Hidden Reefs
20/02/2020 Bay of Besir, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
We received some great news the other day that my parents will be coming for a visit in early April. They are flying into Flores where they’ll spend a few days in luxury before joining us on the boat for a week or so in not so luxurious conditions. That means we now have a hard time constraint that we need to work towards. With or without them though we are all running against the clock of Indonesia. We have to be out of the country by the 20th of June which should be the date of expiry on our last visa extension. ZigZag and we are planning to head North to Malaysia, Family Circus are a bit unsure about their future plans, but are at least heading to Bali with us.
In light of this we had a planning session on ZigZag yesterday to roughly plan out the next couple of months of travel. We are going to try and cover 2500km from where we are now, near Waisai all the way to Flores over the next 7 weeks with a couple of strategic stops along the way for a swim with whale sharks and a place to extend our visa. It is an ambitious plan, but the more experienced travellers think it is absolutely doable. It sort of reminds us of the similarly ambitious plan to travel from Brisbane to Darwin over a similar timeframe not too long ago which failed miserably. It worked out well in the end of course, but it was still a fail nonetheless.
We did come away with a short term plan as well to move the boats to Besir Bay, just around the corner which is claimed to have a nice anchorage. Before we did that though we thought we would do a dinghy exploration of the mangroves around here as they look really nice from the anchorage. We didn’t start off too well as 10 minutes into the roughly hour long trip I realised that the petrol tank was almost empty. I did some rough calculations in my head and gambled that there should just be enough. I told Georg when we caught up with him and he said he would look back every now and again to check we weren’t dead in the water. All good.
We then spent the rest of the hour weaving through some of the most beautiful mangroves, surrounding some huge coral forests lying in the dead calm waters. We didn’t go at the most opportune time as there weren’t many birds, but that also meant there weren’t many insects. You can’t have everything. We did spot a few nice bird’s nests though. One of which was huge and really high up on the tip of a dead tree. It must’ve been for one of the many sea eagles we see fishing in the afternoons. Either that or a pterodactyl.
We got back to the boats well after 3:30pm which meant it was too late to move to Besir Bay, so that’s what we did today. This new anchorage is nice too. A couple of classic limestone cliff islands with a few traditional fishing boats anchored between them. Beautiful.
After we got settled some of us went for a trip to find ‘the platforms’ (random tip from passing cruiser) that are meant to be somewhere in the bay. After a quick 20 minute search we found the very nice dock and quite good dug out stairway up to the first set of ‘platforms’. And that is exactly what they were. Platforms built up in a tree about 10m above the ground, or just far enough to break an arm, with a ladder to climb up onto. There were no rails, or any kind of safety mechanism whatsoever. For someone like me it was absolutely terrifying to go up there, for everyone else it was their idea of freedom with a view. Having said that though, after I got up and sat down and took in some deep breaths to calm my jumpy nerves, it really was a special place to be, looking out over the bay, down to our little boats anchored in the middle of nowhere surrounded by beauty.
21/02/2020 Yangello, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
Happy birthday Jake! We got up nice and early today as the traditional treasure hunt for Jakes presents started rather early. After it was declared ‘the best birthday ever’ at 8am we made pancakes and ate hungrily. We then took Vanja to the platforms along with some of the ZigZag riff raff, as Vanja didn’t get to see them yesterday.
After marvelling at the view once again, we moved the boats to Yangello, the claimed best snorkelling spot in the whole of Indonesia (according to our cruising guide). When we arrived there wasn’t really anywhere to anchor as there was already a boat in the one listed anchorage, and Philip from Parotia (who we met in PNG) was on the one mooring in the area. We decided to go anchor next to Philip. The problem with the anchorage here is that it is really deep right up to the edge of the mangroves. The solution is to drop anchor about 20m from shore, then tie off some ropes to the mangroves so you sit in a controlled manner. It would be fine without that if the wind continually blowed you towards the mangroves as the anchor should hold, but if the wind changed then we could be blown around and the anchor would just pop out as we don’t have enough chain out to hold us at that depth. Anyway, we’d never done this before so we were happy to let ZigZag be the first to try. They are seasoned professionals. Georg just dropped his anchored and backed up like he was driving a Mini Cooper in an empty car park, when it felt to me like I was driving a semi-trailer in a Westfields at Xmas time. Thankfully both Georg and Philip came over to help with my lines, no doubt after hearing my heart beating from 100 metres away.
Family Circus arrived about 20 minutes later and asked if they could just tie up to us. Sure, why not! The kids were super excited about this as it meant they could just run straight over to FC any time they wanted to and vice versa. It’s like doubling your house size instantly.
