Trip Report -Ari Jaya and The Komodo Islands

[hypersonic]

Part 1, GETTING THERE

Indonesia was on my bucket list but not my wife's due to the distance and the time it would mean being away from our small business. So in August, a couple of weeks before my wife's birthday, I bought her a Kindle 2 electronic book and loaded her first book, "Eat, Pray, Love."

She loved the Kindle and loved the book and as soon as the book was finished, I asked "ready to go to Bali?" She replied, "when can we go?"

Peter Hughes had a 11 day cruise scheduled after the 1st of January so I talked to their office but they could not confirm the sailing because of a lack of other interested divers. A few weeks later, PH was still not able to confirm the sailing so I looked for alternatives.

One showed up on the web, the Ari Jaya, a 66 ft wooden junk that wouldn't break the bank as a private charter. And, it would sail on our arrival and return on our schedule. This meant we could do 6 nights on the liveaboard, spend a few nights in Bali and only be gone 12 nights from home vs 18 if we to do the PH boat since its sailing date was several days after the date we would arrive. The AJ was reserved via Aleksandra, the young Polish girl who owns the boat and a wire transfer sent to confirm the reservation.

Options for air travel to Bali are numerous. From the U.S., one can route thru Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore and Taipei. We opted for China Airlines thru Taipei which had the lowest fares and best connections. I also thought the shortest distance but due to the jetstream for the flight from LAX, we flew over central Alaska, down the East Coast of Russia, between Korea and Japan before landing in Taiwan.

A Visa is required to visit Indonesia.

One can take a chance and send your passport to an Indonesian Consulate. Do a google search to find the one for your state. We did not want to risk some clerk losing our passport in Chicago or sending it off to Peoria by mistake so, we did not choose this option.

Or purchase a "Visa on Arrival" which most people do except there are a large number of international flights arriving in Bali daily and one could be looking at a two hour wait in line to buy the visa.

The best thing is to use a VIP arrival service at the Bali Airport.

We used bali nice tour is tour and Travel, car rental, airport service, hotel in bali.

A reservation was made on line and we received a prompt confirmation.

A BNT guy met us at the gate, I gave him cash for the visas and his fee and our passports. He disappeared for a while so I found luggage carts picked up our luggage. In a minute our guy reappeared and we walked out thru the same lane the flight crews use and into the sunshine. (Bali Nice Tour offers a similar service for your departure but is is not needed nor are the services of a porter needed. Take an extra minute and find the place where the free luggage carts are parked because as soon as you enter the terminal there is a security check and all luggage x-rayed. Then you swap an outdoor cart for an indoor cart.)

We stayed a couple of nights in Bali at the Kayana Villa, a very comfortable little boutique hotel. If you are looking for a beach front property the place is not for you. If the ocean is not an issue check The Kayana Villas Bali, Seminyak Bali - Welcome to The Kayana. Also read the reviews on tripadvisor (google tripadvisor Kayana Bali). From the hotel it is a short taxi ride to Legian Street in Kuta which is filled with tourists and tourist shops and was the site of the tragic 2002 nightclub bombing. The food was great in Bali and especially enjoyed the restaurant Un's which is just off Legian Street in Kuta.

Speaking of taxis, Bali is the first place we have been where there was a Hindu majority. They take this karma thing seriously...you get what you give. The taxi drivers are very honest and their rates quite reasonable. The roads are crowded with vehicles and scooters but it's the karma thing...you get what you give. I will yield for you and the next guy will yield for me.

On our second day in Bali, we arranged a driving tour with Jola and Indo-Explorers, a fellow Pole and close friend of Alexandra. It was a complete flop. Part of the problem was heavy holiday traffic that made it impossible to go anywhere but also Jola had us scheduled back at the hotel at 6 pm and also to an event that did not start until 6:30 pm. I think we were her first customer...better to schedule these things thru your hotel.

