Short Sightseeing Trip to Cambodia and Thailand - Part 1

We have wanted to visit Thailand forever, and it is especially easy to do while already in SE Asia. Dave also had a hankering to see Angkor Wat, in nearby Cambodia. Plus, our Philippines Visa on Arrival is only good for 29 days, and then we need to renew or fly out. Renewals these days cost $75 USD per person. So we figured we'd fly somewhere, using that $75 USD as a subsidy for our trip.

Getting Ready for Another Adventure!

Before we left the US, we booked a round trip flight on Air Asia from Davao to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Having an outbound ticket from the Philippines when we flew in from the US also maded airport check-in and arrival, on a one-way ticket from the U.S., much easier. Because SE Asia is used to backpackers and yachties traveling through on a one-way ticket, going from country to country, it's much easier to talk your way on the plane from Kuala Lumpur than it is from LAX.

I spent a week in December making up a rough plan for our trip. I emailed the plan to several friends who had been to both places and asked for input. The major addition to our initial plan was to plan to go to Chiang Rai (a 3 hour bus ride from Chiang Mai) and spend at least a few days there. So, here is what we planned, and we were pretty much able to execute this plan. January is peak tourist season, so I felt like I had to pre-book the major things, to make sure we got to where we wanted to go, and had a place to stay when we got there.

Jan 8 - Fly Davao to Kuala Lumpur
Jan 8 - Overnight at Tune Hotel KL Airport
Jan 9 - Fly KL to Siem Reip (v early morning flight)
Jan 9-11 Explore Siem Reip / Angkor Wat
Jan 12 Siem Reip to Bangkok ($30/8hrs by bus $60/2hrs fly)
Jan 13-14 Bangkok
Jan 15 Daytrip by van to Ayutthaya
Jan 16 Bangkok to Chang Mai day train (all day) or 1 hr flight
Jan 17 Rest/get oriented in Chang Mai
Jan 18-26 Chang Mai and vicinity / touring, etc
Jan 27 Chang Mai to KL, overnight at Tune Hotel KL Airport
Jan 28 Fly KL to Davao

Our Planned Whirlwind Trip to Cambodia and Thailand
We should have planned for more time (or fewer bucket list checks), but we had other considerations... one was getting all the work done on Soggy Paws, and the other was the schedule for visa renewals in the Philippines when we returned. For the first two months of your time in the PI on a tourist visa, you can only do monthly renewals. After 2 months, you can apply for a longer extension (2 months at a time, presently). We wanted to be in the Philippines for the first 2 months, and apply for a 2 month extension, before we left Davao at the end of March. So January 28th was about the last we could fly back in from Thailand that wouldn't hold us up in March.

So after 29 days aboard in the marina in the Philippines, working feverishly on boat projects, we took off on Jan 8 for a little R & R in Cambodia and Thailand.

After an uneventful flight direct from Davao, we spent a short overnight at the The Tune Hotel at the Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) International Airport, and were off early in the morning for our flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia. The Tune Hotel at KLIA is a great spot for an overnight stopover. You can walk to it from the International terminal. All the other hotels require a taxi or bus ride into downtown KL.

Cambodia (Siem Reap & the temples of Angkor)

Since we were on a fairly tight schedule, I had pre-booked a Tuktuk (motor tricycle) driver/tour guide via the internet, using a recommendation from a TripAdvisor blog. Mr. Sulu TukTuk Tours turned out to be a fantastic choice. Sulu met us at the airport, took us to the hotel, and then off for the first day's touring, starting with a stop to get our permit. He spoke good English, and was polite and not pushy. He knew where to go to minimize crowds, yet still get us to all the major attractions in our 3 day visit. He picked us up at the airport, took us through 3 days of touring, and took us back to the airport on the 4th day, all for the pre-arranged fee of $80 USD. We have since recommended 2 other travelers to him and both felt the same way we did. Click the picture below for a link to his facebook page, and contact him there, or email him at mengleaplim@gmail.com


We bought a cell phone sim card in the airport, even though we were only going to stay 3 days--to be able to contact our driver, the hotel, use the internet, etc. It only cost $10 (text, voice, and data already on it), and was well worth having.

Our Siem Reap hotel I'd booked off Booking.com and it was a fairly new establishment, and located on a back street, but not far from the main tourist part of town. A guy who was teaching hospitality at the local college, bought a 5 room "hotel" to reap some of the tourist dollars, and also help train his students in hospitality in the real world. The hotel room for 2 people, a queen sized bed, with private bath, air conditioning, and breakfast, cost $36 USD TOTAL for 3 nights (Siem Reap Phan Villa). As an exploding tourist destination, there are plenty of $100 per night hotels in Siem Reap, but we didn't need to spend that kind of money on a place to sleep!!

