About Me. I am on a two-month dive trip to four countries, flying with nine airlines. I’m a solo traveler with 600+ dives, and this is an independently planned trip with the help of Bluewater Travel for dive and stay package pricing. In order of travel by country: Indonesia (Raja Ampat), Philippines (Puerto Galera), Western Australia (Exmouth/Ningaloo & Perth), and Fiji (Viti Levu). In Raja Ampat, my stays were one week at Cove Eco (Yeben Island), one week at Raja Ampat Dive Lodge (Mansuar Island), and one week on White Manta liveaboard round trip from Sorong.
For context of geography, Yeben Island was the farthest south from Sorong, requiring about 4 hours of ferry and boat rides. Yeben is about a 30-40 minute ride to the premium location of Melissa's Garden. My request was for diving in the south as much as possible because of the bleaching in the north. Between Yeben and Mansuar is about a one-hour boat transfer. And from Mansuar to Sorong is about 1 hour, 45 minutes boat transfer.
My trip reports tend to be very detailed. This part of the world is complicated to travel to and through, so I hope that sharing my experience may help others. Please feel free to ask questions, however, kindly refrain from judgments or comments on how you would have done this or that.
This is my second time to Raja Ampat within 14 months. There was a tragic diver death on my last trip in December 2023, so the trip was interrupted and I missed out on a lot of diving in RA. Here’s the link to that trip report.
Getting There. Air travel can be miserable and challenging, so to stay rested and keep my sanity, I break up these long-haul flights with overnight stays. I used miles and points to fly business class for all the international connections. From Portland, Oregon, I flew on for a 2-hour flight and connected in San Francisco. Here I stayed overnight. Then I flew for 11 hours on Japan Airlines to HND (Haneda, Japan), took the Limousine Bus for a 2-hour ride for $25 USD from HND to NRT (Narita, Japan). With an 18-hour layover, I spent the night in Narita. The flight to CGK (Jakarta) was 8 hours, then a layover for 4 hours and caught the 12:10 a.m. flight on Garuda to SOQ (Sorong), a 4-hour flight. I stayed 2 nights in Sorong before being picked up by Cove Eco Resort to be taken to the ferry for a 2-hour ride to Waisai then transferred to CE’s boat for another 1 hour and 45 minute ride to the resort. I left the U.S. on February 18th and arrived in Sorong on February 22nd. I was at CE from February 24-March 3.
All went smoothly until my check-in at the Garuda counter to go from Jakarta to Sorong. It took 45 minutes to check in because of the baggage. Garuda is a new member of SkyTeam, which was evident as they mishandled my reservation. I used 40,000 Delta miles to get a business class seat for the extra luggage allowance plus the free 50-pound sports baggage. The circus monkeys at Garuda decided to intermingle the Delta rules and Garuda rules and they charged me $100 USD as a Delta rule for an extra bag but gave me the free sports bag on the Garuda rule. I was supposed to have all bags free in business class. This was the start of my frustrations with being in Indonesia.
ATM Debit Card Theft. You really have to pay attention to your surroundings because the thieves are everywhere. When I arrived, I went to two ATMs at the Jakarta airport using my Charles Schwab debit card for IDR since the machines have limits. I am very careful to look for skimmers and watch my back while withdrawing money. A woman came up too close for personal space at an ATM and said “taxi?” I’m guessing she was testing to see if I understood English for a distraction. I turned around (mistake-I should have ignored her). She muttered something, and I told her to back up and go away. I got my money and left.
Fast forward four days, and I get a text from Charles Schwab questioning two charges from Singapore, one for zero dollars and one for $99.99. The zero dollars charge is, of course, to see if this is a live card number. I denied authorization and they blocked it from going through. Yep, my debit card number was stolen. The card was blocked from further use. I don’t know which of the two machines had the skimmer or if the woman had anything to do with it. Charles Schwab sent me a new card to my hotel in Australia. But for the Philippines portion of this trip, I was without local currency. Unknown to me, the Philippines is a cash economy, so even 7-11 in Manila takes cash only.
Back to the chronology, I stayed at the Aston hotel in Sorong, which is a real improvement over Swiss-Bel hotel from my last trip. I paid 50% of the two-night total ($30 USD) for early check in at 7:30 a.m. This was much cheaper than paying for an extra night to get into the room early. During check-in, the clerk wanted my passport for my ID, then he proceeded to attempt to take a picture of my passport on his personal phone. This screams ID theft in the making. I stopped that from happening by refusing to let him do it. The room was twice the size of the room at Swiss-Bel, in a better location, provides 2 bottles of water per day, and a very good breakfast from 5:30-10:00 a.m. that’s in an enclosed dining room as opposed to Swiss-Bel, which is open air, very hot, and lots of flies and insects swarming the food.