After everything settled down we started preparing for Jakes birthday dinner on our boat with everyone. We made curry, garlic bread and cake. What more could you ask for! The night started with an acrobatics show that the kids put on. It was pretty cool. They did a choreographed routine up and down the mast in harnesses, something akin to Cirque du Soleil, but a bit rougher around the edges. They had been practicing for the last couple of days and had the bruises to show for it. The other boats of course brought a dish each for dinner and they were all delicious. ZigZag also made an awesome cake for Jake which made ours look a little sad. Doesn’t matter though as ours tasted better. Haha. Jake declared it as the best birthday dinner ever, so that was nice.
24/02/2020 Frewin Island, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
Here we are back at Frewin Island. It’s almost like we never left. The morning after Jakes birthday the other boats all headed back to Waisai for some cleaning and provisioning before taking on the epic 1300 miles to Lombok. We didn’t need to do as much since we already did the cleaning a couple of months back in Sorong, so we decided to move the boat to Yenwaupnor, the renowned bird of paradise viewing area, and see if we could organise ourselves a guide to take us for a show.
We made it to the village around 5pm and started driving around looking for a decent place to anchor. The coordinates in the guide book took us to nowhere suitable so we just drove around with one eye on the water, one eye on the charts and another eye on the depth sounder. It took us quite a while but we managed to find a 10x5m area with a pretty reasonable 20-25m depth. We dumped the anchor down on it hoping it would grab. If it didn’t we’d have to get going pretty quickly to make it back to Frewin, a relatively well known area for us now, at a reasonable hour. The anchor held and we jumped in the dinghy to head to shore to find us a guide. We didn’t really know where to go so we just went to the beach where the main wharf was. There were a couple of young guys there hanging out so we tried asking them about the bird of paradise. They ushered us over to another group of people, one of which spoke a little English to our delight. He told us to come back here at 5am. ‘Will you be taking us?’ we asked. ‘No, Nico’, he said. Ok, I guess that’s sorted. Let’s hope Nico gets the message.
The next morning we woke up at the very uncivilised time of 4:30am. Yep, all four of us. The kids were actually quite keen to go, so that was a nice surprise. Vanja and I on the other hand really had to work hard to get into the dinghy. It was pitch black, we couldn’t see where to go and we didn’t know whether Nico even existed, or if he did whether he knew we were coming. When we got to shore our fears were somewhat eased as the guys who we spoke to yesterday were there in some capacity. Unfortunately, they were fast asleep on the table though and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t wake them. Short of poking them with a stick anyway. We decided to wait there for Nico until 5:30 at which time we hopped back into the dinghy to go back to sweet sweet bed. On the way back though we noticed a torch being shined directly at us, so we headed towards it, a little unhappy that we don’t get to go back to bed, but also a little excited that this could be the infamous Nico. We pulled up to the wharf belonging to the torch and who is there to greet us? Nico of course.
He takes us ashore and hands us each a walking stick with a smile. He doesn’t speak much English but we manage to get out of him that the walk is not far. He is wearing thongs, so it can’t be that tough of a walk. Thankfully our assumptions were right and within 30 minutes we were told (with hand gestures) to be quiet from now on. Pretty good timing really as the kids were just starting to get a little restless with all this walking through beautiful tropical rainforest. Maybe it was because it was still dark so not much to see. Anyway, we went another 10 minutes before we came to a makeshift amphitheater with 6 rows of homemade seats with the back rests lying at a 120° so you are forced to look up into the treetops. The guide ushers us to sit down before sitting down himself. We stare up at the tress waiting in silence as light starts to flow into the trees around us and the forest starts to wake up. It was really quite a nice experience, until the kids started whining anyway. We fed them a muesli bar which bought us just enough time to hear the first chirps of the bird. The guide pointed out the call, which was not all that musical, more like a stuffed toy making a loud screech when squeezed. We looked up and got a glimpse of the bird. It was very high up, so not all that spectacular, but if you’ve seen any documentaries on them you’ll be able to imagine what they look like close up. That’s what I did anyway. It definitely had the long thin string like tail feathers. At least I could see that. And I did get a pretty decent photo in the end showing the green head and red body. We saw 2 in the end, competing for some unseen female no doubt. It was a really great experience, but it’s not exactly national geographic. It cost us 500,000 Rupias, about $AU50 for the guide.
When we got back to the boat we had some breakfast before setting sail (with the motors) to Waisai to meet up with the other boats again. When we arrived we headed straight to the marina in our dinghy to enjoy the luxury of a pool and bar. The beers cost $AU7.5 for a stubby though, so not exactly cruiser friendly. The pool was nice though and the kids had a great time.