Our Hotel in Cambodia
It was only a short walk to the tourist center of Siem Reap.

The Neighbor Bringing His Cows Home
Ankor Wat was amazing--similar to the Pyramids of Egypt; the Mayan structures we'd visited in Guatemala, Mexico, and Honduras; and the Inca structures in Peru, we just couldn't believe that such fantastic structures could have been built so extensively back in the day before big cranes and modern building techniques.

With $60 3-Day Tickets in Hand, Headed Out to our First Temple
Dave and I together took 630 pictures in 3 days. This is one of the reasons it has taken so long to produce this blog! (sorting through the pictures, trying to remember what we were taking pictures of) But below are few pictures to give you the gist of the magnitude of the Khmer empire at one time. We did 2 days of touring temples, and then spent our last day on a trip to the lake, and somehow also squeezed in a couple of hours at a small "World War II" museum. We kind of lost track of which temple was which, so I'm not going to try to name them below, but just show you some pretty pictures.

Unfortunately, we hadn't done any studying at all about Cambodia, the Khmer Empire, or the history or culture, so we felt pretty stupid at times. We did buy a $10 book from a vendor at the first site we stopped at, but then never had time to read it carefully. So for those of you starting out where we were, here's a very brief recap.

Between the 8th and 13th centuries, a succession of first Hindu, and later Buddhist kings created magnificent temples in stone. Each temple was bigger then the next, but all had elaborate carvings, honoring Hindu gods, detailing victories in battle, and honoring Buddhist principles. The final two temples, and the biggest, were Angkor Thom in about 1200 AD, and Angkor Wat, around 1250 AD. After about 1300 AD, the Buddhist temples were built out of wood, and few survived. There are about 100 temples scattered around in Cambodia. In our 2 days of temple touring, we were able to briefly visit 13 of them. I'd love to educate you more about each temple, but honestly, it kind of all blurred together. Knowing a bit of Hindu lore would be useful before visiting, as most of the symbology at the temples were Hindu. Here are a few of the pictures we took:

Typical Temple Layout (Bantai Srai Temple)
Looking in the Gopura Oriental at Bantai Srai
Inner Temple at Bantai Srai
Dave Standing in front of the tail of a Naga (snake) being pulled to churn the underworld
Unfortunately, the heads on the men holding the (very large) tail of the snake have all been "looted".

Lots of Reconstruction Work Going On in Various Temples
Angkor Wat Is So Big, It Is Hard to Photograph!
The Monkeys Were Always an Attraction
The Apsara, an Iconic Hindu Image, Adorned Every Temple
Images of Buddha Also Adorned the More Recent (but still old) Temples
An Hour Long Line (We Passed!)
The Entire Football Field-Sized Wall Was Carved with an Elaborate History of Battles

Just One of the Inner Temples in the Large Complex

A Naga (7-Headed Snake) Guarding the Causeway
to Angkor Wat
My Favorite Temple (Bayon)
Another Temple with Elaborate Scenes Carved in the Walls

Trees Are A Major Problem in Restoring the Temples

Another Temple! This One Guarded by Lions

A Helpful Guide Pointed Out This Stegasaurus
(Methinks a Joke by a Restorer?)
Thankfully, Our Last Temple (Preah Ko)


Templed Out
After two long days and touring 13 temples, on our last day in Cambodia, we went out to see Lake Tonle Sap. It is the largest fresh water body in South East Asia. Its dimension changes depending on the wet and dry season. During rainy season from June to October, the lake is filled by water flowing from the Mekong with 45 feet in depth and expands the surface of 10,000 square Kilometers. In dry season from November to May its size 3,000 square kilometers with 6 feet in depth and water flows backwards, from the Lake to the Mekong, in and out flowing is the natural phenomenon occurrences.

It Being Dry Season, It Was a Long and Dusty Ride to the Lake
Boarding Our Private Tour Boat
The Engine
The Steering Wheel
The Drive Train and Propeller
Houses with Big Stilts


Was There Any World War II Action?
Dave can't pass up a war museum, especially one that promises World War II memorabilia. It turns out this one had much more modern stuff. But we still enjoyed poking around.





And we did all that in 3 days!! Then it was on to Thailand!

Submitted!

We're in the USA from mid September to mid December, and one of the things at the top of my TO DO list is to renew my USCG 100 Ton Master's license. It's quite a process and includes having to document my "at sea" time over the last 5 years (and make sure it adds up to 360 days or more). Fortunately, I have remembered to make a photo backup of our logbook for each year. So I had all the info I needed at my fingertips. If you don't have enough sea time, you have to take a class instead. Fortunately, our roaming around SE Asia has produced enough sea time to qualify.

