers moray eel, big group of large spadefish, lots of big angelfish. Just tons of big fish, and huge schools of fish all around. So beautiful and amazing!

Gave a talk on Mangroves and sea grass and their importance to coral reefs

Day 8

11/14/15

3 snorkels (one night snorkel)

Highlights (Yambuba Jetty and Reef on Mansuar Island and South Kri on Kri Island):

-5 turtles

-1 blacktipped reef shark

-school of barracuda

-school of giant batfish

-lots of big snappers

-several giant starry pufferfish

-just lots of big fish

-2 schools of huge bumphead parrotfish

-blue spotted ray

-lots of unicorn fish

Before the night snorkel I took a few people in the group to Yambuba village on Mansuar Island. We stopped by the shop to get some chocolates and then walked down the main little avenue that was maybe ¼ of a mile. It was a tiny little vehicle-less island village that was very poor. The thing that I noticed right away as did the folks I was with was how the church on the island really stuck out like a sore thumb. The village was so very poor and all the little shacks where the people lived looked dilapidated and falling apart, but at the end of the main avenue was this giant and gorgeous baptist church. It was a church that would look fancy in even Gainesville, but here it just seemed ridiculous. It also happened to be the only structure on the island that was probably above typhoon level flooding. I could tell it left a bad taste in most of the guests’ mouths b/c they wondered, as did I, why they couldn’t build a more modest church and instead use the large sums of money it took to build that church to help build some better houses and a better school or at least repair some of the houses that were in shambles.

night snorkel (Yambuba Jetty on Mansuar Island)

-3 walking sharks

-wobegong shark

-4 turtles

-baramundi

-lots of crabs, including a decorator crab

Day 9

11/15/15

In the early morning we sailed for an hour to the southeast of Kri Island

2 snorkels…just tons and tons of fish, including lots of big fish and lots of big schools of fish

Highlights (Cape Kri reef on Kri Island:

-13 blacktipped reef sharks

-10 turtles

-lots and lots of huge bumphead parrotfish

-lots of trevallies

-several tuna

-tons of titan triggerfish

-several very large starry pufferfish

-large school of batfish

1 dive

6:30am 200bar-80 bar 50 mins. 17.0m max depth. 80F water, skin suit, 4kgs

-wobegong shark

-huge school of bumphead parrotfish

-large school of sweet lips

-1 turtle

-school of barracuda

-large school of batfish

Jumped off of the crow’s nest of the ship to the huge delight of the crowd. I had promised a few people that I would climb to the top of the masts and jump off into the water, a height of 50-60ft. They couldn’t believe I would possibly do it, and all of the guests and even some of the crew gathered around to watch me do it, all with cameras out.

Gave my last lecture on coral reef threats and conservation.

In the evening we set sail back towards Sorong where we arrived in the morning.

Day 10

11/16/15

We had breakfast on the boat, said sad goodbyes to the crew, and then headed to the airport. The crew was really amazing, including Dalton. They were all so friendly and helpful and just nice guys. I liked to have a lot of fun with them and joke around and tease with them, which I know they like and I think the rest of the guests appreciated.

At 10:45 in the morning we took a domestic flight from Sarong to Jakarta. I got a window seat, and I enjoyed looking out the window at all the beautiful islands and reefs of the Indonesian archipelago. I was hoping to see some smoking volcanoes as we flew over some of the bigger islands, but either we didn’t fly over any of them or they were in a few of the cloudy spots that we flew over.

I have on my ipod a really hilarious Jerry Seinfeld comedy act that Rick Carlson gave me back in highschool. In it Seinfeld is doing a skit on airports and airplanes and is poking fun of the little show the flight attendants do. And he says something like “they also show you how to work a seatbelt in case you haven’t been in a car since 1965. ‘oh you lift up on the latch. I thought you’d just break the metal apart. Or I was just going to rip the fabric. I figured if I could just get it started’ ” We always laugh at this part of the skit. But on this flight, I sat next to a lady who could have paid more attention to the flight attendant’s little “show”. She was obviously Papuan and from her dress and odor, I assumed she wasn’t living in the city of Sarong. She couldn’t figure out how to work the seatbelt, so I showed her. My guess is it was her first ride on an airplane and if she’d been in a vehicle it would have likely only been a public bus that wouldn’t have seatbelts. There’s also a chance she didn’t speak Indonesian—only the Papuan tongue—and so wasn’t able to understand the flight attendant’s directions.

I’m sitting in the sapphire airport lounge right now b/c the oceanic society said they’d pay for me to chill there because I have a long layover here in Jakarta, but not long enough to get a hotel. So I’m chilling in the lounge sipping a Bintang beer and catching up on real life since there is wifi here. The lounge is nice: it’s air-conditioned, has showers, free food, beer, and drinks, and nice couches to relax and big windows to watch the downpour outside.

Dalton and an Orchid

Red bird of paradise

cuscus

flying fox (fruit bat)

Sule and I after a dive

Dalton and I giving the snorkel briefing

sea safari 8

getting ready to jump

The group who made it to the top of the lookout (L to R: Larry, Suzie, me, Sue, Ted, Joanne, Cory, Katie, Gwynn, Charles, Terri. Missing: Patty, Trish, Carol)