Category: Ships Log

“You are very lucky you have two boys,” says Anna, beaming at our family from her seat at the table end. She sighs. “I hope God gives me children.”

I gaze over at the boys who are sitting making horrible faces at each other in the dockside eatery as they wait for their lunch to arrive. They are whispering quiet threats to one another and glancing over at me to see if I’m noticing, and generally getting as close to a fight as they can get away with when out and about. It’s noon and tempers are running high. Pre-lunch sugar low has always been a challenge in our family, and today is no different.

“Yes.” I grimace back at her. “Children are a blessing.”

“My husband says if I don’t get he will take a different wife.” She looks downcast, the headscarf that covers her hair only partly obscuring her furrowed brow as she tosses her head backwards. “But he doesn’t mean it. We love each other!”

I lean forward. “How long have you been married?”

“Four years. I meet my husband when I come here from Ternate in Halmahera, my hometown. We been married for four years but still no children.”

I nod uncertainly. “If you can’t have children, it may be… I mean, it could be either of you. It may not be a problem with you. Maybe it is him who can’t have children?”

She looks confused, shaking her head uncomprehendingly.

“How old are you?” I ask, changing tactics.

“28.” She smiles. “I hope children are coming soon.”

I pat her hand. “There is still time. You are young still.”

The conversation is interrupted as the lady from the food stall brings out steaming bowls of mie goreng, the children’s favourite Indonesian dish. They pull one more face at each other and then put aside their arguments to attack the food ferociously, the whispering stopping as their mouths get busy gaping over huge forkfuls of spicy noodles.

We’re in Daruba, the capital of the Island of Morotai. For the last week, we’ve been exploring the dry, deserted, and bizarrely clean islands dotted off the south-western end of Morotai, relishing in the complete tranquillity offered by the isolation of these far northern isles. The only humans we’ve met have been elderly fishermen, who nodded and smiled as they surveyed us, their opaque eyes reflecting the shining white of the sea, answering bagus, bagus (good, good) when we gestured whether it is OK to visit the beach they’re fishing from.

It’s a different feel here from elsewhere we’ve been in Indonesia. There are no tourists, no dive boats zooming around, no homestays or hotels. The locals in their colourful longboats see us and wave but don’t generally initiate conversation, busy as they are heads down fishing, fingers deftly handling lines or nets, cigarettes dangling from their lips. The hazy outline of the volcanoes of northern Halmahera grace the horizon, clouds circling their peaks in the daytime, the sun being speared by their jagged contours each night.

Last Friday we got to Dodola Island, two small islets joined by a long sandspit not far from Daruba. In contrast to the uninhabited islands surrounding it, Dodola featured low buildings in the bushy interior and a garishly colourful inflatable waterpark anchored just off the pristine beach. Curious, we went ashore to the empty beach, where we found a staff of twelve men sitting around, seemingly waiting for customers. We established that the kids could play on the waterpark for a minor fee and went for a walk to have a look around at the carefully painted pillars of the dock, the neatly raked beach, the empty houses and the half-finished building projects, the waterpark-induced squeals of the kids the only sound on the empty island apart from the regular pinging of the cellphones of the men sitting around.

It was here that we met Anna – on the following day, a Saturday, when suddenly the island came to life as a continuous stream of boatloads of visitors from Daruba were offloaded on the beach. Families were sitting under the shady trees, music was playing from small loudspeakers, and a steady stream of lovestruck young couples were walking hand in hand along the sandspit separating the two islands, cellphones in hand as they selfied their love march. Curious to meet some locals on their weekend getaway, we’d gone ashore for a walk and hadn’t taken many steps before a tiny woman wearing wide pants, a sweatshirt and a black headscarf came up to us.

“Hello,” she said, smiling broadly. “I am Anna, guide of Morotai. I have been helping yachts with services before. If you need anything in Daruba, you can call me.”

She was here guiding an American man but would be free to help us with anything after a couple of days.

“There are sometimes problems between Muslims and Christians on Morotai,” she explained, perfect teeth gleaming in the sharp sunlight. “But I say to people, ‘No matter what you believe, you leave my guests alone.’” She wagged her finger chasteningly at us, and we smiled uneasily. “They say, ‘Sorry Anna, no problem if they are with you.’ So, you have no problem here when you with me. Come see me… – tomorrow Sunday, then Monday, come see me Saturday.”

“I think she means Tuesday,” I whispered to David. “That could work – we could go to Daruba Tuesday, see some war relics.”

Which is why we’re sitting at the dockside food stall. With the diminutive Anna to protect us against potential outbreaks of sectarian violence, we are ready to explore Morotai’s history.

Just north of the island of Halmahera, Morotai is one of Indonesia’s northernmost islands, only a stone’s throw from the southern end of the Philippines. This proximity has shaped the large (~1800 km²), densely forested island’s history profoundly. Like Halmahera further south, the Japanese occupied Morotai during World War II. Eyeing up the flat lowlands of southern Morotai, the Allies mustered a huge attack on the Island in the Battle of Morotai which commenced on 15 September 1944. Deciding that the island was suitable for the building of airfields from which attacks could be launched at the Japanese-occupied Philippines, the Allies badly wanted the island, and, realising this, the Japanese threw everything they had at defending it. After a ferocious battle, the Allies conquered southern Morotai which, because of its strategic location, went on to become an important command centre for the remainder of the war.

The seas around Morotai are littered with wartime plane- and shipwrecks, and tanks and aircrafts used to be scattered in the jungle too, until some enterprising people from Jakarta came to disassemble them and move them to the capital for selling.

A local man has spent his life collecting smaller-sized relics and set up a museum in his home in the bush not far from the capital. Here are helmets and guns, ammunition belts and binoculars, hand-wound sirens and dog tags, as well as thousands of empty shells and a couple of grenades. He’s decorated the walls with articles and historic photos as well as his home-rendered paintings of war scenes. A bicycle left behind by the Japanese leans rustily against the wall and a collection of bottles display a snapshot of American life at war – aftershave, coca-cola, wine, beer and morphine, all neatly lined up according to content. We lean in to inspect the faces in the black and white photos on the walls – young men in uniform staring sombrely into the camera, young men with war-time haircuts riding tanks, standing next to airplanes, leaning against trucks, shirts off, grinning and laughing, and young men lying down, faces twisted in agony as nuns bend over their wounds.

Unlike most museums the children can touch everything here – eyeing up distant cows with Japanese binoculars, holding rusty guns to each other’s faces, fingering war-time coins from Holland, the US and Japan. They each have a turn at winding up the siren and wearing the helmets, Matias from the Allied forces, Lukas Japanese.

The Japanese didn’t give up easily and even after southern Morotai was taken by the Allied forces, large airfields constructed and raids sent off to liberate the Philippines, Japan continued to hold onto the northern part of the island, scattered troops hiding in the dense hilly jungle until the Japanese Empire surrendered in August 1945. One soldier in particular did not give up. In December 1974, Private Teruo Nakamura surrendered from the jungle of Morotai where he had been hiding since the war, either unaware that the war was over or believing rumours of it to be Allied propaganda. Japanese holdouts, as the stray Japanese soldiers that continued fighting long after the end of the war are known, were not uncommon in the Pacific, but Private Nakamura holds the record with his 29 years of hiding. A Taiwanese from the Austronesian ethnic aboriginal Amis tribe, the poor man didn’t speak Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch or English, and not long after being repatriated to Taiwan he died of lung cancer. One can only imagine what he must have been thinking for all those years in the jungle, a Taiwanese tribesman stuck in the war on an island far away from home, fighting for a country he didn’t belong to, whose language he didn’t even speak.