In addition to the 5-page application and the sea time documentation, I needed to get a physical and a drug test, pay the US Government $140, and explain why I didn't need a Transportation Worker ID Card. Quite a process. Anyway, today I emailed the whole package as a PDF file to one of the USCG's Regional Exam Centers. This starts the process.

Last time I renewed, my package was rejected for several reasons and it took me nearly a year and several submissions to get my license renewed. Hoping I did a better job of preparing the package this time.

Doing Fine - Back in the Philippines

I keep meaning to get on with the remaining blog posts on our time in SE Indonesia, but we are back in the boatyard in the Philippines with a long list of projects, so I haven't got around to it yet. Hopefully I will soon.

Our current location is Holiday Oceanview Marina, Samal Island, Davao del Norte, Mindanao, Philippines, and we are fine and healthy. We had a great time cruising Indonesia--they have made amazing progess in making it easier for small private yachts to cruise their beautiful islands. The new boat performed exceptionally, well even in the leg from Halmahera to Bitung, N Sulawesi, where we were close-hauled in 40 knots of wind with opposing current. The new Soggy Paws is a dream to sail, though much less rugged than our CSY.

Blog Posts I'm missing so far:

- Coast hopping from Triton Bay to Misool
- Misool back to Bitung
- Bitung to Samal Island, Philippines

Our original plan was to spend the summer in Raja Ampat again, but in June we discovered that the new seals that Dave put in the saildrives were leaking, and the leak got progressively worse. To fix the problem, we'd need to haul out somewhere, and there isn't a reasonably-priced haulout yard in Eastern Indonesia. And Samal was only about 800 miles downwind, plus we could get much better provisions in the Philippines than in Indonesia. So we spent late June and July coast-hopping back to Samal.

We emailed the Oceanview Marina yard in early June and requested a haulout as soon as they could accommodate us near the end of July. The yard is chock-a-block (though the marina is not), but they managed to juggle spots in the yard to haul us out a few days after we arrived. We have pulled the saildrives apart and are now trying to source parts.

There is a Yanmar dealer in the Philippines, but they mainly sell tractors and not small yacht engines/saildrives. So after 3 weeks of trying to get some technical questions answered, and get a quote and availability for our saildrive lower units, we gave up.
We got the quote with "If the parts ship from Singapore, they will take 10-12 working days to arrive, if they ship from Japan, they will take 15-20 days to arrive, but there are none in either Singapore or Japan." WTF? After finding they'd have to ship the parts we needed from the US, we have decided to buy the parts from a US dealer. Due to the fact that the Philippines don't acknowledge "yacht in transit" status for duty, they may well come back with us in a suitcase! Note: Primary reason we are contemplating replacing the whole Lower Housing Assembly (aka Lower Unit) is that the aluminum housings are pitted from galvanic corrosion. We tried to repair them on our last haulout, but the pitting is bad enough that the seals weren't sealing well. Since we like to do the "far from everywhere" cruising, we feel it's best to replace rather than keep dealing with the issue, and risk a major problem somewhere where we can't deal with it.

While back in the marina and hauled out, Dave also decided to get the excellent fiberglass workers in the yard to make a 1 ft extension on our sterns. This is primarily to raise the bottom step. With a little too much weight aboard, our bottom step on the sterns were always wet, and grew slippery green slime at an amazing rate, making the step very dangerous. We are raising the bottom step to the level of the next step up, plus adding a foot, which will hopefully add some buoyancy back there. And it will make large flat landing area--good for a dive platform. The yard guys are nearly done with the project. Pictures soon!

I am meanwhile working down the fairly extensive list of canvas repair items and upgrades (bleah! I hate patching old canvas) Plus sourcing parts, googling for troubleshooting tips (Raymarine Wind Inst and Seatalk / PC connector), making travel reservations, updating Compendiums, and keeping in touch with our wide world of friends at home and in the cruising community. It's a full time job!!

We head home to the US in mid-September for a 2 month visit, with plans to try to see all our family, and catch the SSCA Annapolis Gam, Annapolis Sailboat Show, and Melbourne SSCA Gam (by car).

For several reasons, we have also decided to alter our 2018 plans. We will put our PNG/Solomons trip off for another year, waiting for a compatible buddy boat to make their way east from Malaysia to go with us. And it seems a shame to blast away from the Philippines without having actually cruised here. After watching our friends on Mokisha work their way through the central Philippines (on Facebook), it rekindled our interest in cruising and diving there. Plus there is a lot of "inland touring" in SE Asia we still haven't done. So our loose plan is to try to see maybe a little of Australia, and some of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam by land, and cruise central Philippines by sea.