The next morning Vanja went to town with the other girls to do the provisioning while I stayed on the boat to do some boat projects. Chris’ Dad (Big Chris) arrived yesterday with a huge box full of goodies that we all had delivered to his house. Thanks again Chris! One piece of equipment was a carbon filter for our water maker. I’ve been complaining to the other boats about how our water stinks of dead things when it first comes out of the water maker. It must lose the smell mostly as you can’t really smell it from the tap. Anyway, the other boats have one of those carbon filters on their product water lines and swear by them. I managed to find the filter housing in Sorong, but there were no carbon cartridges to be seen. Enter Big Chris. Now that I had all the gear I just had to install it. I managed to cobble together the required plumbing parts from the dwindling spares box and some unused portion of the plumbing network. After only one mishap causing the hull to fill with water, all was fine. I had it cleaned up before Vanja got back, and the kids were busy on their iPads, so no harm done. Now we have nothing but water, smelling of water, going into the tanks. Success. The other project I managed to successfully complete was the new fan installation into the spare room. Not only is the room much more pleasant to be in, but the fan can also point into the kitchen providing some well needed artificial cooling.
Once Vanja got back we headed straight back to Frewin Island, where the water is calm and the diving is great. The other 2 boats joined us a couple of hours later. There also seems to be another boat here, possibly with kids. We’ll have to see about that tomorrow.
25/02/2020 Frewin island, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
We went back to Blue Magic today for another dive. It was a bit of a hopeless start as we went out there in the dinghies, and realised once we were out there that we didn’t know where it was. Chris did have the coordinates on his tablet, but it went for a swim last week so they were lost. We drove around for about an hour looking for a needle in a haystack. Needless to say we didn’t find it. Chris and Sayo went and asked a local fishermen who was nearby, but they basically told them to F off, and go hire a guide. We then went over to a moored liveaboard charter boat and tried our luck with them. They were really nice and said we could follow them in 10 minutes when they go to take their guests to the site. Lucky too as we were way off in our search, probably by a kilometre. When we arrived we asked the dive boat driver if we could tie our dinghy up to him so it wouldn’t drift away. He said yeah no worries. So nice. Chris was determined to tie their dinghy off to the reef, so that’s what they did. Unfortunately though it meant that we didn’t get to dive together as we needed to go down soon after the dive group so that we came up around the same time so as to not annoy them too much. Oh well, it meant it was Vanja’s and my first solo dive together. Hooray. And it was beautiful. We saw so many huge fish and sharks we lost count. At one point I was watching a beautiful school of smallish fish doing their thing when an enormous tuna of some kind came exploding through the middle of them, presumably trying to catch it’s lunch without success. It was incredible to witness.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We pretty much rested all day until it was cool enough to go back out into the sun. I took the kids to the beach with the swings and we played until sunset. All in all a very nice day.
26/02/2020 Air Borek, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
Well, stupid me forgot to get fuel for the dinghy/generator the other day at Waisai, so guess who had to go back and get some. Vanja’s regulator has been causing her a bit of trouble, so I took that along for the ride as well. As soon as I left it started pissing down rain, and it didn’t let up until I arrived at the dive shop. One thing to note about the transport here in Indo is that when it is nice and sunny it is so easy to get a ride with someone, but as soon as the rain comes out no one is on the road. So I basically just stood there in the rain waiting for any vehicle to come past so I could beg them for a lift. Eventually I gave up and started walking the 3 kms to town with my 3 empty jerry cans. Thankfully the rain stopped for just enough time for a moped to come up behind me. He yelled out ‘Ojek?!’, I said ‘Yes!’, and 2 minutes later I was at the dive shop. Nice.
Unfortunately none of the English speaking staff were working today so I had to explain the problem using sign language and the translator app on the phone. Those apps are good, but can be difficult to get complicated messages across. Anyway, I think they understood after 10 minutes of broken communication. I understood that it would take a couple of hours to fix. Fine, I’ll go get the fuel while I wait.
I jumped back on an Ojek and he drove me from one end of town to the other looking for a fuel station. For some reason they were all closed. Nobody knew why. He eventually took me back to the dive shop where I asked the owner if she knew anywhere else I could get fuel. She made a few phone calls and spoke some rapid fire Indonesian to the Ojek driver and the next thing I knew I was driven across town again, then walking into someone’s back shed which was full to the brim with large, probably 200L fuel containers. It appeared to be some kind of black market fuel depot. It was a very well run operation though with filters and a stamped receipt in the end. I think I probably paid a small premium, but I was happy to have full jerry cans again.
