Articles from this Category
10 June 2014
It was an ungodly departure of 0115 from Makassar. The 2h45 flight to Biak (off the northern coast of Papua) took off slightly late and landed again just slightly late too. The actual flying time was less and with the hot meal and a snooze we landed in no time (well about 0500 actually). On […]
9 June 2014
Killing a day in Bali I woke around 0600 in Bali and headed out for a morning walk soon after 0700 around Kuta. Balinese tend to wake early but that doesn’t hold true in partytown Kuta. It was dead. There were some people on the beach and a couple of people surfing. The Balinese surf […]
8 June 2014
Luggage at Bali’s Ngurah Rai airport took forever. I took a taxi to the Tune Hotel in Kuta which I had booked for NZD17 (including aircon and towel options). Being central, clean and comfy, it was exactly what I needed for the night. It was straight to bed as it was about 3am in Auckland […]
9 July 2013
It was very difficult to say goodbye to the Gilis. While it wasn’t the real rough-and-tumble Indonesia that I also love, I love the Gilis for the diving, eating and laid-back atmosphere. I checked out about 1000 and got to the boat ticket office to find that I had just missed the last seat, so […]
8 July 2013
Above: Beautiful Gili Meno. This is the day off that I had earned. Actually, the whole time here was meant to be for chilling but I ended up doing my Advanced dive certification instead! Absolutely no regrets as I enjoyed all the dives. “My” island of Gili Trawangan is the most touristy of the three […]
7 July 2013
Wreck Dive It was back to the Bounty Wreck for this dive; the same place as where I had done my night dive. In daylight, I could appreciate the good coral growth. The marine life included mantis shrimp, trumpet fish, orange spine unicorn fish, Andaman sweet lips, rabbit fish and again Moorish idols. The skill […]
6 July 2013
Deep Dive This was undertaken at a site called Deep Turbo. The maximum depth we went down to was 25m. I had to do this for the certification but it was actually nothing new. Many dive masters take divers with Open Water certification up to this depth when they’re not supposed to. The coral was […]
5 July 2013
Change of Plan Having travelled from Timor Leste through to West Timor, and been roughing it, I just wanted to relax and do a little diving. I enquired about doing a couple of days diving with a few dive centres. Aquaddiction, they suggested that I do an SSI Advanced certification. At first I wasn’t keen […]
5 July 2013
Biking around I rented a bike after breakfast and cycled around the island. It took an hour including having to wheel it where the roads disappeared into sandy stretches, and carrying where the roads had been washed away by the sea (in the north). Activity and business is largely concentrated on the east coast; within […]
4 July 2013
After finishing off the last of my Australian-purchased muesli, I took a cab from the hotel to Bangsal where boats leave for the Gili islands. The hour-long metered ride cost about USD12 only, accompanied with lots of conversation with the Sasak driver. I always love how the Indonesians have the great art of conversation. Just […]