Website Back Up!

Sorry everyone, my web host upgraded their servers and broke the web server that served the svsoggypaws.com website. The site was down for several days. It seems to be back up now. Thanks for those who let me know.

I am still trying to update the backlogged posts and organize pictures to add to the posts Ive already posted on our eastern Indonesian adventures in the past 5 months. We are currently in Ternate (actually anchored in the neighboring island of Tidore), and leaving this morning for an overnight passage to Bitung. We plan to check out of Bitung in a few days and head north back to the Philippines, where we'll leave Soggy Paws for a trip home this fall.

Sherry
Tidore, Halmahera, Indonesia

Waterfall Bay, West Papua

We finally left Triton Bay, headed north, on June 29.

Waterfall by the Sea
Our first stop was "Waterfall Bay", 45 nm northwest of our jumping off point of Blumpot Bay in NW Adi Island. Friends had told us this was a very cool stop, because you can anchor right next to the waterfall that falls down into the ocean. Because it was SW monsoon season, this "off the waterfall" stop was probably not a viable overnight anchorage. But we had a potential anchor spot scouted by Ocelot, tucked up in the point near the waterfall.

We left early and made good time for about 3/4 of the way, but finally the wind died and we had to motor in. Fortunately, we arrived mid-afternoon and had plenty of time to look around. The potential anchor spot recommended by Ocelot was too constricted in our opinion--in a cut with fast flowing current in fairly shallow water. We backed out and started looking around. We ended up spending about 2 hours poking around. Everything we found was (typical in Indonesia), either too shallow or too deep, or too constricted by rocks/reefs. To complicate matters, there were a couple of fishing boats anchored around, and being by ourselves, we were a little leery of anchoring too close to them (security issues).

Indonesian Fishing Boats
We ended up anchoring at 03 55.27 S / 132 48.91 E in about 65 ft of water. There was some current here, but not too intimidating, and usually flowing out the cut, so we hung toward the west. We backed down hard because our stern was in about 10 ft, and there were a few coral heads nearby. But we had pretty good swinging room. The wind was pretty calm, so we felt pretty safe in these tight quarters. In NE wind season, anchoring outside, to the west of this spot, would be a better anchorage, as there's a big sand spot there. There is no cell phone signal in this bay. And the fishermen never bothered us--they seemed to anchor and sleep during the day and leave to go fishing at night.

All the Fish Around Our Boat, Teasing Me
There were tons of small fish swimming around our boat. I tried fishing for them with some shrimp on a small hook, but they always managed to steal the shrimp and not get hooked. But kept me entertained for awhile.

We spent the next two days enjoying the clear water and exploring around the bay. While Dave did maintenance, I scrubbed the bottom of the boat (something we didn't want to do in the potentially crocky river waters). We took Soggy Paws over to the waterfall and anchored in a beautiful sand spot just off the waterfall (03-53.45 S / 132-29.30 E), and then dinghied over to the waterfall and snorkeled around.

Waterfall Anchorage

We also explored in the dinghy along the wall SE of the waterfall, and found some nice snorkeling and some caves.

Exploring Caves


Then we picked up anchor and went looking for the "World War II Gun Emplacement" waypoint that someone had given us. We needed to make water, so slowly motored around the rim of the bay. Dave even took off in the dinghy for a half an hour while I motored around in racetrack mode waiting for him.

Alas, when we arrived at the bottom end of the bay, there was no gun emplacement there. We later discovered that this whole set of waypoints for the Misool area that a friend had given us was mostly inaccurate (whether deliberately, just sloppily done, or whether taken off an inaccurate chart, we don't know). After an hour of slowly poking around in Soggy Paws, we finally anchored the big boat and set out in the dinghy.

Bushwhacking Around, Looking for Gun Emplacements
After carefully combing the shoreline, and doing some bush-whacking, we finally found some remnants of a WWII gun, but only the carriages--looks like someone had carried off the barrels of the guns.

The Gun We Found
The Other Gun Carriage
This anchorage (03 57.32 S / 132 50.65 E) is in fairly shallow mud/sand and well protected from the E, S, and W. If you were expecting a big blow from the south, this would be a good hidey-hole.

Nice Protected Anchorage
But go in slowly, and not too far, as there is a very shallow hard-to-see reef in the very bottom of the bay. I think we were in about 10-15 feet. Even for a WWII buff, these "gun emplacements" were not very exciting. We almost spent the night here, but were a little worried about bugs and no wind, so we scurried back to our original anchorage.