Last thing on the list was to grab some beer. This probably seems like a stupid thing to mention since it should be a reasonably simple operation, but here in Indonesia alcohol is an unknown quantity. I’m not sure about the legality of it, but some places sell it quite openly, whereas other’s make you feel like you’re a heroin addict looking for one last hit. Waisai is one of those latter places. The dive shop owner was kind enough to offer me a lift back to the dinghy. When we got in I asked if we could stop to get some beer on the way. She nodded and took me just around the corner and parked in front of a small shop. I opened the door just as a car was pulling up in front of us and she leaned across and slammed the door on me. ‘What the hell?!’, I thought, and she proceeded to tell me in extremely broken English that police sometimes stake out the place looking for bribes from her dive guests who stop to buy beer from here. Yeah, I don’t really get it either. Anyway, when a man dressed as a nobody got out of the car she motioned for me to get out as well. I then walked towards the shop front and she said, ‘No, no, no. This way.’ pointing to the gate on the side. As she looked over her shoulder we went through the gate into the maybe 50cm gap between the buildings. The ground was full of mud from the rain and that stink you only find in 3rd world towns which don’t have proper drainage, or sewage systems for that matter. We go about 20m in past the graffitied walls and she knocks on a back door quietly. Someone opens and she speaks quietly to them in Indonesian. She then asks me how many and I say 12, to which I get a single raised eyebrow back at me. At this point I’m questioning whether she understood me correctly when I asked for beer. It’s pretty unmistakable, isn’t it? It sounds nothing like pot, weed, coke, meth, heroin or whatever else I was imagining was about to land in my hands. She then tells me 36 Rupia, which actually means 360,000. I hand over the money and she gives it to a hand in the doorway which then produces a black plastic bag full of beer. I regain my breath and we walk out of there as if nothing happened.
When I got back the other boats had already left for where we are now, Air Borek. I haven’t got the full story, but it sounds like Family Circus were threatened by someone at the dive they went on today. Not sure what happened, but they were pretty spooked according to Vanja and wanted to leave straight away. Our kids managed to hitch a ride with the new boat Rainbow Safari, along with Aya and big Mia and Noah. That means, including their own four kids, they were hosting 9 kids on that 3 hour passage. They have been travelling alone for a couple of months, so I guess having other kids to play with is a priority. I remember that from PNG.
Vanja and I prepared the boat and got going. No wind, so off we went motoring again. About an hour into the trip we got the scare of our lives. We were having a discussion about I don’t know what, when all of a sudden we hear this weird crunching/scraping noise, sort of like when chain drags along concrete. Vanja jumped into action realising exactly what was happening, yelling ‘Stop the boat!’. I still had no idea what was going on and was looking at the anchor thinking it had somehow gotten snagged on something. Of course, the reason for the crunching/scraping was that we were driving right over a shallow reef! I smashed the motor into reverse immediately and we slowly stopped, but I then saw some swell coming up behind us and remembered that the worst thing you can do is have your boat slam up and down on a reef, so I jammed it back into gear and tried to get moving off the reef. We slowly started moving with more crunching and scraping reverberating through the boat until we seemed to be off the reef and floating again. Both of us were in shock not knowing what to do or how the hell that happened. I snapped out of it and went and checked all the compartments for leaks and whatnot. Thankfully the hull wasn’t breached and we weren’t taking on water. We debated whether we should stop the boat and hop in the water for a look, but I thought that it would be better just to get there and have a look once we were there and calm.
We spent the next half hour discussing what happened and why. There were 3 crucial mistakes leading to this incident. 1. The planned route took us too close to the reef which was marked on the map, albeit off by 50m. 2. The satellite imagery we have for the area appeared to show nothing as there were clouds in the photo. So unless you looked very carefully and zoomed right in you could easily miss the small 20m2 reef. 3. We weren’t paying attention when the charts clearly showed we were near a potential reef.
On top of that I think we just happened to be extremely unlucky to be driving over that exact spot at that tide. An hour later and there would’ve been enough water under the boat to just glide right over. Needless to say we spent the rest of the journey with our eyelids peeled back scouring the sea for more reefs. I’m just so glad the kids weren’t onboard as I’m sure they would have been terrified.
When we arrived I jumped in the water to have a look at the boat under the water. It appeared that only the bottom of the keels were affected, but I’m not sure to what extent as the current was so strong I could only stay under for a few seconds. I’m satisfied though that the hulls are fully intact, so at least we should be able to sleep tonight in relative confidence in the integrity of our home.