Nowadays, there are no Japanese left in Morotai, and the only fighting that goes on is that between Muslims and Christians. Sectarian conflict goes back far in this corner of the world. Originally under the influence of the Muslim sultanate on Halmahera, many inhabitants of Morotai became Catholic when a Portuguese Jesuit mission settled on the island in the 1500s. Resenting this influence, the sultanate repeatedly forced most of the Christians off the island in the 1600s, resettling them near the Halmahera capital of Ternate where they could be more easily controlled. When the religious conflicts peaked in the Moluccas in 1999 and Muslims were driven from the town of Tobelo on Halmahera, many of them settled in Morotai, and the island is currently about 75% Muslim.

At the lunch table, Anna is telling us about the latest conflict.

“It was last week, I had some guests, and they were in a car, and there was protests in the street and fighting. And my guests, they were so afraid.” Her eyes widen. “So, I got out of the car and told the men fighting to leave my guests alone!” She taps her phone and starts playing videos of street fighting, leaning across to show us images of white-clad men shouting, fists pumping, street mayhem at the capital’s government house.

When asked what sparked the fighting, she explains that some politicians from Jakarta had come with packages for the school children, which they’d distributed as part of an election rally. In the parcels were, amongst other things, some biscuits. Within the wrapping of the biscuits was a small picture – of Jesus on the cross.

“That is not OK to give to Muslim children,” she says, shaking her head. “Oh my God! A picture of Jesus, and a cross! They got very, very angry that their children were given that. So they protested at Government House and attacked Christians and the Christians they run, run! Into the bush, hiding in the jungle, waiting for violence to be over.” She leans further forward, pressing ‘play’ again and the fighting erupts once more on the tiny screen.

“Wow,” we say, leaning back in our chairs, nervously eyeing up the families sitting nearby who deviously look absolutely harmless, veiled women laughing in the sunshine, relaxed men playing chess, eating and drinking tea, the only sign of violence the squabbling between tiny children running around with slingshots.

“But no problem now, not a problem. This is last week, now is OK.” Anna smiles reassuringly.

And, indeed, we only meet kindness in Morotai; laughing kids running by shouting ‘Hello Mister, hello Mister,’ friendly people wanting to practice their English, stopping whatever they’re doing to help us tie up the dinghy in a good spot, find the fresh market, catch the attention of a bento driver to give us a lift. People who recognise our children from the floating bouncy castle in Dodola Island shout “Lukie, Lukie,” and high five them on the dock, and, bellies full, our kids smile and laugh, friends again, chasing after each other in the peaceful dockside park.

When lunch is over we say goodbye to beautiful Anna of Morotai who, with her self-taught near-perfect English and great network of contacts has helped us understand a little more of this corner of the world. May she have many, many children and may these children never find pictures of Jesus in their biscuit packets.

 

I open the fridge and rummage through the vege boxes. Only two carrots and a quarter of a cabbage. And the eggplants. What can I possibly make?

I leave the fridge and start searching through the behind-seat storage area. How many potatoes do we have? Urgh, they are slimy. I pull out the basket of potatoes and begin discarding those that have gone off. Nothing lasts long in this heat.

I stick my head out the saloon hatch to address Matias, who is jumping on the trampoline. “Matias, what do you want for dinner on your birthday?”

He stops jumping. “Eh?”

“What do you want for dinner tomorrow for your birthday? You can choose anything. As long as it contains chicken or fish and involves eggplant or cabbage.”

He turns towards me. “So what does that mean? What can I have?”

I hesitate. “Maybe that chicken cashew curry, but with tinned peas instead of fresh beans? Or the Spanish chicken casserole, with chicken on top of the tomato rice? Or fried fish?”

“I just want something with lots of vegetables.”

“Well, maybe the chicken casserole, then. We can put orange slices and eggplant in it, and olives too. And carrots.”

He smiles. “OK. I’ll have that,” he says. “Sounds yum.”

Great. Sounds like he is happy enough even though the menu choices are narrowing down dramatically as the fridge is nearing empty.

It’s been three and a half weeks since we last stocked up on fresh fruit and vegetables, and scurvy is looming. We have next to no vegetables left, our only fruit is a handful of sour oranges, and there’s only chicken, fish and tempeh in the freezer. Not the ideal ingredients for a birthday dinner, but there’s been nowhere to provision since we left Sorong on 25 January. We’ve been touring Raja Ampat with some friend boats and there’s been no opportunity to do any food shopping at all.

We’ve had an incredible time exploring beautiful spots full of wildlife, anchoring in deserted bays where we’ve surfed, dived and snorkelled, and climbed hills for stunning views. Raja Ampat is one of Indonesia’s top dive tourist destinations, and around every corner we’ve met countless phinisis, the tourist liveaboard boats, and lingered at dive locations that most of these visitors pay thousands of dollars to see on their once-in-a-lifetime diving holiday for which they’ve saved up for four years and flown halfway across the world. It is a very special place, full of priceless wonders.

In this stunning location I guess it is only natural that more people are trying to benefit financially from the tourists, and on this our second tour of Raja Ampat we met our fair share of them.

Unlike most yachting destinations, it is not free to come here. Raja Ampat is a marine park, and the regional government requires tourists to purchase a visitor’s permit. The permit lasts a year, costs Rp 1 million (around NZ$100) per person, and the funds go to the Raja Ampat Marine Protected Area and are used for conservation and protection of this marine wonderland. We dutifully paid the fee and obtained our permits on arrival here a couple of months back, and considered the matter sorted.

What we didn’t know was that there is great local strife over which permit is the right one, with a number of parties feeling that they’re entitled to collect their own fees.

In Alyui Bay, a picturesque inlet cared deep into the north-western tip of Waigeo Island, the Atlas South Sea Pearl Farm is nestled in along the steep shorelines. When we came to see the farm, its Australian owners told us that we had to pay the local village Rp 1 million to be allowed to use the Pearl Farm mooring buoys.

“If you don’t pay, we will be in trouble,” warned an Australian staff member who had come out to our mooring in a pearl farm boat in the late afternoon to advise us of the local fee. “Basically, the local guys will turn with machetes in the morning if you don’t pay the village fee.”

“But we weren’t going to visit the village,” we protested. “We just want to visit your pearl farm. See the operation, maybe buy some pearls.”

“It’s all a mess,” he sighed, leaning on the steering wheel of the pearl farm boat, his face dark against the setting sun. “They lease the land to us, and we put in the moorings for phinisis and yachts to use. But now the village wants anyone using our moorings to pay for being in their waters.”

“But we’ve already paid for the Raja Ampat visitor’s permit. There is no mention of any additional fees at the Marine Park offices in Waisai?”