The next stop was the island of Labuan Bajo. Several airlines make the flight between Bali (DPS) and Labuan Bajo (LBJ). The locals recommend Transnusa which flies British BAe 146's, a small 4 engine jet transport with no thrust reversers and only takes 55 min to make the 323 mile flight. Marpati airlines flies the Chinese made MA-60 turboprop A/C. The MA-60 takes 75 minutes, it is powered by Pratt engines with fully reversible Hamilton Standard props.

While we flew the MA-60 to LBJ and the BAe-146 back to Bali, IMHO the Ma-60 is a better choice considering the short runway at LBJ, with a steep approach over some high hills, a pretty good slope to the runway and high possibility of rain and poor braking conditions.

So much for getting there, but as will be noted in the second part of this report, we ended up with an extra day in Bali so here is how we spent our last day in Bali:

The bike trip with Banyan Tree Bike Tours is really highly recommended. For $55 per person they pick you up at your hotel, take you for breakfast at a restaurant overlooking a big expanse of rice fields, then on to the bikes for a 16 mile thru the rice paddies, a mostly downhill ride with many rest stops, then lunch at the villa of the owner and then back to your hotel. This in the area of Ubud, the setting for Eat, Pray, Love and where some of the film was shot.

 

[hypersonic]

Part 2, On The Boat

Syam, our very competent divemaster for the trip met us at the Labuan Bajo airport and within 30 minutes we were on a dinghy with all of our gear headed for the Ari Jaya. Capt. Ari was there to give a hand up the ladder where we met the other three crew members, Jamal, Longi, and Yadin. Aleksandra, the boat owner was on board as well. We discussed a few things including the fact she had a second boat out (the Lalunia as I recall) and that the AJ would stay close to the Lalunia for safety reasons and that we would be heading south since visibility to the north was not all that good. We said our good-byes, she went ashore and back to her home in Bali while we prepared for an afternoon checkout dive on a reef about an hour South.

The dive went well. We had a choice of entering off the dinghy or off the aft deck. We chose the aft deck even though it was about a 4 ft drop to the water. My wife did a giant stride...I did a front roll in...splat! For a checkout dive it was a great dive, just a bit of current but tons of fish and a huge variety of healthy coral. Vis was about 80' and the water reasonably warm. We dove with 3 mil suits which was adequate though my wife's wrists got chilled on a couple of dives.

The planned recovery for the first dive was via the dinghy. First remove your BC then fin up and over the side of the dinghy. Nice plan but not a very practical plan for the two of us. We managed to get on board but it wasn't a very graceful recovery. On subsequent dives, we would let Longi the boat's engineer and dinghy driver, take our BC's and Capt. Ari would bring the big boat near by and would fin over to the boarding ladder.

Of all the dive boats I seen in the Bajo area, only one had a dive deck close to the water. Most of the dive boats are former small cargo vessels that are converted to dive boats and have a dive deck several feet off the water. They all seem to use a tender boat for diving and none appeared to have a suitable ladder

We then headed for a mooring ball on another island a bit farther south. Meanwhile, Jamal, the ships cook fixed a great evening meal in his 1 meter x 2 meter galley. The guy really arranged some delicious meals for us. His noodle dishes were superb and with every meal, a ring of papaya filled with fresh pineapple and mango chunks. I had in advance told Aleksandra that we did not eat onions and only wanted foods that were cooked or freshly peeled. By sticking to this regimen plus a daily 500 mg tablet of ciprofloxacn, we avoided any hint of tourist tummy.

We tied up on the ball and relaxed for a bit when putt-putt-putt around comes the other damn boat loaded with a group of divers from Poland, the Lalunia. Being a bigger boat they wanted to tie off on the mooring and we tie off on her stern. After about 30 min of jockeying around, it was dark and we were now downwind to the Lalunia, which was running a generator to power their lights, a wide screen TV and maybe even airconditioning.

We were beat and headed down below to our cabins. Since I snore and the cabins were quite small, we each had a separate cabin. Each had two small 8 inch portholes on the side of the boat. Both cabins were filled with diesel exhaust fumes plus the noise from the Lalunia's generator. Neither of us could sleep so we went topside thinking we could sleep on the cushions on deck. Two of the crew were already sleeping on the cushions so we went back below where we tossed and turned for the rest of the night.

