We made it home, safe and semi-sound . . .
NO PROBLEMS WITH THE COMPUTER OUTAGE - I don't know if it's because we were in Asia or if it's because Singapore Airlines doesn't use CrowdStrike, but the computer outage that affected thousands of flights did not seem to impact us getting from Manado to Singapore to LAX. And maybe it was because we were in the Bradley International Terminal, but even LAX seemed "normal" Friday night in terms of getting bags and traffic leaving the airport and stuff like that. So we dodged a bullet. (Vick Thomas & Elisabeth Sykes, who live in Santa Fe, NM, weren't quite as lucky as their flight out of LAX to Phoenix the next day was delayed and they missed their connection to Santa Fe, but they made it home Sunday.)
IT REALLY WAS A LOVELY TRIP - I know I say that a lot after trips but the fact of the matter is that at Reef Seekers, we really DO end up with an awful lot of our trips that produce lasting memories. This trip was no exception. We had some slightly marginal water conditions - choppy - our first dive day there but after that it was pretty much calm seas and sunny skies all the way. The only rain we got occurred overnight plus there was a mild post-dinner drizzle. We got in 25 dives overall during eight dive days, which included a night dive and a night black-water dive, we visited Bangka Island for a day of diving, and visited the Lembeh Straits for a day of diving as well. We saw all kinds of critters but probably the thing that left the greatest impression on us were the number of turtles we saw on dives at Bunaken. On one dive (we used a slate to keep track), we counted 63 turtles. That's on a single DIVE not throughout the day. So if you like turtles, this is the place to go.
MUREX TOOK GOOD CARE OF US - We did our diving with Murex Dive Resorts, using Manado as our home base and they took excellent care of us as always. The rooms were nice, the food was very good, the dive staff not only guided us on great dives but also loaded, unloaded, and washed our gear each day, and the whole operation runs very smoothly.
ONE HICCUP - POST-TRIP ILLNESS - My family and friends (and my voice-over agent) always tease me about not traveling well since it seems I always get sick when I come back from one of these long trips. Looks like this one's no exception. (It's not COVID, which is what I brought back in 2022 from this trip.) But it's annoying as hell - runny nose, mild fever, laryngitis, cough - and it seems to have hit a couple of our other travelers as well. Lousy "souvenir" to bring back.
THREE RESORTS - Murex has resorts that they full operate in Manado and Bangka and in Lembeh, they run the photo/dive operation at the Lembeh Resort. Because I don't like to pack up and move once we get there, we have always used Manado as base camp and do day trips to both Bangka and Lembeh. But we've got 6 people that extended their stay, 2 going to Bangka for an extra three days, and 4 going to Lembeh for an extra 5 days. When they get back, we'll relay to you what their experiences were like. As we said, we love diving the area but have always felt that using Manado as home base gives us the greatest variety of options in terms of planning where to dive.
WORKING ON THE TRIP REPORT AND PIX PLUS VIDEO - Hope to have those to you later in the week, including an only-turtles video.
THE PROOF IS IN THE PICTURE - Lots of happy faces here. (Although I forgot to mention not to block the Reef Seekers logo on the banner.) On top of that, the staff assembled as we left and sang us an Indonesian departure song. Really nice touch. |