“I know. But they’ll make my life hell if you don’t pay. We’ve got a lot of locals employed and the wider community here see the pearl farm as a cash cow to be milked. Last time we had a disagreement, they emptied all the fuel out of the pearl farm fleet, and we had to shut down operations for two weeks, causing huge losses.”

“But why isn’t this fee mentioned anywhere? We wouldn’t have come here if we’d known. We can’t start paying unauthorised fees, it will get out of hand. There are many villages and if we start paying every local village we are near, we will soon run out of money. As soon as we round the corner there will be another village asking us for money. These fees are not mentioned on any online cruiser forums or in our cruising guide – they don’t seem legitimate.”

“They aren’t, but the locals feel that they are.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Look, I understand if you don’t want to pay. But you can’t stay on our mooring if you don’t. I’m happy to escort you to an anchorage just outside the waters we lease -” he gestured towards the outside of the bay, “and then you can stay there.”

We agreed to follow him, a convoy of four yachts heading to the outer bay in the failing light. On the way out I turned to David.

“I don’t see how anchoring just outside the pearl farm waters is going to help.”

He squinted against the setting sun. “He just doesn’t want the trouble from the village.”

“But he said they would come at dawn. With machetes.”

“No, he didn’t mean that, he just wanted us off their mooring. They don’t want to be in trouble with the locals.”

“But he said machetes,” I responded, a hysterical twinge to my voice. “That’s not cool.”

“They aren’t going to come to us. He just didn’t want to be in trouble with the locals. They won’t come to our boats.” He slowed the boat down to match the speed of the pearl boat in front; the guy was hanging over the side gesturing for us to anchor.

I placed myself in front of him. “I don’t know. He said: ‘If you don’t move, the locals will rock up with machetes tomorrow morning’. I don’t really want to stay in this bay! What about the kids? We can’t have men with machetes turning up to our boat, with the kids sleeping downstairs.”

David sighed. “OK. But I think you’re exaggerating. This place is too deep to anchor in anyway. If it makes you happy, I guess we can go back to the anchorage we used last night, I’m OK with anchoring there in the dark.”

He waved goodbye to the pearl boat and altered course to exit the bay. As we motored through the darkness, he turned to me.

“I wonder what that pearl farm has done to upset the locals. I mean, we weren’t approached by a villager – just by the pearl farm. The villagers never came to ask for any money. I wonder if they are as bad as he says.”

“I don’t know.” I look out over the black sea. “I’d rather not find out…”

It all continued the next day when we went to Wayag, an anchorage further north. On our first afternoon there a shiny, official-looking boat approached us on the anchorage. It was blue and white, featuring large fish-and-water logos accompanied by Indonesian writing containing official-looking words like Nasional and Direktorat and held four uniformed men and one civilian. With many smiles they tied up alongside and boarded our boat, explaining that they were from the National Marine and Fisheries Ministry, the agency tasked with managing the Raja Ampat Marine Protected Area.

After a few pleasantries they pulled out a poster showing a map of the area, some underwater photos and otherwise covered in dense Indonesian writing featuring many bullet points and a long list of what looked to be fees – Rp10,000, Rp100,000, Rp1,000,000.

“So, this area is a marine park,” explained one of the uniformed men. “There are many important marine life here.”

“Yes,” we smiled. “We have the Raja Ampat permit, which we bought before coming here.” I showed them our visitor permits, pointing to the Rp 1 million fee listed in the bottom right-hand corner.

“Ah, yes.” He surveyed the permits, his colleague looking over his shoulder and scribbling notes on a pad. “These are permits from the Regional Authority.” He looked up at us. “We are from the National Marine and Fisheries Ministry.”

“Oh, so you are different…”

“Yes. We are protecting the marine reserve. Did you know that this is an important nursery area for the protected manta ray?” He gestured out towards the bay. “There are many young manta rays here. It is one of the most important manta nursery areas in the world.”

“Really? That is amazing.” I squinted at him through my sunglasses. “How can we help you? Come and sit down…”

They were on our boat to what they termed ‘socialise the idea’ of additional fees for visitors to Wayag lagoon. To protect the manta rays, they were proposing to ban motorised vessels altogether inside the lagoon and implement some charges that would go towards the upkeep of the reserve. If they provided moorings for yachts, would we still come and moor up in the outer bay? Even if we could only kayak or paddleboard in the inner lagoon? The proposed fees included a charge of Rp100,000 per overseas visitor per visit, with an additional Rp10,000 per surfboard, Rp20,000 per underwater camera and Rp15,000 per set of scuba diving gear. Not the end of the world, and we said that we would be happy to pay that amount, but that it was crucial that they work with the regional authorities to ensure visitors know about the fee when they first enter Raja Ampat. Could they make this additional fee part of the wider Raja Ampat permit? Otherwise it feels funny for the visitor, to have to pay so many separate fees to go to one place…

“Yes, yes, we understand.” He glanced towards a small longboat that was approaching our boat. “And then there is the village fee, some villagers are asking for one million rupiah for people to visit here.” He rolled his eyes and grimaced.

I nodded, eyeing up the boat. Two men wearing light blue shirts tied up to our stern and stepped onboard. The Ministry guys nodded at them and quickly looked away. “Yes, that sort of thing is difficult for visitors,” I said distractedly. “We don’t bring large amounts of cash to come here, and so it is important that we can buy the permit before arriving, or that we at least know about the fee in advance so we can bring cash.”

“We will make it payable online.” He gestured towards a website link on the poster.

“But there is no internet here – we haven’t had internet for weeks?”

“Yes, yes, we understand. We have to advertise the fee in Waisai and Sorong where people buy the Raja Ampat visitor’s permit.”

They nodded and smiled and scribbled down notes and then, eyeing up the two new men that had arrived they thanked us and stood to leave.

“Are these men with you?” I asked them.

“No, they are from the local village. I think they have come to check your Raja Ampat visitor’s permit.” The Ministry officials quickly boarded their boat and cast off, leaving us with the longboat men.

The two men remaining in the boat looked less official. One was older, and one young, and both wore a light blue shirt with a logo embroidered on the sleeve, but their purple backpack and holey pants suggested they were not altogether official.

I turned towards them. “Hello there. How can we help you?”

They were from the local ranger’s office. The younger man spoke a little English, the older only the local Papuan language. They inspected our Raja Ampat visitor permits and shook their heads sorrowfully. The older man rummaged in the purple backpack and dug out a typed letter in Indonesian, which the younger man handed to us, explaining that it was from the local village. When we explained that we didn’t read Bahasa, they rummaged some more and produced a hand-written English translation.

The letter stated that we needed to purchase a permit from the local village, the customary owners of the territory, to visit the Wayag area. The fee is Rp 1 million per visit. The younger man explained that he was just an employee at the Ranger’s Station, he was there to translate for the older man, who as a village elder represented the village demands. The older man nodded and mumbled something in Papuan.

“He would like you pay the fee now,” explained the young man.

We smiled and explained that we didn’t bring any money because we weren’t aware of these charges. We have no problem paying customary fees and respect their right to the land and surrounding seas, but as there is no way for us to get money in the area, we need advance warning.

“We have been to places where you check in with the customary owners every time you go somewhere new,” we explained. “In Fiji, they have a system where you have to present a present to the village chief everywhere you go.”