The next morning, we headed further north.

West Papua River Adventures

1 May 13 - Tombona River, Triton Bay
2 June 5-7 - Lakahia River Basin (near Triton Bay)
3 June 22-24 - Karufa River, Kaimana Area
4 June 25-28 - Kamrau Bay River System, Kaimana Area

Our River Explorations in the Triton Bay Area

So far, we have been up 4 rivers in the West Papua region of Indonesia. West Papua is actually part of the large island of New Guinea, but the western half of New Guinea these days is owned by Indonesia.

The largest city in the area is the town of Kaimana, which should show up on any map reference you search for.

#1 - Tombona River

The first river we explored is listed on our CMap chart as the Tombona River. The river mouth is located at 03 45.76 S / 134 07.52 E, near the tiny town of Lobo. It is approximately 22 miles ESE of Kaimana, as the crow flies.

(Important note on place names in this part of the world... the lands here have changed hands several times over the past 500 years, and various cartographers have made charts of the area, many times not bothering to get the correct local name for the river/point/island, etc). And even if they did get the "correct" local name, the locals have their local dialect, and then there's the common "Bahasa Indonesia" language that is the official language of Indonesia. Many names are misspelled, or the same-sounding name is spelled 3 different way. So names on charts, for the same location, vary wildly from chart (ie CMap, vs Navionics, vs paper Indonesian, vs GoogleEarth). The names I am using are from our CMAP chart

The Tombona River exploration was an easy one for us. We were with our friends from s/v Ocelot, who had been up the river by dinghy 2 years previously. So we knew where to anchor the big boats to be near the mouth, and approximately how far up the river we could get by dinghy. We anchored at 03 45.733 S / 134 06.944 E during the day, to be near the river mouth, but then moved to 03 46.157 S / 134 06.028 E before nightfall, to get a little more protection from the southerly winds. First anchorage was in only about 10 feet, and you must approach by coming in toward the town of Lobo along the western side of the bay, and then heading east toward the waypoint. There is a huge shallow delta straight off the river. Our nighttime anchorage was fairly deep (60 ft) but more sheltered than the shallower water off Lobo.

Houses on the Tombona River
Our CMap chart shows only the mouth of the river, with no depths. And, like most of West Papua, the chart location is offset nearly 1 mile to the west (or east?) of where it actually is. Fortunately, between Ocelot and ourselves, we had good high-resolution GoogleEarth charts of the river (thanks to GE2KAP). I loaded a set of GE charts on my smartphone running OpenCPN, and we grabbed our hand-held depth sounder, and off we went in the dinghies.

The tide was pretty high at the time, so we had no troubles going in over "the bar". And in fact, we could have brought the big boats quite far up the river. The lowest depth we saw going over the bar at high tide was about 10 ft. On the way in, we saw a small settlement about a mile inside the river, with a new road being constructed, presumably going to the town of Lobo, nearby. There were a few huts placed on high spots along the river, and a few people watching the crazy "Bulay" (white people) going up the river in their funny boats. About 3 miles in, we finally reached the rapids that we had been told about. The water was high enough that we couldn't see any rocks, but we noticed some ripples on the water, and the current was running very fast against us. Sounding with the hand-held sounder revealed that we were in only 4 ft of water. We didn't attempt going higher up the river--the water was running so fast that we'd need to plane with the dinghy, and we didn't want to be going that fast with unknown depths. So we turned our engines off and floated down with the current.

Drifting Down the River in the Rain
We saw some kids hanging out on an over-water hut--but no one swimming--this is crocodile territory. At another spot in the river there were several trees with a few fruit bats hanging in the trees. Once we got down toward the mouth of the river, the current slowed down, so we fired up the outboards and sped back down the rest of the river and back to the boats.

#2 - Lakahia River

Once we explored this river, Dave was hot to see some other rivers. He queried Lisa from Triton Bay Divers about the big river to the east of Triton Bay. This is actually a system of rivers. We will call the whole river adventure the Lakahia River Basin, named for the Lakahia Bay which leads into the river system.

Andreas Grew Up on the Lakahia River System
Lisa told Dave that one of her boat drivers had grown up in that area, and she would ask him if he would guide us up the river. Well, Andreas said he would. However, Andreas's English was about as bad as our Indonesian, so we took Lisa along as interpreter for a several day trip up the river. We were fortunate that it was off-off season at Triton Bay Divers, and Lisa felt she could get away for a few days.

