sv evi

We made a quick trip to Sorong to pick up our friends Steph and Nic. We stocked up on butter, cheese, and chicken breast. The kids spent an afternoon playing on SV Tayrona while we ran errands and cleaned the boat. Sorong is notorious for theft, so we were happy to just stay there two nights.

Steph and Nic had never sailed before, but they were keen to learn everything! Nic helped Riki change the alternator belts, the engine oil, and replace a window that had fallen off. He also took over coffee-making as he was usually the first to wake up. Steph was on almost permanent dish duty and she played many many games with the kids. They treated us to yummy scones one morning too! Steph and Nic also took a night watch on our overnight trips. Nic and Tomu played an almost-daily 2 out of 3 chess tournament. Luz also wanted to play some chess.

Jade’s highlight of their visit was doing jumping contests off the side of the boat with Steph, and braiding Steph’s hair. Luz’s highlight was playing with Nana (her stuffed koala) with Steph, and Tomu’s was playing games.

Nic also began doing online boat shopping! He’s in his research phase…but they just may buy a boat and cruise around one day. 🙂 Steph and Nic are big scuba divers, and they also love to snorkel, so we snorkeled at least once a day.

Our first stop was a waterfall anchorage on Batanta island. Almost everyone was swimming when a local boat went by and told us there were crocodiles there! Eeks!

The next morning, a local guy named Nicolas came on board our boat at 7:30 am and offered his services as a guide to the waterfall for 200,000 IDR. (About $13 USD) As the best Bahasa Indonesia speaker, it was my job to try to say, no thank you, we aren’t sure when we are going, we might not go, we don’t want a guide, etc. However, none of these worked. He was still on board, and wasn’t dissuaded by the gifts of children’s clothing. So we said to come back at 9 am.

It was a gorgeous waterfall and very refreshing to swim in cool fresh water. There were some shrimp that nibbled on your toes, though!

Our next stop was Dayang — home to a great reef with tons of fish, and also a manta ray cleaning station. The mantas come reliably to the same spot every day! We missed out on the mantas in Fiji, so it was awesome to see them this time. I got to watch one for 5-10 minutes from pretty close up — magical!

We ate a delicious lunch at the homestay in Dayang, and had enough leftovers for dinner too.

Then we did an overnight trip back to Balbulol, Misool. We loved that place and wanted to share it with our friends.

Next stop was a new place for us called Mesemta. We hiked up to two different lookouts and were rewarded with fabulous views. We also saw some ancient rock paintings. We got to catch up with our friends on SV Tayrona at Mesemta.

We dropped Steph & Nic off at their diving homestay on Kri island. Riki and I did 2 dives with the homestay guests the first day. During the first dive I had a panic moment — my mask was leaking, I was getting a little water in my regulator, and I just wanted to surface. I signaled to Riki that my mask wasn’t good, and he helped me to pull the strap down on my head, and helped me to calm down and clear my mask. I survived the rest of the dive, though I was under-weighted and had to fight to stay down. Nic gave me an extra weight, which helped. But I barely noticed anything on that dive b/c I was so worried about staying with the group and staying at the right depth. We did see 3 huge turtles. The second dive was better, panic-wise, and we saw a wobbegone shark and a new angelfish. But I decided I prefer diving without a guide who swims so fast, and would rather just go with Riki and/or friends.