“You pay money?”

“No, there it is kava, a root that they pound or chew up and then add water to, to make a drink.”

“Really?”

“Yes, they make a drink that makes them sit and stare into space and then fall asleep.”

The younger man explained to the elder, who widened his eyes and responded with a stream of Papuan.

The young man turned to us. “Like betel nut?”

“No, it is a long root, that they dry. So in Fiji we have to present half a kilo of dried root to the chief of every village we anchor near. The chief then thanks us for the kava, claps his hands three times, and then we are allowed to be in the area. Sometimes we have to drink the kava with him.”

They conversed excitedly again. “Do you have pictures of this root?”

We discussed the Fijian habits of kava drinking for a while, before turning back to the topic at hand.

“So you cannot pay now?”

“No, we don’t have a million Rupiah on us. We would need to go to Waisai, a sail of 80 miles, to the nearest ATM, to get the money. Getting there and back would take us days.”

They talked for a while in Papuan.
“OK. That is OK. You don’t have the money. You can stay here without the permit,” said the young man. “But next time you come, can you bring the money? And can you please tell the other boats,” he indicated towards our friends who were anchored not far away, “that they need to bring money next time they come.”

We promised to let the other boats know and to bring large amounts of cash should we ever return. We also suggested that they work with the regional and national government and try to advertise the extra fees in the regional centres of Sorong and Waisai where most cruisers come before going to Wayag.

We parted as friends and before they left, the young man made us promise once more to tell the other boats. Clearly they were tired of the confrontations, fed up with daily negotiations with yachts and phinisi crew, and still unsure how to easily enforce the payments so that the customary owners would benefit from the stream of visitors.

As they motored away, David turned to me. “It’s a lot simpler in Fiji, isn’t it? There it is clear what you have to do, and everybody just does it. You bring the kava along, you go see the chief first thing when you arrive. There’s a clear system and everybody is happy.”

“Yeah. I understand why they want to benefit from all the visitors to their area. But $100 per visit is a bit too much – I doubt many yachts would come here if they knew of charges like that. Even though it is a very nice part of the world.”

It is problematic. The government’s visitor permit is supposed to pay for moorings and the rangers that protect the area, but clearly the benefits of this are not clear to the local communities. All they see are boatloads of tourists paying millions of rupiah to enjoy their area, none of which money make it to them.

We don’t blame them – it is a precious spot and the locals too should benefit from the tourism. We would be happy to pay to see places of interest or to visit local villages and hear about their traditions. Earlier in the week we had done a jungle adventure tour down south to see the Bird of Paradise, organised by locals who know how to call to attract the birds. An early morning start, the trip had been fantastic, taking us up a calm river to a dense jungle through which we climbed uphill in the pre-dawn darkness till we reached the top of a hill where the birds gather. Experiences such as these are great ways for the locals to benefit from tourism by showing off their area.

Back at the birthday dinner, I proudly carry out the Spanish chicken casserole, a flavoursome smoked paprika risotto packed full of our last vegetables, topped with chicken, olives and slices of orange. Delicious smells waft from the steaming pot and I smile indulgently at my oldest child as I lower it to the table. I’ve spent two and a half hours making it, carefully chopping our last vegetables, browning the chicken, sautéing the onion and garlic, adding the rice, stock and a precious drop of white wine before letting it infuse over a slow burner for an hour and a half. The fridge is now empty but it is worth it – there are not many things I can give him out here, and a delicious meal of his choosing is an awesome present under our circumstances.

I lift the lid dramatically and steam bellows out, filling the cockpit with the scent of roasted chicken and smokey rice. Matias leans forward and peers over the top of the pot.

“Oh,” he says. “What is this, Mummy?”

“It’s what you asked for.” I gesture uncertainly. “The chicken risotto. With eggplant and carrot and olives…”

“Oh.” He looks up at me with confused eyes. “I thought a casserole was like a pastry thing. Like where there is pastry on top.”

“No, that’s a pie. This is that Spanish chicken dish thing – we’ve had it before. You always like it?”

“Ahh. I thought it was a pastry thing. Anyway, it is fine.”

“I’m sorry if it wasn’t what you wanted?”

“It’s fine. But I guess if I’d known what this was, I would have chosen the chicken curry….”

 

 

 

Time flies when you’re having fun, and this week it is two months since we arrived in Indonesia. It’s been a great two months full of oceanic wildlife and beautiful islands, but all good things must come to an end and now it’s time to renew our visa.

“They do not make it easy for you, that’s for sure,” sighs David as he gathers the documentation required, stuffing folders into his backpack and smoothing his crumpled shirt with his hands. “I mean, the whole thing is so backwards. No other country makes you get fingerprints for a visitor’s visa. And to make us come back again and again, and the whole agent thing. So time consuming!”

“I’m sure the US wants fingerprints…” I respond.

“Yes, probably, but unlike the US you would have thought they would want visitors here, what with tourism being a big earner and all.” He sighs again and sits down to put his shoes on, sweat pouring down his face. “I mean, the whole agent thing – that is just so ridiculous!”

It’s 10 am and 30 degrees C in the shade. There’s an overwhelming stink of dried fish in the air, the sun is beating down mercilessly and we are getting ready to go ashore to the immigration office. In Indonesia it is important to dress formally for such occasions and David is wearing long pants, shoes and a shirt, which is a lot of clothes for the weather. For women, the dress code is less onerous – as long as I look tidy and my knees and shoulders are covered I won’t offend anyone. The kids are wearing clean t-shirts and shorts and have washed for the occasion.

David is right. Indonesian visa procedures are ridiculously complicated; the bureaucracy here is energy sapping and relentless. There are a couple of visa options for yachties wishing to cruise in Indonesia. On arrival in all but the bigger ports you can only get a non-renewable one-month visa, so most boats opt to get a visa prior to arrival which gives you an initial two months in the country, and which thereafter can be renewed every month until you’ve been here for six months. We organised our visas through the Indonesian Embassy in Port Moresby, which required multiple copies of many forms and two visits to the embassy. In the past the two-month visa required a letter of support from an Indonesian citizen. This rule was changed in 2017 and the changes posted on the Indonesian Immigration Department’s website. However, frustratingly, most embassy officials and Immigration officers haven’t caught up with the changes, which means that a letter is still required when obtaining the two-month visa in most locations. Of course, many visitors don’t know an Indonesian citizen, but fortunately there are a host of ‘agents’ whom you can engage for $75 to type a letter stating that you are of good character and that they vouch for you. It seems pretty crazy that you can pay for someone to vouch for your character, but the embassy in Port Moresby wanted a letter, and so we engaged Raymond the Agent, paid the money and got the required document.

Multiple copies of passport photos were also required; for some inexplicable reason these had to be against a red background, which added a fair amount of hassle as we stitched up red t-shirts as background and played with camera settings and facial expressions until we had the required deadpan look just right and looked like a family in dire need of antidepressants, yellow faces with sombre expressions against a blood red background.

