Enter The Diving
10/02/2020 Waisai, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
We said a temporary goodbye to ZZ and FC this morning as we left for Waisai at around 10am with about 15kts on the beam. This meant we could put up both sails and actually sail. I know, crazy. It’s been so long since we sailed I had to run through everything in my head beforehand to make it happen. It is so nice to turn the engines off! We arrived in Waisai at around 4:30pm after sailing for about 3 hours before the wind died and we had to crank on the engines again.
The plan is to get up reasonably early tomorrow and head into town to get a couple of sets of snorkels. We somehow managed to lose our 2 good sets in the space of a couple of weeks. The first set was lost after a night swim amongst the bioluminescence. We think it was kicked off the back step by someone in the darkness. The second set was lost when Georg was being a little over exuberant in the dinghy sending Vanja on a backwards somersault off the front of it while holding her set of snorkels. Of course they went flying into the 40m deep channel never to be seen again. Snorkels are the life blood on a trip like this as without them you are losing out on half the fun. Hopefully the dive shop we heard about in town can sort us out!
11/02/2020 Waisai, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
Successful mission into town today. We dinghied over to some wharf, tied off and ventured up to the main road. Within 20s we four were on the back of 2 mopeds heading into town with the wind in our hair. We were dropped in the middle of the market, which was really nice, much nicer than the Sorong market, cleaner and with lots of shade. We had a wander around before checking the map to see where the dive shop was. It didn’t look far so we walked. The lady at the dive shop was very nice and sold us a couple of masks for a similar price to what we paid in Australia and they looked a similar quality. All good. I then asked how much to rent dive gear and then whether they sold gear. She said yes and gave me a price of $IR9,000,000 including a tank, which is the equivalent of about $AU950. We said our thankyou’s and headed back to the market with our new snorkels.
After a few goes around the market we caught mopeds back to the dinghy and then zipped back to the boat so we could make it to where FC were anchored a couple of hours away. On the way we discussed the idea of buying the gear and immediately thought how good it would be to have our own gear. We don’t know the brands or really anything about scuba gear, so we thought we would get there tonight and do a bunch of research on prices and brands etc. If all checks out we might just pull the trigger. We don’t have enough room for a compressor so we would still have to find somewhere to fill our tanks. But still, wouldn’t that be cool?
We made it over to Frewin Island around 4pm and said hello to FC and invited them over for dinner. They eagerly agreed, but an hour later a mega squall came ripping over us and made dinghy entry all but impossible in the big waves that the storm brought. They gave up after a couple of tries and we decided to postpone until tomorrow.
12/02/2020 Frewin Island, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
There is a really cool little beach around where FC are parked. It’s full of nice homemade benches and a bunch of homemade rope swings hanging from an incredibly huge tree growing horizontally out from the mountain’s edge across the sand and over the water. We packed a lunch and made a day of it with FC.
Jake dragged me up the tree against my will to climb it and jump off near the water. It was probably only 3 metres high at the highest point along the trunk, but it’s that sort of scenario that absolutely terrifies me. I’m proud to say though that I made it to the end, even with all the mocking coming from below.
While we were on the beach we met an interesting family from Alaska, USA. They were a family of travelling healers. Yes you heard me right. They travel to countries of need, healing people (through prayer), who have had no luck or can’t afford using the traditional, yet modern methods of medical science. They were very proud of the work they did and were keen to show me some video of the results. Let’s just say it was not exactly conclusive. Vanja found them fascinating to speak to, but it wasn’t really my thing. I can’t help but think how cruel it is to offer false hope to those in need. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. It seemed to make them happy, and their 3 kids. Though when it was time to go to the next village to do some healing, all the kids wanted to do was stay and play.
FC finally came over for dinner tonight and we had leftover bolognese. It was absolutely delicious. Meals like that always taste better the next day. It was a great night and everyone went home happy and full.
13/02/2020 Frewin Island, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
After long discussions over the pros and cons of owning vs renting scuba gear yesterday, we decided to go back to Waisai today and rent the gear with the option to buy it in the end. We went early this morning, around 9am as we figured we would go straight to the shop, get the gear and return before lunch so we could fit in a dive after lunch. If we took the dinghy it would only take 30m to get there giving us plenty of time. Wrong.