We could have spent a week or two gunkholing up in the Lakahia River System, but since Lisa and Andreas could only get away for 3 days, we did the whole trip in 3 days. Day 1 we made our way from Triton Bay Divers to the mouth of the river, where Andreas's family still lives.

Soggy Paws Anchored off Andreas' Village
A Pretty House In Andreas' Village
Curious Kids Meet Us On the Quay
Day 2 was up the river to the very end, and then back a little to anchor in a tributary off the main river. Day 3 was back out the river and back to Triton Bay Divers.

Headed Up the River
With Andreas assuring us that the river was deep enough, and providing guidance in a few places, we made it 35 miles up the river, to the very end. Andreas spent the whole night up looking for crocodiles when we anchored overnight in a tributary. Unfortunately we never saw a crocodile. But Andreas regaled us with a tale of a 27-ft crocodile that men from his village saw when he was growing up. (The official world record is 24 ft, but in order for it to be an official record, you have to measure the beast from tip to tail. Try doing that from a dugout canoe with a 27 foot crocodile!). We did see the White Dolphins that Andreas had told us about.

Navigating Up the River
Dave On Watch
We Finally Reach the End of the River
The Town at the End of the River
The Entire Town Turns Out to Say Hello
After we dropped Lisa and Andreas back at Triton Bay Divers, we said goodbye to all our friends at Triton Bay, and headed out for another visa renewal in Tual.

An Unusually Calm Sunset At Sea On Our Way to Tual

Blumpot Bay

On our return to the Triton Bay area, we first dropped anchor at the NW tip of Aiduma Island. This is a great late/night arrival bay, as most of the bay is free of coral reefs, and the water shallows slowly to a nice sandy bottom. Our favorite anchor spot was 04 09.694 S / 133 20.6412 E. There are two small fishing camps at either end of the bay, but in the three times we anchored there, we were never bothered by anyone.

#3 - Karufa River

The next day, we set out to see the 3rd river, the Karufa River. For some reason, other than a small village outside the mouth of the river, we saw no signs of habitation at all up this river. We spent 2 nights on the river, and went as far up the river as we could get.

Sherry Watching the River
The End of the River

We still had 8 ft of depth when we turned around, but the river was getting so narrow we feared we would have trouble turning around.

Fruit Bats in the Trees
Fruit Bats in the Trees
There wasn't much to see up this river except lots and lots of fruit bats. There was a half mile stretch of river in which both sides of the river was lined with trees that were black with bats. We could hear the bats before we saw them--screeching and chittering in the trees, and then flying off in a big cloud when we got close. We opted to make our way a little further down the river for our second overnight.

Thousands of Bats!
On the morning of our last day on the Karufa River, we were surprised to wake up to a heavy fog. We were anchored in a fairly narrow part of the river, but we could barely see the shore on either side. We had a long way to go that day, so we couldn't wait around for the fog to burn off. So we crept south down the river with a lookout on the bow. The fog soon burned off.

Picking Up the Anchor in the Fog

Kaimana

Once out of the river, we headed for Kaimana, just to see the place. I had an opportunity when we were hanging out off Triton Bay Divers, to go in to Kaimana with the TBD supply boat one day. But Dave had never been there. Our friends on Ocelot were not real fond of the place as a cruising stop. There is no real good place to put your dinghy--the locals use a very sharp rocky seawall, or a beach that slopes gradually for 100 yards at low tide. The town is really spread out, with the market a long way from the main part of town. But there is an ATM, a pretty good cell signal, and a fairly decent fresh market.

Anchored Off Kaimana
We couldn't figure out why there were so many fishing boats in port, until we realized that today (June 25) was Eid al-Fitr (aka Idul Fitri), the day that signals the end of Ramadan. Ramadan is the month of prayer and fasting for Muslims. Most Muslims in Indonesia fast from sunrise to sunset every day for the entire month of Ramadan. So the end of Ramadan, the end of getting up really early to eat and then starving yourself all day, is a BIG DEAL, with lots of feasting and partying.

With no good place to leave the dinghy, we enjoyed watching the end of Ramadan festivities from our cockpit. Fireworks, singing, and a parade of cars all decorated. Since we had just provisioned heavily in Tual less than a week before, we didn't really need anything ashore. So after catching up on email with the 4G data in Kaimana, the next day we left to see our 4th and final river.

#4 - Kamrau Bay River System

Again we're not sure of the proper local name for the river, and again it is complicated in that several rivers merge into one bay. Unlike the Karufa River, this bay had a number of villages indicated on the various charts we had, and visible on GoogleEarth. We also could see a road running from Kaimana along the east side of the river.