The hotel shuttle or a taxi is 100,000 IDR from the airport. I grabbed a taxi. I mentioned this in my last trip report of Raja Ampat, but the loud speakers throughout the city to broadcast the Muslim prayers multiple times per day is annoying. In addition to that, on Saturday night, there was 4 hours of nonstop screaming over the loud speakers, and the only thing I could understand was “revolucion”. It was 4 hours of hateful ranting. I thought the Muslim life was about peace, but this guy wanted to incite violence.
TO BE CONTINUED...
For context of geography, Yeben Island was the farthest south from Sorong, requiring about 4 hours of ferry and boat rides. Yeben is about a 30-40 minute ride to the premium location of Melissa's Garden. My request was for diving in the south as much as possible because of the bleaching in the north. Between Yeben and Mansuar is about a one-hour boat transfer. And from Mansuar to Sorong is about 1 hour, 45 minutes boat transfer.
My trip reports tend to be very detailed. This part of the world is complicated to travel to and through, so I hope that sharing my experience may help others. Please feel free to ask questions, however, kindly refrain from judgments or comments on how you would have done this or that.
This is my second time to Raja Ampat within 14 months. There was a tragic diver death on my last trip in December 2023, so the trip was interrupted and I missed out on a lot of diving in RA. Here’s the link to that trip report.
Getting There. Air travel can be miserable and challenging, so to stay rested and keep my sanity, I break up these long-haul flights with overnight stays. I used miles and points to fly business class for all the international connections. From Portland, Oregon, I flew on for a 2-hour flight and connected in San Francisco. Here I stayed overnight. Then I flew for 11 hours on Japan Airlines to HND (Haneda, Japan), took the Limousine Bus for a 2-hour ride for $25 USD from HND to NRT (Narita, Japan). With an 18-hour layover, I spent the night in Narita. The flight to CGK (Jakarta) was 8 hours, then a layover for 4 hours and caught the 12:10 a.m. flight on Garuda to SOQ (Sorong), a 4-hour flight. I stayed 2 nights in Sorong before being picked up by Cove Eco Resort to be taken to the ferry for a 2-hour ride to Waisai then transferred to CE’s boat for another 1 hour and 45 minute ride to the resort. I left the U.S. on February 18th and arrived in Sorong on February 22nd. I was at CE from February 24-March 3.
All went smoothly until my check-in at the Garuda counter to go from Jakarta to Sorong. It took 45 minutes to check in because of the baggage. Garuda is a new member of SkyTeam, which was evident as they mishandled my reservation. I used 40,000 Delta miles to get a business class seat for the extra luggage allowance plus the free 50-pound sports baggage. The circus monkeys at Garuda decided to intermingle the Delta rules and Garuda rules and they charged me $100 USD as a Delta rule for an extra bag but gave me the free sports bag on the Garuda rule. I was supposed to have all bags free in business class. This was the start of my frustrations with being in Indonesia.
ATM Debit Card Theft. You really have to pay attention to your surroundings because the thieves are everywhere. When I arrived, I went to two ATMs at the Jakarta airport using my Charles Schwab debit card for IDR since the machines have limits. I am very careful to look for skimmers and watch my back while withdrawing money. A woman came up too close for personal space at an ATM and said “taxi?” I’m guessing she was testing to see if I understood English for a distraction. I turned around (mistake-I should have ignored her). She muttered something, and I told her to back up and go away. I got my money and left.
Fast forward four days, and I get a text from Charles Schwab questioning two charges from Singapore, one for zero dollars and one for $99.99. The zero dollars charge is, of course, to see if this is a live card number. I denied authorization and they blocked it from going through. Yep, my debit card number was stolen. The card was blocked from further use. I don’t know which of the two machines had the skimmer or if the woman had anything to do with it. Charles Schwab sent me a new card to my hotel in Australia. But for the Philippines portion of this trip, I was without local currency. Unknown to me, the Philippines is a cash economy, so even 7-11 in Manila takes cash only.
Back to the chronology, I stayed at the Aston hotel in Sorong, which is a real improvement over Swiss-Bel hotel from my last trip. I paid 50% of the two-night total ($30 USD) for early check in at 7:30 a.m. This was much cheaper than paying for an extra night to get into the room early. During check-in, the clerk wanted my passport for my ID, then he proceeded to attempt to take a picture of my passport on his personal phone. This screams ID theft in the making. I stopped that from happening by refusing to let him do it. The room was twice the size of the room at Swiss-Bel, in a better location, provides 2 bottles of water per day, and a very good breakfast from 5:30-10:00 a.m. that’s in an enclosed dining room as opposed to Swiss-Bel, which is open air, very hot, and lots of flies and insects swarming the food.
The hotel shuttle or a taxi is 100,000 IDR from the airport. I grabbed a taxi. I mentioned this in my last trip report of Raja Ampat, but the loud speakers throughout the city to broadcast the Muslim prayers multiple times per day is annoying. In addition to that, on Saturday night, there was 4 hours of nonstop screaming over the loud speakers, and the only thing I could understand was “revolucion”. It was 4 hours of hateful ranting. I thought the Muslim life was about peace, but this guy wanted to incite violence.
TO BE CONTINUED...