We got to the dive shop around 9:30, right on time, and were happy to find there were 2 more people working there today who spoke perfect English. Milo, the dive guide / interpreter / technician took us through some of the gear we would be hiring. Because we were also considering buying it he took most of it apart to check the inner workings of all of it. Lucky too because some of the stuff was clearly in need of a service. Their philosophy was to only really fix stuff when it broke, with the exception of the tank of which they do a yearly visual inspection. It gave us quite a bit of confidence watching Milo service the equipment in front of us. Swapping out parts that were in 60% condition for parts that were in more like 80-90% condition. Considering we were renting / buying 2nd hand gear I was ok with that. After fixing up the regulators we went and tried on BCDs and then finally chose tanks. After testing all the equipment in a bucket we were all satisfied with the deal. We paid the rental fee of $IR1.8m for 5 days per set of gear.
Vanja and I were now starving as it was now 1pm. Milo recommended a place to eat some local cuisine, and it really hit the spot. The tripe soup was not what we were expecting, but it was delicious, well the soup anyway. We left the floating pieces of stomach where they were if we could.
When we got back to the dive shop for a lift back to our dinghy the owner of the shop Olga had a change of heart and wouldn’t let us leave with the gear unless we left our passport with them or paid the full purchase price with promise to return the difference if we brought the gear back. I guess they were scared we would get back to our sailboat and decide to sail into the sunset with the loot. I suppose that is probably good sense, even though we felt really annoyed by the whole thing as there was no mention of this the other day when we were talking to her about it.
So now we had to do all the haggling of purchasing the gear, and then go and get money out to pay for it if we were happy with the price. They could’ve accepted a credit card, but they wanted to charge a 5% fee adding another couple of hundred to the price. No thanks. So after we haggled the price down to $IR8,750,000 for 1 set of gear, Milo drove me to the ATM where I was to find that our card had been locked, again. This was happening almost once a week on average. No matter what we say to the bank, they just keep locking the card. Needless to say, their algorithms need some tweaking for people like us.
Anyway, after Vanja called the bank and got them to unlock it yet again, I proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes emptying the ATM of almost all of it’s money, not to mention our bank account. We went back to the shop, pockets exploding with millions of rupiahs, and paid in full for the gear. Everyone seemed happy then and we headed back to the dinghy, absolutely exhausted at 4:30pm. We sped home with the gear barely keeping our eyelids open, though excited about the opportunities lying ahead.
14/02/2020 Frewin Island, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
We tested the gear out this morning on a very nice wall in the channel around the corner. It’s an absolutely beautiful wall of coral and many a fish to feast your eyes on. The gear unfortunately had a few major problems. Most importantly, my BCD continually filled with a small amount of air meaning I would have to release it every few minutes or I’ll start floating up to the surface. This is not very safe, not to mention the wasted air. My 1st stage was also leaking quite a bit of air, not from the bottle, but from inside the 1st stage, which is not normal. And finally, Vanja’s depth gauge did not work.
This was a little disappointing since we spent so much time at the dive shop yesterday testing everything. Unfortunately these 3 things were not tested, and I didn’t even know I should test them. Oh well, live and learn. Because of this I now had to go back to the dive shop to see about getting those broken bits replaced. I contacted them and they initially said they might be able to come to me, but I decided in the end that I should go to them to ensure everything was all good.
After a quick lunch I jumped in the dinghy for the roughly 30 minute trip back to Waisai over open ocean. Unfortunately just after I left, a reasonably large squall passed to the side of me kicking the wind up to 15kts and into my face. The dinghy handled the wind and chop pretty well though and after 45mins I was back in Waisai. Milo, the dive shop guru met me at the wharf and proceeded to test the gear in the water. Of course the BCD didn’t do what it was doing with me, but he said I could exchange it anyway. He tested the leaking 1st stage and also agreed that it shouldn’t be doing that. He took me back to the shop where he exchanged more bits with bobs and we went through the process of checking the stuff again. This time we checked it even more thoroughly and by 4pm we were all happy. They even gave me a bag full of little cakes as a peace offering which I ate on the way back. Somehow, the wind had also turned around and was still in my face coming home in the opposite direction. Not sure how that happened, but it was pretty annoying.