The next morning I told Syam what had happened and made it clear that the Lalunia would have to find their own mooring the we were not going to tie up together again (and we didn't). We did just one dive the second day that was even better than the checkout dive. Jamal fixed an early lunch after which we told Syam we were just too tired for any more any more dives that day and that there was always tomorrow. We moved to a new location, off a nice beach on Rinca Island, one of the islands where the komodo dragons live.

We planned to sleep on deck except a pretty hard rain put us back in our cabins for the night. We had to close the portholes which meant our cabins were hot and muggy plus we now had a strong smell of diesel fuel which I suspect came from evaporation from the bilge. The bottom line, another night of little or no sleep due to discomfort.

We got up the next morning and could watch the dragons patrolling the beach looking for what ever may have washed ashore and the occasional monkey, pig and deer (which were about the size of a dog). We only managed one dive again that day due to the lack of restful sleep but did go ashore to checkout and photograph a komodo dragon up close and personal. Our crew said they could run about as fast as a man on a bicycle but this guy was more interested in the fish guts a local fisherman was throwing up on the beach as he was cleaning his catch.

By then we had had enough, as much as we wanted to do more diving, without restful sleep, it was just not possible so we did one more morning dive around Cannibal Rock which was our best dive of the bunch, then the AJ headed around the island to the Ranger station where we could view some bigger dragons that hang around the station. One could take a long hike on some trails around the ranger station looking for the dragons but we had already seen a very active one on the beach and the old lethargic ones around the ranger station so we opted to head back to Bajo.

En route we stopped at one of the million little fishing villages that populate nearly every bay in Indonesia. The young children were there to great us on the dock and they followed us around their very poor village. It was a nice diversion and their way of living left a deep impression on the two of us. Then on to Bajo and an early return flight to Bali and 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

It was a pity we could only do a fraction of the diving that we had hoped. Especially since there were more fish and a bigger variety of coral than what we have seen in either Fiji or diving off Sharm el Sheikh in the Red Sea.

And the trip had been carefully planned. I had contingincies for about everything including a satellite phone from Mobal ($9 per day) and GPS. If the AJ's single engine could not start and we got carried out to the open ocean or if either of us got injured, I could call D.A.N. and request help and tell them exactly where we were at. We had plenty of granoloa bars if the food was bad. I purchased one of the new CO analyzers that have been discussed at length here on the board. BTW, the AJ tanks read 2 ppm and I am going to put the analyzer up for sale at a good price since I really don't plan to use it again.

We could deal with about everything but we could not deal with not being able to sleep due a simple lack of ventilation. Back in Bali, I sent an e-mail to Jola explaining why we returned early. It was not answered since I suspect they might think I would want some kind of refund. I don't. However, I do think they should modify the boat to vent fresh air into the cabins at night. You don't need airconditioning, the nights on the water are cool enough but they do need fresh air.

We expected conditions on the boat to be like camping out and there were some primitive aspects. The one toilet on board flushed by dipping water out of a barrel then pour it into the toilet. We had to laugh at that because the seat while clean was usually wet. And there was no hot water and no faucet water at night since the boat was shut down at night and the door to the toilet did not shut and walking on the floor of the toilet was like walking on marbles and part of the crew slept on the floor and on the benches where we sat to eat so you could not get an early cup Of tea without disturbing them. With just my wife and I on board, we could deal with these things but I would not want to share the experience with a group of strangers.

AJ's crew felt like they had let us down but quite on the contrary, they did every thing possible to make as good as it could be. The issue with the lack of ventilation was just beyond their control.

On balance it was a great trip, we had a few very good dives, met some very good people (the AJ crew loved my wife), and we seen and experienced a part of the world we had not seen. Would recommend the trip to anyone but there are some 15 liveaboards in Bajo and would certainly shop around and use this trip report as a guide to ask some pertinent questions before booking a trip

 

[Magrone]

Nice detailed report hypersonic. That really is too bad that you missed a lot of diving due to lack of sleep. I'm all for small budget liveaboards, but I guess in this instance it might have been better to get on a bigger boat. Hard to anticipate everything though.