Sunset Happy Hour on the Foredeck
We spent 3 nights poking around in the lower half of the river. Finding a good anchorage was complicated by the great depths of the river, but also because of a fairly strong current. The first night we anchored, we did some exploring ashore along the road to Kaimana. We could see signs of a massive road construction project.

Massive Road Construction


We only got halfway up this river. We had planned to go further up the river than we did, but the increasing current as the river narrowed, plus the increasing signs of habitation, caused us to turn around before we reached the very end. As we slowly motored into the 3-4 knot current, we could see into the upper part of the river, and were shocked to see lots of boat traffic.

Fishing Boats on the Upper Kamrau River
Not an upriver wilderness adventure at all! So we turned around and shot back down the river with the current.

As we came out of the Kamrau, we for once had a good wind behind us, and made great time heading west. We made it all the way out to Blumpot Bay again, just before sunset. This positioned us in a good place to leave early the next morning for the long leg to our next destination--a waterfall you can anchor next to!

5 Weeks in Triton Bay

We were diving in the Triton Bay area May 5-19, May 28-June 10, and June 22-28.

Triton Bay Dive Resort
Because of the need to renew our Indonesian visas every 30 days, we made two trips to Tual, 100 miles south in the Kai Islands, while we were in Triton Bay. We'll detail those passages, and our fun in Tual in another post. We also made explorations up 4 different rivers in West Papua, in the Triton Bay area. We'll detail those adventures in yet another post.

Tracks of Our Time in Triton Bay

The Diving

The diving is what we went to Triton Bay for. It is another of the four world-class diving areas detailed in the guide created by Conservation International, called Diving Indonesia's Bird's Head Seascape. CI's interest in publishing this book is to create a sustainable eco-tourism business in this thinly-populated area of Indonesia. The idea being that if the eco-tourism business is thriving, then the logging and mining interests will be held at bay, and this area will remain a pristine and protected area. They started something wonderful, as the Raja Ampat area we visited last year is really getting going, with more and more diving resorts and live-aboard dive boats, plus small village-based "home stays" for the adventurous budget traveler.

THE Raja Ampat Diving Guide
In Triton Bay, however, the development of the eco-tourism business has been MUCH slower. There is still only one dive resort, Triton Bay Divers, and no liveaboards dive boats are based there. A few liveaboards make stop in Triton Bay on repositioning cruises when the seasons change. For us, that's not a bad thing! That meant that we had all the great dive spots all to ourselves.

Once in Triton Bay, we finally met up with our friends on Gaia and Ocelot, who had already been in Triton Bay for a couple of months. Plus Ocelot had made two other visits to Triton Bay in prior years. It was Ocelot who encouraged us to hurry down from Bitung to catch the tail end of the diving season there. From June through August in southeastern Indonesia, the SE Tradewinds from northern Australia brew up big waves, and sometimes big winds. So the Triton Bay Divers resort shuts down from mid-June to mid-September.

We Had Fun Exploring Triton Bay with Ocelot

We arrived in the Triton Bay area on May 5, and spent the first few days dinghy-diving with Gaia and Ocelot. There is a lot of current in the Triton Bay area, and so diving has to be timed as much as possible for slack current, and sometimes it is still prudent to have a surface boat. In spots where we knew we would be diving in current, one of us would volunteer to stay with the dinghies on the surface, and be available to pick people up as they surfaced from the dive. Other times, we picked a spot to dive in that is out of the current, and could just anchor our dinghies and everyone could dive together.

Dinghy Diving with Ocelot and Gaia in Triton Bay
After a few days diving on our own, we and Ocelot moved and anchored in front of Triton Bay Divers. This anchorage is exposed to the SE, and if a big SE wind comes up, it's not a very comfortable anchorage. But for the nearly two weeks we spent there in May and June, it was mostly fine. The winds, if they come up in the afternoon, usually die out by nightfall. And it is only 2-3 miles back to our very protected anchorage if we felt we needed to escape. But in all the time we were there in May and June, the wind never got bad enough that we felt we needed to move.

The benefit of anchoring off the resort was first, a little internet--with few guests in May and June, the resort was willing to let us use their satellite-based wifi. (It's 40 miles to Kaimana town from Triton Bay, where the closest Telkomsel tower is). Another benefit was dinners ashore! Again, in the off season, we could ask if we could come in for dinner a day ahead of time, and if they had enough food to accommodate us, we could. Only once did we have to loan them a few veggies so they could make dinner for us! The TBD chef was an amazing cook, and a very charming young man, too. Finally, it made it easy to go diving with the resort. As in other spots, it being off season, we were able to negotiate a dive package of 20 dives at a good rate.