Predictably, renewing the visa involves a whole new set of bureaucratic hoops we have to jump through. We have to visit an Immigration office, which in Raja Ampat means a trip to Sorong, the provincial capital located on the westernmost point of the island of New Guinea. Once again we need a letter from an agent for each family member and these letters each require a Rp 6000 (~60 cents) stamp placed on top of the agent’s signature, necessitating a visit to, and patient queueing within, the post office before the whole-day Immigration Department operation which involves filling in numerous new forms, the entire family getting fingerprinted and vetted and depositing our passports with the department for three days while they assess our case.

Three days in Sorong means that we might as well get on with some shopping and other city matters, and we have a long list of errands that we slowly work our way through. Thankfully Indonesians are some of the nicest and most helpful people we’ve met, and the frustrations of the bureaucracy are more than made up for by the loveliness of the general population.

 

The history of West Papua is conflict-ridden and bloody. Originally settled by Melanesians 40-50,000 years ago, the area was colonised by the Dutch in the 1600s and formally became part of the Dutch East Indies in 1824. Except for a period of two years during the Second World War when Japan occupied the northern part of New Guinea and surrounding islands, the region remained under Dutch control until the 1960s when Indonesian began muscling in on the territory in its bid to subvert western imperialism. At this stage the Dutch had been training Papuan independence forces for more than a decade, and following bloody conflicts the United Nations worked with the parties to plan a transition to Indonesian rule against assurances that the local population would be allowed to vote about independence at a later date. This date never materialised, and the subsequent heavy-handed thwarting of the Free Papua Movement by Indonesian military forces where an estimated 500,000 Papuans were killed and many more attacked, imprisoned and tortured, is officially known as the West Papuan genocide. To further Papuan ‘integration’, the 1970s and 80s’ Indonesian Government state transmigration programme saw tens of thousands of Javanese and Sumatran migrants settle in West Papua, and nowadays the population in the region is a mix between the native Papuans and Asian settlers.

Sorong is a bustling town and the logistical centre of the region’s booming oil and gas industry. The population is about 200,000 and growing exponentially which leads to a city bursting at the seams. The streets are teeming with motorbikes and cars and dusty building sites line the roadside.

About half the population are Papuan (of whom the majority are Christians) and the other half Javanese / Sumatran (mainly Muslims). Mosques and churches grace the hillsides and veiled Asian women wearing facemasks walk alongside Papuans clad in shorts and t-shirts. Children, cats and small street-side vendors are everywhere, the smells of deep fried fish and chicken wafting from the numerous small shacks advertising nasi goreng (fried rice) or mie goreng (fried noodles) lining the road.

Not knowing any Bahasa makes every shopping mission an adventure and we are eternally grateful to Google Translate which works a treat. Everywhere we go we type our English questions and read them out in broken Bahasa to patiently waiting shopkeepers and passing pedestrians who go out of their way to help us locate anything from dive tank fills to boat parts to specialised medical services.

And so we spend hours sweatily walking up and down hot and dusty streets, stepping over skinny cats with sappy eyes listlessly lying on piles of decaying rubbish wedged into the dry soil, ducking in and out of tiny, dark shops, the kids reluctantly trailing behind us as they are mobbed by crowds of eager selfie-seekers. We tour the town in bemos (local shared taxis), leaning over drivers’ shoulders to display Google Maps of where we’re going, communicating via sign language and our limited Indonesian directional phrases (‘left’, ‘right’, ‘stop’), smiling and nodding and thanking profusely every time we reach the desired location.

We visit an optician to get glasses for Lukie whose eyesight has lately deteriorated and walk out half an hour later with a prescription (-1 in both eyes) and a snazzy pair of glasses. We see a dentist to discuss what to do with Matias’s baby molars who are not budging even as the permanent teeth are coming out beside them, and fifteen minutes later we leave the premises, five baby teeth lighter and carrying a bottle of paracetamol and a course of antibiotics. A friendly nurse at the dentists goes out of her way to take me to an ophthalmologist so I can have my eyes tested while David oversees the negotiations with the dentist (there were none – he didn’t speak English and looked determined, so out the baby teeth came). While I’m at a department store with the kids shopping for hats and flip flops, David scours the town by bemo to locate boat parts and plumbing bits. We eat in food courts and roadside eateries, trying ten delicious tofu and tempeh dishes and breathing fire from the hot side-dishes involving chopped up greens, garlic and copious amounts of chilli. We find oats, butter and cheese (not available anywhere else in Raja Ampat) and stock up on frozen chicken, fresh fruit and vegetables.

In a blur of heat and a soak of sweat three days whirl past and as I’m getting the last of the fresh provisions David collects our passports, after which, exhausted and smelly, we’re ready to leave the city behind. We have a month until we need to be back to renew the visa again, and armed with a tonne of provisions and having warded off the worst of the medical emergencies, we are ready to say ‘so long, Sorong’.

“Mais regard, what do you think?”

Indicating the sand at our feet, Pierrot turned to me. “There are claw marks here, and here.” He tutted, crouched down, closely surveying the markings in the white, damp sand. I knelt beside him and looked out over the small beach, trying to make sense of the messy patterns.

It was five days before Christmas. We were on a tiny beach of shining white sand surrounded by jagged rocky outcrops, leading into delightfully turquoise waters dotted with the dark outline of coral bommies. The sand was not pristine: clearly a huge animal had visited since the last high tide, making its way up from the rocks to the top of the beach only to turn around when reaching the vegetation, crossing over its own path to get back to the sea. The tracks were about a metre wide and consisted of a smooth section in the middle flanked by a clawlike pattern either side.

Pierrot and his wife Antonella, from the neighbouring boat SV C’est le Vent, had come in the morning to fetch us to have a look at the tracks. “We need a marine biologist,” they said. “We think a crocodile might have been on the beach.”

I didn’t pause to explain that my marine biological expertise is entirely limited to the identification of microscopic creatures that inhabit nutrient-enriched sandy sediments in shallow, warm temperate seas – a discrete niche very far from the identification of tracks made by huge carnivorous reptiles in tropical habitats. Instead I brought along 8-year-old Lukie, who only a couple of months ago completed a home-schooling inquiry on salt-water crocodiles and as a result is by far the person most knowledgeable about crocodiles on our boat. Lukie reckoned that he had seen some tracks as part of his investigations and was confident he would be able to recognise them again.

“They can swim very far,” he explained to Pierrot in the dinghy on the way over to the beach. “Hundreds of miles. But they mainly live in mangroves and are not common on coral reefs.”

On the beach we tried to recreate the animal from the tracks. If a crocodile, it would have to be huge.

“They can grow to 6.37 metres,” said Lukie. “I’m not sure how wide they are when they are that size. But they can eat sharks, I saw a photo of a crocodile with a huge shark in its mouth.”

Pierrot looked worried. “These are claw marks, no?” he said, pointing to a set of marks that could be construed to resemble a reptilian footprint.

Lukie shook his head knowingly. “I think it was a turtle,” he said. “A big one.”

“No, it is too big,” protested Pierrot, throwing out his hands. “Look, it is so wide! And what about these claws?”

“I agree with Lukie,” said David. “A croc would be able to hold up the weight of its upper body, and the tail would swish. A turtle has to drag the shell.”

Pierrot inspected the marks dubiously. “Maybe,” he said with a Gallic shrug.

“Look here,” said David. “These are the flipper marks. And then here, where it pushes itself forward, the marks are pressed together so they look like claws.”

