The Good, The Bad and the Ugly – (The Diving Bit)
This post is specifically about our diving experience in Raja Ampat. We only dived together on two occasions as I came down with a bad ear infection shortly after we arrived and just as I recovered the Wooky was himself struck down with the same affliction and confined to his hammock for almost a week. We had different gripes but agreed that the diving was excellent. Continue reading
Part 1
Visiting Raja Ampat on a mid-range budget
Raja Ampat is arguably one of the finest destinations in the world for underwater exploration with a tank on your back. Despite the challenges of getting there, paying for the privilege (it’s expensive, but it is a privilege), and the sometimes tricky diving conditions (unpredictable currents and some questionable equipment standards), and even taking into account our overall experience (which was not particularly positive) we cannot deny that it has got to be up there with the world’s best diving experiences. The diving is amazing (what we saw of it anyway). But what happens when we visit? We are both struck down with nasty ear infections wiping out a week of diving for each of us.
WARNING: Contains a lot of fish
We loved the diving here and the Wooky took some amazing photographs of some amazing critters, some beautiful fish (when they stood for long enough, which they rarely did), lots of moray eels, some beautiful landscapes and really weird stuff. Continue reading
Dive Report
Wakatobi’s claim to fame is that Jacques Cousteau said (allegedly) that the diving around the Tukang Besi Islands was among the best in the world. I have undertaken a cursory search on the internet but I am only able to find reference to this on an Indonesian tourist website so I remain dubious. However now we have experienced the diving firsthand we can confirm the underwater world here is, indeed, mightily impressive and Monsieur Cousteau may well have uttered those words. Continue reading
Wakatobi wasn’t on our radar when we began researching our trip but we stumbled across it and learned more about this fairly remote part of south east Sulawesi (originally known as the Tukang Besi Islands) so it was added it to the ever increasing list of places we wanted to visit.
New Year was out of the way so a few days diving was on the agenda followed by a day or two exploring on a scooter.
We were excited to be getting back into the water again and looking forward to cooling down a bit. The three annoying Dutch joined us for our first 2 days but it wasn’t much of a problem because when you’re underwater you can’t actually hear anyone talking. This is one of the reasons the Wooky has taken to diving in such a big way. And the fish of course. He loves to chase the fish. He’s like an underwater puppy sometimes (and just as difficult to control). Continue reading
While we are at Pia’s Poppies we heard good things about Tanjung Bira. We had originally ruled out a visit to Bira as part of our itinerary as this would have involved doubling back to Makassar but when we cut short our stay in Toraja and found ourselves with a spare week we decided to detour to Bira for a few days after all – a decision we didn’t regret. Continue reading
There was a little incident on a boat trip while we were in Donggala. One of the German guides was to accompany us on a day trip to two dive sites across the bay. Paul was a tad disappointed it wasn’t one of the Indonesian guides because the German tended to get quite cross with him, for example, for failing to provide a running commentary on his air supply. Her mantra was “The dive is my responsibility, I am the guide” and when it’s said over and over again in a German accent it can get a bit tedious to a fairly experienced diver (particularly as he seemed to be unfairly singled out for this sort of treatment – he is neither reckless nor irresponsible). And anyone that knows the Wooky will know he doesn’t take too kindly to being told what to do by anyone. Ever. Me, I was tolerating a lot of hectoring, given my novice status, happy to accept any advice thrown in my general direction.
We jointly (and severally) made some rookie mistakes when packing what we now deem to be useless items or simply too much. We also harboured what we now realise to be pretty unrealistic ambitions as to what our current capabilities are. Not to put too fine a point on it we have had a reality check.
Our plan was always to spend a couple of weeks at our favourite dive resort in Central Sulawesi (Prince John Dive Resort, Donggala) but it’s popular so we were thrilled they had room for us at a time that fit in with our, as yet, vague itinerary.
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