Monday 22 October 2012

Wonderful Waigeo - Raja Ampat

Our stop at the equator involved more diving. This time some high adrenaline dives with swift currents and some big fish – we even managed to spot the Raja Ampat walking shark. Out of the marine park the boys couldn’t wait to get out the spear gun and catch some crays for dinner.


Instead of fireworks, our equator party included a call from Daryl on Metana advising that he had to administer CPR to Toni after she had suffered some kind of fit and could we get some assistance on the radio. Thru the trusty HF, we put out a PAN PAN and got NZ radio, who called Australia, who called Indonesia who sent out their Sea Air Rescue boat to assist. Nice to know someone is out there in emergencies.

Setting sail for Aus, we farewelled Metana and Gadfly for the last time and headed for a leisurely tour of Alyui Bay, sailing between a narrow karst cliff lined channel, diving with hundreds of solar powered nidibranchs at the White Arrow dive, visiting the local pearl farm, navigating through the mangroves to fresh water streams, collecting fresh oysters and checking out ancient rock art. We even squeezed in listening to the Sydney Swans win the grand final on the HF radio.


After a hot tip from the Pearl Farm and keen for some land adventures, we headed further into the bay for a walk up a mountain. We were surprised to find pitcher plants.



Unexpectedly, we've not seen a store now for about 2 weeks. Fresh veges were becoming a memory, lucky we like coleslaw and baking was becoming our favourite past time, homemade crumpets were a hit one morning. We were even resorting to desperate measure with the coconuts – taking from fallen trees!


With Simon suffering from the mystery illness again we made a push for Sorong.  At one point his fever reached 39.8 and he was delirious and shaking. Thank goodness Scotty was aboard, his calming influence was greatly appreciated – Simon spent 3 days in bed, arising only for entering or exiting anchorages or winching the tricky dinghy up before returning to his death bed. Simon awoke on day 4 with no idea as to where the boat was or how we got there! While you were sleeping, we saw no reason not to mix travel and nursing with exploring – Scotty and I dived in mangrove lined reefs, drift dived narrow channels with names like Citrus Ridge & Palau Yum where I spotted a huge sleeping Wobbygong, enjoyed bird watching and forest walking and visited a small island which resembled the south pacific more than Indonesia. Wish we could share the amazing diving but with no underwater camera – you’ll just have to come and see it yourself to believe it!


1 comment:

Amanda said...

Goodness the last little bit has been a little too adventurous.
I hope Si is recovering and that your friend made a full recovery after needing CPR! xo