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| The Far Side Of The World- Raja Ampat |
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17 Feb 2009 (565 days ago)
The destination- Raja Ampat, Indonesia.
November 2008.
Where to begin? Firstly that I’d never dived before so I was snorkelling and never been to such an exotic part of the world. Phrases like “trip of a lifetime” often overused, are the only way to sum up an adventure like this one, crystal clear warm seas, stunning sunsets, marine life so abundant and varied that even as a novice I understood how special an area of the ocean Raja Ampat is.
I simply cant tell you about every meal and every adventure there are too many to go into detail, each day had it’s new experience each time in the ocean there were new creatures, and on land there were magnificent tree’s, birds, including hornbills and cockatoo’s, there were orchids and unusual pitcher plants hanging from the limestone, there were caves 100 metres in length 20 metres high, with stalagmites and stalactites, fruit bats, there were aqua blue lagoons, dolphins, I even saw the spray from the blowhole of a whale, I visited little stilted fishing communities with children running by my side smiling and laughing at the pictures of themselves that I took, I swam with turtles, and barracuda, and tuna.
Maybe it’s best that I tell you about my first day or so aboard Tiger Blue……and other bits that come to mind.
We arrived in West Papua, and were met at the airport by Wouter, our wonderful captain and dive master, a 10-minute cab ride to the small dock where the launch was waiting to take us to Tiger Blue. A quick charge across the bay, and we pulled up to the Boat, you will see the pictures for yourself, but it’s a stunner, traditional and elegant.
The staff met us with broad smiles and carried our bags aboard and into our cabins, plenty of room, air con and a private bathroom.
The staff were really friendly and we were given a cool drink and a little bite to eat. Nice start to the adventures to come.
We sailed through the sunset and overnight, about 85 kilometres south to Raja Ampat,
The first meal aboard was Indonesian, and delicious, we’d got hold of a few bottles of wine, and we ate and chatted and relaxed.
I woke early and came on deck to an amazing scene, beautiful flat clear sea, tropical volcanic/limestone Islands covered in exotic trees, all around us.
After breakfast we set off for a dive, I was snorkelling. Even from the surface and a couple of metre’s down, you could see so much, the coral itself is varied in shape and colour, both hard and soft corals, huge fan corals, other bright stuff that is so strong in colour it’s quite difficult to believe it’s natural! The visibility was perfect and it was full of sea life of every colour combination, fish of every shape and size, from little clown fish, popping in an out of their safe havens, to large snappers sailing past, the fish seem to have no fear of man and just go about their business pretty much oblivious to you, and in each little section a different animal interacts with another a big parrot fish takes a bite out of some hard coral, just below that there is a sea slug, to the right of that another creature goes about it’s daily ritual. Shoals and Shoals of brightly coloured fish move in and round the reef, some larger animals drift in and past.
That first swim pretty much set the scene for the rest of the trip, and after a while I began to be able to identify some of the individual species.
Back on Tiger for a shower and lunch, then off on the launch for another dive, again a coral reef off a small Island, the current was a little stronger this time, not difficult in any way, I just drifted along and the guys on the launch picked me up and dropped me off at the beginning again, the life was even more abundant, probably more large fish this time.
In the late afternoon, we went for a little explore, and found the perfect white sandy beach to build a big driftwood fire and watch the sunset, Wouter radioed back to the boat, half an hour later the bottle of Rum arrived, rugs, ice, lime, coke and cerviche of Spanish mackerel, and sashimi with all the bits and pieces. We sat with huge grins on our faces, watching the sun go down thinking it could not get better than this. And in honesty I don’t think it could. Well that is until the chef arrived with a sensational fish curry with rice, warm plates!!
We star gazed on the beach till midnight, and swapped stories of the days diving, or snorkelling in my case, back to the boat and a great sleep, again to wake at another stunning location.
There were many different ways to enjoy life on the boat, and sometimes just reading a book on deck was the nicest feeling, looking out over the ocean, observing the myriad of little islands, seeing and trying to identify different birds, the hornbills were rather special, with those enormous beaks and flashes of colour. It was always a nice feeling waking up each morning in a different part of the ocean, each group of Islands has little quirks and surprises, one memorable stop we took the launch out to explore a silent, still, clear watered lagoon at the far end was a small encampment, a wooden hut on stilts looking out over the sea on one side and the lagoon on the other, a Papuan family were there: - three young children their parents and a grandparents, the oldest boy of about 8 years was fishing with a line and a can as the reel, he caught several small fish with ease the parents showed us their little piece of paradise, the sun was setting they had their fire lit ready to cook supper, they were smiling and laughing, could of course be the beetle nut they were chewing, but they seemed to be having a good time.
The days were spent in general with dives in the morning and afternoons, we popped into some of the small dive resorts to say hello and chat with the guests and owners, everyone seemed to share the understanding that this area really is special, seasoned divers are up at the crack of dawn to get that next dive in, to see something new or bigger or rarer, our party were a little more laid back than that, doing more of a variety of things, exploring the interior a little, an explore from the launch and basically kicking back and enjoying ourselves.
I think perhaps the most thrilling time in the water for me was off a small coral reef, there was a shelf and a drop off, Wouter happened to be with me, I was happily snorkelling when I saw a huge tuna about 4 metres beneath me it was stationary for a while I did swim down to take a closer look but is sped off Vaulter tapped me on the shoulder and pointed above me, there were probably 30 barracudas, the largest being over a metre, they were just slowly circling, hanging there and I was in the middle, an awesome sight, a great predator and perhaps only a couple of metres away, maybe I’m foolish but I had no fear, they were not feeding it seemed, and were not concerned with me at all. If only I could scuba dive I would have stayed and watched but after a breath of air they were gone. Perhaps five minuets later a turtle swam right past me and settled beneath amongst the hard coral outcrops, I swam down 2 metres to take a closer look, I could have touched it I was that close, it just stayed there quite contentedly feeding, That’s the remarkable thing I found, was that as one species leaves another arrives, it’s the diversity that’s the interesting part.
I think I should conclude now, I could go on and on, but best I think for you to read some other accounts, all I can say is that it really was a trip of a lifetime, and I’d encourage anyone who has not thought about this kind of trip before to go for it, it’s a great combination luxury and adventure.
Rory Cunningham,…… November 08 |
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