“Perhaps you are right.” Pierrot bent down again, scrutinising the track. “Alors, we call it a turtle. And then we go snorkelling all day and come back tonight and see a huge crocodile sleeping on the beach, eh?”

We were in Misool, the southernmost part of the Raja Ampat region of Indonesia. Raja Ampat is located just west of the Bird’s Head western tip of Papua, so called because it resembles a bird’s head if you squint heavily when viewing it on a map. The area has incredibly high marine biodiversity and is a sought-after diving destination. It is also occasionally frequented by salt-water crocodiles, and divers have been attacked on the northwestern coast of Misool, at a well-known mangrove dive site. We were anchored in the outer atolls extending in a south-easterly direction from mainland Misool, a site devoid of mangroves, hundreds of miles from the crocs’ known territory.

Still, better safe than sorry. “Let’s get to another place,” I said to David. “I mean, I’m not sure saltwater crocodiles were part of the Christmas anchorage plans…”

And so we continued our northward island hopping in search of the perfect Christmas anchorage.

It had been a long trip already. Getting to Misool from Triton Bay in the south was a bit of a mission: a 150-mile upwind passage, which David repeatedly asked me if I was up for. Reasoning that we would like to be in Misool or further north by Christmas and that the weather didn’t look like it was going to change in the foreseeable future, I decided that we should go, even though I don’t really enjoy sailing upwind.

“But there will be squalls,” he said. “We will have rain and there will be lightning around. Are you sure you want to go? It’s not going to be comfortable.”

“Yes, yes,” I said, waving my hand impatiently. “Let’s just get it over and done with, get there and relax for Christmas. How bad can it be?”

Famous last words.

Normally we’d easily do 150 miles in 24 hours, but sailing directly upwind is slow, especially in a boat like ours with an effective tacking angle of about 110 degrees. With that in mind, we planned for a three-day passage. Diesel is very hard to buy in Indonesia (it is subsidised for vehicle transport and foreigners are not allowed to buy it at the pump, which means that you have to engage a local agent, pay them handsomely to go and collect it for you, and hope that what they bring back is actually diesel) and so we were determined to sail as much as possible, only using the engine when the wind disappeared completely.

And so began the longest stretch of upwind sailing we’ve ever done. On the chart plotter, the light blue triangle indicating the wind direction steadfastly remained at the angle of our destination, our actual course a zigzag pattern across the purple line showing where we were supposed to go. We were relentlessly pursued by thunderstorms, the radar lit up with yellow, blobby monsters that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, coagulating until they covered most of the screen, ready to engulf us as we nervously steered our way across the screen, trying to keep the purple line as far from the yellow blobs as possible.

Going upwind is not only slow but also extremely uncomfortable, the boat heading directly into the waves, slamming up and down, jarring and shaking us, its contents. In the late afternoon on the first day the squalls started hitting, pelting us with rain, the wind changing from 10 to 25 knots within moments. At night the pattern would continue, with David manning the helm, me reefing sails, and the kids sleeping blithely through the thunder, lightning and crashing waves.

On the third day when I woke up in the early morning, bone tired after a night of two hours of sleep, we had 18 nautical miles to go. The wind was still coming directly from where we wanted to be, and we were travelling at a roughly 90-degree angle to the course we ought to follow, making our VMG (velocity made good – our actual progress in knots towards our target) hover between -0.2 and 0.5 depending on where the waves pushed us. Exhausted after a couple of hours dodging squalls David handed over the watch and lumbered off to bed, leaving me to sit staring at the chart plotter, a cup of steaming coffee in my hand, my eyes hurting with the effort of keeping them open, a hopeless sigh escaping my mouth. Only 18 miles to go, and we were going practically backwards. With the progress we were making it would take all day to get there. Arghh.

I stuck my head around the doorframe and peered at his sleeping shape, my loyalty towards the sailor in my life wavering. Maybe I could turn on the engine without him noticing? Take down the genoa, head directly into it at 5 knots, and be there by the time he woke up? Why all this pointless tacking, using the wind, when we could just turn on the engine and get there? Sailing is more comfortable, but at this stage we had slept perhaps a total of 8 hours each in 48 hours, every sleep interrupted by lightning storms and howling gusts. Shouldn’t we just try and get there?

My thoughts were interrupted by the kids demanding breakfast and by the time the general morning mayhem finished the winds had changed somewhat, allowing me to tack and hand steer a close course approximately towards our destination. Uplifted, I remained there until I had to wake David again with the approach of another squall.

“We’re getting there,” I said satisfied, pointing to the screen. With a bit of luck we’ll be there in three hours!”

He nodded, took the wheel, and I stumbled off to bed again.

Two hours later I woke up. Stretching in bed I checked the time, smiling at the thought that surely by now we would be approaching the island. I gaily rushed to the cockpit to check our progress only to have my hope deflated once again. In my absence the wind had changed and we were now 12 miles from our destination and heading almost due south, our current VMG a mighty 0.6 knots. Which meant that it would take us approximately 20 hours to get there.

Overwhelmed by despair I turned to David, blocking his way back into the saloon. “We need to put on the engine,” I blurbed out, tears in my eyes. “Otherwise we’ll never get there. Never.”

He looked at me puzzled. “This is sailing upwind,” he said. “Tacking is slow progress. We’ll get there.”

“But I want to put on the engines,” I said hysterically, my voice catching. “It’s been three days and now we could very well go into a fourth, just sitting here criss-crossing the course, not making any progress. I’m tired and I want to get there. I WANT TO GET THERE!”

“OK, OK,” he says, holding up both hands. “Fine, we’ll switch on the engine. Sheesh. Calm down!”

He switched on the engine and I sighed with relief, hope filling my heart as I slowly wound up the genoa and gazed lovingly at the chart plotter on which Bob was heading directly towards target.

The hardships didn’t stop with the arrival at Misool. After a barracuda we hooked on the way in was immediately devoured by a sizeable shark, nobody felt much like snorkelling. The island’s anchorages are deep and treacherous, and the first evening our anchor dragged twice, sending us drifting slowly out to sea as the insane beeping of the anchor alarm filled the quiet night. After two resetting attempts we all slept lightly, expecting the alarm to go off at any moment.

Like most places hard to get to, Misool is worth it, and once we got into the groove of tying up to protruding trees from vertical karst cliffs rather than anchoring we slept soundly again. And so we island-hopped in mild weather with our friends on SV C’est le Vent, exploring one untouched paradise after another, snorkelling pristine coral reefs, seeing the occasional fleeting glimpse of a turtle in the background but thankfully no crocodiles.

The islands south-east of Misool are amazing. Part of the Raja Ampat Marine Reserve, fishing is allowed to various degrees in certain areas only, making for excellent marine life. Vertical walls covered in soft corals plunge from scraggy surface rocks to untold depths. Shallow slopes support hard coral reefs teeming with life. The water is full of microscopic life and tiny baitfish squeeze together tightly into giant, living superballs, fleeing and darting from giant trevallies, tuna and other pelagics.

