37 replies to this topic

[chinacat46]

Well I had a very exciting time on my trip. I'll fill you in on all the details when I get home but last night when we were coming into Bali they drove the boat up on to a sandbar. it was quite a jolt and things went flying. Luckily we were only a half hour from port and nobody was injured except the boat and the helmsmans ego. We all put on our life jackets and were ready to abandon ship but the boat survived with a bent rudder and probably some other damage. I know the people in the first four cabins could not close there doors anymore so there was definitely some other damage. I had visions of the Wave Dancer going thru my head. They had to have a tug come out and pull us off the sand bar and then bring us into port. We were supposed to get in around 9pm and spend the night on the boat. We got in around 10:46pm and most of the passengers myself included went to a really swank hotel on Peter's dollar. I'm at the Bali airport now and am getting ready for a very very long trip home. I will tell you all about the wonderful diving and some other interesting stories when I get home. Hopefully none of you are planning to be on the Komodo Dancer in the very near future cause if you are you won't be.

[dustbowl diver]

Glad to hear that you are OK. Look forward to hearing your report!!!!

[WreckWench]

As usual this should be a good one! Can't wait for the details and pics!

[drbill]

Hmmm... Peter Hughes has another boo boo. Will be interested in hearing the details on this one. I lost a Catalina friend on the Wave Dancer. He had just gone down to replace my current #1 dive buddy, Andrea.

[chinacat46]

Two nudibranchs doing the wild thing.

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[chinacat46]

Nudibranch laying eggs.

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[chinacat46]

Well before I get into the good stuff here is something important to know about passports. One of the guys I was meeting in Bali to go on the boat with got held up in Guam for not having enough blank pages in his passport. In Indonesia they use a whole page of your passport for the visa you purchase for $25 upon arrival. The only blank pages(22 onward) he had left in his passport were the last four(or 3 if they don't count the back cover). These pages are for Amendments and Endorsements. The gate attendant in Guam wouldn't let him on the plane telling him that they won't use those pages in Indonesia and he would be deported if he got there. So before going someplace that uses a whole page make sure you have a blank page other then the ones for Amendments and Endorsements. He went through quite an ordeal to get extra blank pages in his passport. Myself and the others arrived on Sunday night and the boat was going out on Wednesday morning. Steve had to fly back to Honolulu from Guam, make an appointment at the consulate there and then show a ticket for expedited service to get extra pages put in his passport. Since Continental doesn't fly to Bali every day he didn't get to Bali until Thursday after the boat left. He then had to fly to Flores and take a boat from there to Komodo Island where we picked him up on Saturday. He missed diving on Thursday and Friday as a result. Not to mention the extra added expense, aggravation and frustation this caused. To make matters worse the imigration person in Indonesia used page 23(one of the ones Continetal said they wouldn't use) for his visa. He is gonna raise a big stink with Continental to try and get reimbursed for the extra added expense they caused him since they did use one of those pages.

To be continued.

[chinacat46]

Monday myself and the other two guys hired a driver and van and toured part of Bali. Stopping at some temples, rice paddies, volcano viewing and coffee and spice plantation. For eight hours we traveled around and did the sight seeing for a whopping cost of 350,000 Rupiah($1 is about 10,500 Rupiah). So it cost us less then $35 total or less then $12 each. At every stop we were accosted by kids as well as adults trying to sell us stuff. Alot of them speak english but none of them understand the word NO. The touts always annoy me but having traveled alot I just tend to ignore them these days. They were also having a huge cremation cermony on Tuesday so there was quite alot of prep going on related to that all over the island. They do the cremations all over the island and it is quite an event. Burning wooden statues with the bodies as well. We hung out on the beach on Tuesday as well as doing some shopping nearby the hotel we were staying at. We stayed at the Hotel Sanur Beach which was a very nice hotel located on the beach in Sanur. The hotel also had two pools one with a swim up bar. On Wednesay we were picked up at 8:30am and transported to the harbor where we boarded the Komodo Dancer our home for the next 11 days. We left port shortly after 9am for the journey to Komodo National Park. Wednesday was a travel day and no diving was done. The journey goes by a number of islands but when you are in a strait the waves are a bit bigger and few of the passengers got seasick as I noticed a few missing at lunch and dinner. We also picked up a hitchhiker(red footed booby) along the way near Lombok who spent the night on the bow of the boat and didn't leave till the next morning when we approached Sumbawa where we did our first 3 dives as well as a hike to a lake which used to be a volcano. From there we continued overnight to our next dive location which was near Komodo. This trip has a lot of traveling and I wouldn't recommend to those who get seasick easily or to beginner divers either. Some of the diving was in strong currents and the water temp varied from high of about 81-82 to a low of at least 73. I say at least since there was a thermocline which I dipped into which was quite cold and didn't stay there long enough to let my computer calculate the temp. It was 73 above that thermocline. I knew of the temp varations before going and came prepared with a 2 mil suit, 5 mil suit and a 3 mil hooded vest. I was very glad I did. The boat itself has room for 14 passengers and the crew(over 15 crewmembers). The passengers consisted of 4 couples(2 American, 1 German and 1 Swedish) plus 6 single guys(1 Brit and 5 Americans). The German couple Heiner and Sabine were diving off Phi Phi with there two sons when the Tsunami hit Dec. 26. They had some interesting stories to tell. The crew was mostly Indonesians except for two of the three divemasters(Gary a Brit and Onnoe[Oh no] a Dane). Most of the diving was in the Flores Sea with 2 days spent in the Indian Ocean(the cold water) and the last in the Bali Sea. The first Saturday we arrived at Komodo Island and did a two hour tour and saw four Komodo Dragons as well as pigs, monkeys and various birds including wild cockatoos. We also picked up Steve who arrived on Komodo while we were on our tour. They offered 35 dives on the trip of which I did 34. I had a bad case of Montezuma's revenge one night and didn't sleep much so I skipped one morning dive to catch up on lost sleep.

To be continued.

[chinacat46]

Orangutan crab

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[chinacat46]

pygmy seahorse

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[chinacat46]

Leaf scorpion fish

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[chinacat46]

Longnose hawkfish

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[chinacat46]

Leaf scorpion fish

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[chinacat46]

Ornate ghost pipefish.

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[chinacat46]

nudibranch.

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Edited by chinacat46, 14 September 2005 - 12:23 PM.