15/02/2020 Frewin Island, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
This morning I was woken up at 6:30 by some guy holding onto the back of the boat yelling out, ‘Hello… Vanja’. Turns out Vanja had spoken to this guy yesterday about taking us on a tour to see the bird of paradise up in the jungle, but they hadn’t agreed on a price to take the group. For some reason he thought it was a good idea to pop over at 6:30 this morning and wake me up to finalise the deal. I would argue that it wasn’t. Anyway, a little while after I politely told him to come back another time, I saw him clutching on to back of ZigZag trying his luck a second time.
After breakfast we all jumped on FC for a ride out to Blue Magic, an underwater reef a couple of miles away in the middle of nowhere. We had no idea where to go, but luckily Sunny Girl, a cruising boat parked next door, has done the dive a few times before and were going again today and allowed us to tag along. Georg stayed on the boat with all the kids while we all jumped in the water when we were over the reef like a troop of marines with Chris yelling ‘Go, go, go…’. It was a bit stressful getting into the water, but once we were down there it was absolutely beautiful with so many fish hanging out at the reef in the current. We saw sharks, wobbigongs and white tip reef sharks, huge wrasses, massive tuna, barracudas, and everyone but me saw the largest manta ray they’d ever seen. Not sure how I managed to miss that. After the dive Chris said it was the best reef dive he’d ever done. Which says a lot. I thought it was a pretty good dive, but I was still a bit nervous about the gear. I think as I get more comfortable with it I’ll be able to relax underwater and enjoy the dive more.
After lunch we decided to take the kids on a dive again. Georg, Chris, Aya, Lara and I went for a dive on the wall of magic in the channel. This is the same place we went the first time with the gear when it failed. Vanja, Sayo and Jake went for a snorkel around the same place so they could pick us up in the dinghy. Lara was a little nervous when we first got in, probably due to the scuba diving as well, but mostly because of all the jellyfish in the water. There were squillions of them floating around. After we geared up, jumped in and started sinking though she settled down and was clearly excited and having a good time under water. Every time I asked her if she wanted to go to the surface she said firmly no and by the time I had to go due to my lack of air she was very disappointed. We may need to get another set of gear for this one!
When we got back from the dive a long boat showed up out of nowhere and sold us a huge tuna for $AU10. Sashimi for dinner! I felt a bit bad for the tuna, especially because we spent a good part of the day admiring them in their own habitat, but then I made up some positive reasons for eating it in my head so that I could sleep tonight. All good. And the fish was delicious.
18/02/2020 Frewin Island, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
Yesterday we followed Sunny Girl out to another dive spot, Mike’s Point. This is a rock sticking up out of the middle of the sea surrounded by a reef. It has good snorkelling on the East side with great diving on the West. We jumped in off the dinghies on the East side and dove down the reef wall to about 15m and proceeded to slowly move around the rock before finishing up on the West side. Sunny Girl had hired a ”boat boy” to look after their dinghy and to pick them up when they’d finished. So it was really nice of them to let us tag along and to pick us up too. The dive itself was amazing with huge schools of fish and really beautiful coral and rock formations under the water. I loved it.
We relaxed for most of the day after that until around 3pm when Chris radioed to say his compressor couldn’t be run because his generator was not working. Georg and I jumped into action and went over to help. I mainly just sat around making unhelpful sarcastic jokes, but after a couple of hours they got it working again.
Today we went back to Blue Magic. This time I was a lot more comfortable with the diving and the gear. It was absolutely fantastic. The schools of fish were amazing, the coral was colourful and my air almost lasted as long as everyone else’s. It was a perfect dive.
The rest of the day was just spent bludging around the boat not doing much. It’s amazing how tiring it is diving every day. Not sure if it’s the extra Nitrogen in our blood or the fact that getting ready before and packing up after a dive is so much effort, but we are absolutely buggered in the afternoons. Lucky we don’t have anything important to do.