Doshisha Days

We are half-way through our second full day at Kadidiri Paradise, the dive resort we are staying on in Togean Islands. We arrived at the main port Wakai around 3 pm on Monday and we were immediately met by reps from the dive shop who ferried us over to the island. The island is absolutely gorgeous, a narrow stretch of sand – our own private hideaway and a bunch of bungalows a stones through from the beach.

Yesterday was our first day on our open water course, Dan, Dries and I were the only students. We had to read a 250 page textbook, replete with quizzes and a final exam, which we all scored well on (Dries caught a stomach bug and fell behind by a day). We also did our first confined water dive yesterday in which we had to demonstrate a variety skills that we had read about - totally screwed up the mask clearing exercise when I opened my mask from the top instead of the bottom and totally started gagging on brine – fortunately I was only in 3 meters of water and could abort to the surface, but I still became the class idiot of the day.　Still need to sort out my mask issues before I go back in the water today.

This place is amazing. Completely isolated, with no vehicles or even roads, electricity only in the evening for 5 hours, the food is prepared and served communally. This place is pure paradise, no need to try and state it more clearly than that.

14 March

It’s official: I am now a certified diver with 5 open water dives under my belt. My Acehenese instructor Salim, Alex, Daniel and Dries were all a great help in this undertaking. Dan, sadly, leaves tomorrow and I will miss him dearly as my dive partner.. I began feeling sick yesterday evening and today am fully under the weather., so it may be a few days before I go into greater detail, but I will try and do so before all the details fade into obscurity.

15 March

Rested and recovered, still sunburned and sore, but I am otherwise okay. I am up early as I fell asleep around 8 pm last night. It was just as well because Dan was woken up and told that despite yesterday being informed that his boat would leave at 9 am, he was rushed off at 7:30. He’s gone now and only the 3 of us remain. We’ll stay one more night here before heading northward and to Manado.

On the 13^th Dan and I completed open water dives 3 and 4 in which we demonstrated the final skills we needed to complete our course. We practiced a controlled emergency ascent from 6 meters, took off our mask underwater and replaced it and demonstrated our compass navigational skills among others. These dives were all done in the reef off-shore.

Yesterday we went out to Pulau Una Una, about 2 hours northwest. Apparently, as I read after I had gotten back, Una Una was a volcanic island that had exploded in 1983 blanketing the entire island in ash. It’s a shame we had no time to explore the island, we had come to dive off its shores and check out some bigger fish. We anchored off-shore by the pinnacle, a giant underwater island that supported thousands of coral and fish. We saw but a fraction of this, which was still plenty. A bluefin trevalley, hunting for prey, came right up to us but then backed away when the half-meter fish realized that we weren’t food. We saw teeming schools of many different fish, some of the most colorful and oddly shaped fish, Moorish idols, titan triggerfish, bigeyed trevalley and more. We went down to 18 meters and marveled in our colorful surroundings.

I skipped the afternoon dive since I was not feeling so great and rested up for the following day, and I hope today we can head out and see the B-24 bomber…

16 March

T-minus one week to go on this fantastic trip across Sulawesi. This is our final day in the Togeans, our final dive this morning. Yesterday we dove on the B-24 Liberator, my first wreck dive. The bomber went down during World War II due to engine failure. The crew stayed with the ship until it crashed into the water and then they escaped and swam to shore, sinking important top-secret documents down into Davey Jones’ Locker, and evading capture by the Japanese. The entire plane was in quite good condition, Alex and Salim even swam through the windows of the hull. There were thousands of fish surrounding the wreck, including about a dozen or so Lionfish, beautiful yet highly venomous. Visibility was quite bad, although only 21 meters to the sea floor, we could only see about 5 meters ahead. It was quite eerie, dropping down into the abyss, the plane slowly fading into view before our eyes. It was a short dive for us, only 25 minutes, I need to get better at using my air. Still, I made it to 21 meters, almost 70 feet below the surface! I am very much looking forward to diving in Bunaken.

18 March

Paradise lost! But hopefully soon to be regained after leaving the teeming and unkempt city of Manado for the tranquil waters off Bunaken island. We arrived in Manado last night after another marathon 24 hour travel session that was once again not without the requisite dose of tragic-comedy (depending on your perspective, which in this case is quite easy to tell whose was tragic). Our trip started off quite easy, we dove one last time in the morning at Kadidiri, although it was a bit more difficult than normal thanks to some murky conditions and some errant jellyfish. . We were fortunate enough to see a spotted eagle ray at least. Still working on my air consumption, my running lungs need to relax.

After a delicious final lunch we tried once again to search for the famed coconut crabs that live in the Togeans – the largest arthropods in the world (I had gone in search the day before and could only find smaller specimens). Although we did find a few, none were the size that I had hoped for. Upon showering and settling our bill, we boarded the speedboat for Wakai to await the ferry north to Gorontalo.

We left our gear at the home of an Irish expat – his beer belly protruding proudly over his sarong as he watched rugby on the television (why someone would choose to settle in Wakai, the least attractive settlement on the islands must have confounded greater minds than my own).

Our ferry came and we promptly bought our tickets and got our places in the executive class – for an extra $2 with plush reclining seats. In our group were myself, Alex, Dries, Burgit and Carlito, two Austrians and Teemu, a young Fin. We spent the first half of the boat ride watching the islands float by as the sky darkened, revealing a pockmarked star-scape. Eventually we retired to our cabin, where after suffering both bad Indonesian and American programming, the lights were dimmed and we all soon fell asleep. I awoke, the sky had started to lighten at the periphery, and the cabin lights were once again on. I man was ranting in Indonesian for over a half-hour, and his diatribe was hard to ignore. It sounded as if he were recounting a story from his past. I don’t know why I think that as I can only guess as to what the hell he was saying, but that is what I would have guessed.

We finally arrived in Gorontalo not long after dawn, a 12 hour journey in total. Burgit and Carlito had already arranged transport. And so we followed them to our driver who was an associate of the driver that they had used when they were in Gorontalo before. Unfortunately, our driver was incompetent and impatient to the point of danger. We quickly redressed the situation temporarily by accepting his demands for more money when he got mad for making him wait while we logged on at an internet café for the first time in weeks.

Eventually we were on the move which was things got worse with this guy. Driving like a banshee on tortuous, narrow roads; a mother duck and her ducklings waddled onto the road, our lane, and instead of slowing, instead of using his horn, he simply drove over them, quacktracide, the only thing to show for it was a “what me worry” smirk. I was both incredulous and irate at the cruelty of the whole affair. A few hours later, the moron careened into a goat that ran out in front of the car. Poor kid, his owner’s children saw the whole drama unfold. This hit and run was a little less avoidable, but the guy sort of gave a “my bad” look to the children and kept going. I forget to mention that the guy kept on chucking rubbish out the window and into the street the entire time he was driving, and after being repeatedly told to slow down, he continued to drive like a man possessed.

Fortunately, we made it to Manado in one piece, checked into our hotel, got beer, washed up and hit the town – in that precise order. After a pleasant meal at a Chinese-Indonesian establishment, we ended up at this enormous disco, on top of the Mega mall. There was literally no one there, but it was fun for a while at least. I was quite exhausted by the end of the night. We retuned to our hotel at 3 and rested up despite some pretty noisy streets adjacent to the hotel. Teemu took off for Jakarta this morning and the remaining 5 of us head to Bunaken this afternoon.

# posted by K_L_M @ 09:42