Soggy Paws Anchored off Triton Bay Divers
The dive boat would swing by our boat in the morning and pick us off the boat. We usually did 2 dives in the morning, and get dropped back off on our boat for lunch. The surface intervals between dives were always spent on a gorgeous white sand beach with palm trees. We left our gear in the boat, and the dive staff would rinse all the gear in their fresh water basins, and have it ready for us the next day. Pretty posh diving for us! In May, we were nearly always diving with 2 other divers staying at the resort. In June, we mostly had the boat, a boat driver and his helper and at least one dive guide to ourselves. Either way was good, as we enjoy interacting with other travelers and divers.

Dave on the Gorgeous Beach Between Dives
Dave got really hooked on "muck diving" in Lembeh strait--the search for tiny critters usually buried in bottom debris. So his favorite dives were the "critter" or "macro" dives.

A 2-Inch Long Cuttlefish
But Triton Bay has a number of "coral and fish" dives as well. But this time of year at least, the frequent rain and the nearby rivers kept visibility low. Taking good "coral and fish" pictures underwater in low-visibility situations is difficult. We'll post a few of our best pictures when we get a chance. (I'm writing this while motorsailing slowly NW on an expanse of open ocean, in almost no wind, getting ready to cross the equator again).

The Whale Sharks

On our last day before our first trip south to Tual to renew our visas, we scheduled a whale shark dive. The whale sharks congregate around fishing platforms scattered in the narrow stretch of water between Namatote Island and the mainland. The fishing platforms have nets draped underneath them, and shine big lights to attract the fish, then lift the nets. The whale sharks hang out around the platforms because the fishermen believe them to be good luck, and feed them handfuls of fish. People wanting to dive or snorkel with the whale sharks just need to find a platform that has a whale shark hanging about, buy a bucket of baitfish from the fishermen, and jump in. The pictures we've seen are amazing.

Alas, by the end of May, the whale sharks have headed for other waters. Our dive boat checked with every fishing platform (called bagans) in the strait, and no one had seen a whale shark that day (probably not for several days). Bummer! Well, another time, another place, perhaps. We did see some "wall paintings" left by ancient people on the sheer cliffs of the strait. With changes in water levels, the wall paintings are now 20-40 feet overhead. Pleasant boat ride, but not what we were hoping for!

Visa Renewals

Everyone's cruising schedule in Indonesia, after the first two months, is dictated by the need to do monthly visa renewals. Gaia's date was a week ahead of ours, and they were headed for Banda and then to Ambon to renew their visa, so they left in around the 10th of May. Ocelot's renewal date was only a few days ahead of ours, to they took off a few days early for Tual. We stayed and did a few more dives with Triton Bay Divers.

The Fabled Japanese Plane

Dave had heard rumours of a "Japanese Plane" sunk in the bay at the southern end of Aiduma Island. Ocelot said that they had snorkeled the area the year before and not found anything. On our first trip to Tual, we left on a day with no wind. That bay, which is normally exposed to the SE wind, was flat calm. We motored into the bay and looked around, but didn't find anything. But it piqued Dave's interest, and on our next visit to Triton Bay Divers, he kept pushing Lisa, the owner/manager, to find out more information from the locals about the plane. Finally, just before we left for our 2nd trip to Tual, the weather forecast looked good, and Lisa arranged for one of the local boat drivers to come show us exactly where (he claimed) he had seen the plane with his own eyes. We were sure we could use our plane searching techniques to do an organized search for the plane.

The conditions were perfect for a search--visibility was good and the waters relatively calm. But in two hours of criss-crossing the bay in an organized search pattern, we found no sign of debris anywhere. Even if the entire plane had been dragged away by the SE winds/waves, some debris should have remained (heavy engines, etc). The locals described the plane as being big, with the tail standing straight up in the air about 15 feet. We did a little search on the internet and found one account on PacificWrecks.com about some planes on a mission to bomb Kaimana being shot down, but no specifics. The locals told us that it was an Allied plane, only the pilot survived, and he was eventually handed over to the Japanese in Kaimana, and no one knows for certain what happened to him. We can only surmise, if the locals have the location right, that the plane, and ALL the associated debris has either been buried in the sand, or maybe was a wood and fabric plane, and it is just gone. (Still, we think we should have been able to find some fragments of engines and heavy metal parts...)

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Cruising West Papua, Indonesia, slowly headed northwest toward Bitung
At 7/11/2017 7:50 AM (utc) our position was 01°47.33'S 129°39.19'E
http://svsoggypaws.com/currentposition.htm