It’s not only marine life that is thriving. On the vertical karst cliffs of the small island group of Balbulol insectivorous pitcher plants clung on to the rough limestone rock in droves, and our boats, tied onto the same shores, were inundated with mosquitoes and sandflies. Three days from Christmas, I spent a day there painstakingly sowing mosquito nets for all hatches, sealing the boat up so that no unwanted insect could make its way in. But still, the severe karst cliffs didn’t fit with our expectations for Christmas so we fled north and anchored in shallow sand in a small group of sandy atolls far from mangroves, crocodiles and plunging rocky depths.

“Let’s stay here for Christmas,” I enthused to David in the late afternoon on 23 December as we lowered the anchor onto a flat, sandy bottom just offshore an idyllic sandy island covered in palm trees. “Atolls, and a flat, sandy bottom to anchor on. Perfect!”

“Yay, clear shallow water,” cried the children, jumping up and down on the trampoline as the sun dropped behind the island, spreading tendrils of pink and purple over the palm-tree silhouettes and rosying the jumping boys’ cheeks.

At 1 am the anchor alarm went on – the boat had swung close to the island, but the under-keel depth was still fine. At 3 am the alarm went off again – we had swung around completely and a strong current was raging, but the anchor held. In the morning, we had come back to our original position, and there was little current, but it built during the early hours and by 11 am we were jumping in from the bow and getting swept by a 2-knot current to a rope tied between the two hulls within seconds, the kids whooping with delight as they clung onto the rope against the raging tide. We played Man Overboard Survivor, practising grabbing hold of lines as we flew past the hulls, scoring extra points if we managed to hold onto the back step and pull ourselves on board. Lukie did exceedingly well but I guess he’s the one who has had the most practice with the whole getting rapidly swept from the boat thing.

We had a fantastic Christmas at the anchorage, with a Christmas Eve beach bonfire on a deserted but rat-infested island (which wasn’t too bad – they were numerous but cute and quite shy), and despite dwindling provisions managed to piece together a lovely Christmas day lunch with our friends which was only interrupted by a serious inundation of flies and a squall that sent us inside for dessert.

There are only so many flies a family can take, and the day after Christmas we continued north against the current in search of provisions and internet, reaching Waisai on Waigeo Island, the centre of Raja Ampat, late on the 26th. Here we will restock our meagre supplies and then head off to enjoy the region, still aiming to find a shallow, sandy anchorage with good holding, and no currents, insects, rats or crocodiles. Maybe for New Year’s Eve?

 

Lukie was the first of the family to swim in Indonesia. And not in a good way.

It happened just over two weeks ago. We were fleeing the filthy port of Tual, heading for the clear waters of Triton Bay. It was a calm afternoon and we were motor sailing along at 4-5 knots in light winds on a flat sea. We’d had an uneventful trip so far – a bit of rain, a bit of sailing, but the winds were flaking off and we were getting ready for a night of motoring. It was about 4:30 pm and I was in the galley, chopping some vegetables for dinner. Matias and Lukie were playing on the trampoline when suddenly Matias started yelling.

“Must be a big whale or something for him to shout that loudly,” I thought to myself mid-chop. “Better get the camera ready!”

I put down the knife and went to fetch the camera. Matias continued to yell and suddenly my world stopped as the words took shape over the roar of the engine and the hiss of the stove.

“Man overboard! MAN OVERBOARD! Lukie is in the water!”

My heart raced. I threw the camera onto the table and rushed outside. David was at the wheel, having already put the engine in neutral and placed us hove-to to stop forward movement. Both he and Matias were pointing at Lukie who was floating in the water about 20 m behind the boat.

I scrambled over to the flotation devices and threw a yellow horseshoe float towards Lukie, and then hurried to get the float and line.

“Grab the floatie,” I shouted to Lukie. “And then swim towards the boat.”

David started reversing slowly towards Lukie, who by then was safely installed in the bright yellow floatie and swimming rapidly towards us. Within seconds he had a grip on the buoy at the end of the line and I pulled him in. He climbed onto the boat and sat down for a second, catching his breath.

“Well done, team,” said David in a light tone as he slowly put the boat back in forward gear. “Just like we practised!”

I swallowed. He was right. It was calm and collected, under control. Nobody panicked. Lukie swam steadily through the dark sea towards the boat. Matias kept pointing. David stopped the boat immediately.  I threw hi-viz floaty stuff overboard for him to grab onto and to mark the location. It was so under control that I knew the moment I came outside that we wouldn’t use the DAN buoy, the 3-metre tall orange sausage that is invaluable in marking a spot in a rough sea. The self-inflatable DAN buoy only works once, and there was never any doubt in my mind that it was to be saved for a real emergency.

During the post-mortem it became clear that Matias and Lukas had been playing at the very bow of the boat. Lukie had been swinging on a new rope we had installed for the current bout of pirate games. Whilst jumping on the trampoline, he hit the genoa and slid underneath it into the sea. Matias started yelling immediately, and David stopped the boat within seconds.

We decided that the pirate game is best kept for anchorages.

Man overboard notwithstanding, it was a relief to leave Tual behind. It took us four days to clear Indonesian Quarantine, Customs, and Immigration, four long days sweating in the hot sun in a foul anchorage, our only respite from the smelly water hectic visits to an overwhelming Indonesian port town full of people, animals, cars and mopeds.

We sensed Tual, our first port in Indonesia, many miles before we arrived, getting a nauseating feel for the place as the floating rubbish steadily increased. As we neared the town anchorage a dead pig floated past the boat, its four limbs sticking out from a heavily bloated body. Getting ashore involved driving the dinghy through rubbish several layers deep, stopping every so often to untangle plastic bags from the outboard prop, a neverending supply of bags coming from the thick sheet of plastic junk swaying in the slight swell, mixed with smelly food waste decaying against the shoreline in the searingly hot sun. Drink containers, plastic bags, fishing floats, flip flops, disposable nappies, packaging. Straws, cardboard, fishing nets, bits of rope. Styrofoam breaking up into tiny seeds that tinged the water white. Balls of fishing line wrapped around a t-shirt overlying a bamboo stalk with water bottles floating underneath, holding up the raft.

It’s an incredible mess, a huge culture shock and a drastic change of scene from the Pacific. Yes, there is rubbish on the beaches in Fiji, but nothing like this. Yes, we saw school children happily throw their lolly wrappers into the harbour in Tonga, but most Pacific countries are working hard to ban single-use plastics, and new generations are becoming wiser. Indonesia is different. This is industrial-scale indifference, the evidence of a densely populated, rapidly expanding consumer culture that still has no regard for where the ensuing detritus ends up. On the dock our friends saw a housewife traipse down and lean over the concrete wall to carefully throw her rubbish bag into the sea. In the muddy waters lining the shore, kids play knee-deep in rubbish, trying to catch fish from the stinky sewer of discoloured water.

The town market reveals the source of the rubbish. All the stalls sell the popular Chinese products that we associate with 2-dollar stores at home – plastic toys packaged in transparent plastic, plastic buckets, rakes, hair ornaments, mirrors, all shiny, fragile, and colourful. Single-use washing powder is sold in individual plastic pouches, portion-sized sauces like ketchup and soy sauce in individual packages, condiment parcels just big enough for a small meal for one. Small blister packs of instant coffee premixed with milk powder and sugar hang next to tiny sachets of salt, pepper and monosodium glutamate. Shampoos, conditioners, soaps and cleaning products are all sold in portion-sized wrapping. It’s K-Mart on steroids, all the shiny, cheap, plastic trappings of modern civilisation proudly on display, individually wrapped, ready for the rampant consumption of an exploding culture.

It’s a colourful place, and loud too. The majority of the population in Tual is Muslim and five times a day the muezzin calls out from the rooftops, the melodious song being broadcast from loudspeakers scattered throughout town, resonating over garbage-covered still water. Christians live here too, and the town is full of crazy contrasts – a fully veiled Muslim woman riding a heavily adorned ‘Hello Kitty’ all-pink scooter, veil trailing behind her, high heels protruding from her long pants struggling to gain foothold on the small pedals, next to a snazzy Christian woman dressed in tight shorts and a clingy top with sparkle writing across her wonderbra chest, heavily made-up eyes hiding behind shiny sunglasses reflecting the brightly-coloured market stalls.

The people are incredibly friendly. Many shouted greetings when they saw us, often the only English they knew: “Hello Mister,” only occasionally altered to “Hello Sister” for me. Shy school girls followed us around, whispering behind their hands, giggling as they rushed towards me shouting “What is my name?” then fleeing before I got a chance to explain that I wouldn’t know.

Nobody speaks any English and we were soon utterly lost, hiding behind our Swiss-Italian friends who live in Bali and know Bahasa. Even buying the simplest item is impossible without any language and after causing a stir by paying the prices asked (the women holding up fingers to indicate how many tens of thousands of Rupiah they requested) I quickly learned the numbers so that I could bargain as expected in the fruit and vegetable market.

The kids were an instant hit and as soon as we set foot ashore the crowds had their cell phones out, snapping away. As we walked the streets people held their phones above their heads, videoing our progress. When we accidentally gate-crashed a wedding whilst trying to make our way from the shore to the town’s main street we were greeted with open arms, invited to stay, and forced to pose for endless photos with an army of pink-clad female wedding guests. Everywhere we went people grabbed the children, coercing them to pose for selfies ensconced in the arms of their captors. Normally I’m self-conscious about taking photos of locals in countries we visit (it seems exploitatory and condescending, them going about their normal lives and me finding it fascinating and colourful); here I do it as retaliation. The children were plotting with their friends that they would start charging for photos: four blond kids charging only Rp 5000 per photo. Bargain. When I mentioned the fee to a group of very loud market women who were literally about to carry my children away after overcharging me for their produce they cackled loudly and slapped my back, repeating my ludicrous demands (about the sixth of the price of a pumpkin) to each other.

Even the officials requested selfies. The Customs officers boarding our boat solemnly asked for a group photo before they left, and our visit to the police station where we were trying to obtain yet another permit was constantly interrupted by passing officers leaning in and snapping selfies over the kids’ shoulders. By the end of our brush with town Indonesia, our children’s photos must be gracing hundreds of Facebook accounts, grim-looking blond kids scowling next to a cheerful looking local holding two fingers in the air.

Four days in Tual was enough civilisation to last us a while, and after spending a day getting yet another set of permits in Kaimana, the capital of the Triton Bay area on Irian Jaya, the Indonesian part of Papua New Guinea, we felt relief at arriving in Triton Bay.

 

Triton Bay is on the south-western coast of Irian Jaya, an area full of steep hillsides and small vertical islands set in glassy calm seas. Here, the only busy place is the sea, where in many respects the activity levels mirror or even exceeds that of Tual. It is an incredibly productive area; the water is thick with plankton and clouds of the tiny fish that feed on them. The schooling baitfish come in all sizes – from microscopic hovering swarms just above the extended tentacles of branches of soft coral to thousands of small fish in schools hiding under our boat and millions of finger-long silver darts streaming through the water, changing direction as one co-ordinated group when a predator approaches. The fish are so numerous that it felt as though we are diving in a bait ball: there was no knowing what was up and what was down, and definitely no seeing the reef beyond the crowds. We’re suspended in Blue Planet: the Great Feast – a smorgasbord of coastal plenty, tiny prey feeding tiny voracious predators being gulped down by larger fish, a three-dimensional world of plenty where fish lives are played out in all their terrifying swiftness.

The plankton abundance gives rise to soft corals of astounding diversity; this area has the highest marine biodiversity in the world, and soft corals are not excepted. They adorn every rock, their bright colours shining like underwater mosaics, their soft shapes swaying gently in the sea. Brightly coloured feather stars lurk everywhere, their tentacular arms filter-feeding in the swift currents, bright yellow, red, stripy and black little ferns clinging to the rocks.

 

At night the plankton lit up the waters, luminous clouds mirroring the starry sky above. We did a night snorkel and when we turned off our torches in the moonless night we were gliding through a universe of tiny lights that switched on as we disturbed the water. It was not just our presence that was announced by underwater twinkle: from the boat we could see fish gliding by at night, their shapes fuzzily outlined in stars, a wake of glitter trailing behind.

In a narrow, shallow bay we beached the Bob, tying up to branches from flimsy trees clinging to the vertical limestone cliffs at high tide. Come low tide we were perched in 10 cm of water which meant that we could exchange the spare propeller installed in Port Moresby for the new one that we got sent there. It is a relief to have the new prop installed and the spare prop safely tucked away should the starboard one fall off. With the first one falling off with no warning, we want to be safe…

In the shallows under the beached boats played out the lives of hundreds of shrimp and goby pairs. The seafloor was littered with narrow burrows from which the stalked eyes of a watchful goby appeared. If sensing no danger, the fish would advance and sit impassively a short distance from the burrow. Within the burrow the shrimp was busy fussily cleaning, and from time to time a small, the exhausted shrimp appeared pushing a great load of unwanted sand and small rocks out of the burrow. It pushed the muck out to where the goby was sitting, elbowing the still fish further out of the way before it returned back into the burrow to fetch more sand. Ignoring its obsessive-compulsive partner, the goby sat stoically on watch, observing the comings and goings of the tiny fish darting around the bay. We spent hours watching their busy lives.

Just beyond the beached boat the low tide exposed an underwater tunnel leading into an inland saltwater filled bay. The tunnel was long and dark and the boys and I snorkelled through it rapidly, spooked by the darkness and the long, slimy tentacles that seem to reach up to grab us from the sea floor.

On land we were treated to amazing views on an arduous clifftop walk up a set of newly made stairs with 700+ steps. Surrounded by dark green jungle the never-ending staircase was immersed in bird calls, butterflies and shafts of sunlight filtering through the treetops to the forest floor.

Irian Jaya has been long populated. The original people here are Papuans, Melanesians of dark skin and curly hair sporting bushy beards. Since the area became part of Indonesia Javanese settlers have arrived, and nowadays the coastal towns sport a mixture of Melanesians and Asians. Inland, the Melanesian cultures are less disturbed and several tribes remain uncontacted deep in the Irian Jayan highlands. On our way out of Triton Bay we sailed past some cliff rock-paintings that allegedly date back to the original inhabitants: ochre shaped by ancient hands into images of fish and people. Nobody knows how old the paintings are, but the locals believe them to be made by spirits.

In this magic location it is easy to see why.