Journey to Raja Ampat, Indonesia for Diving

We returned from our Christmas visit in Denver to prepare for our long awaited scuba diving trip to Indonesia on New Years Eve. We left the kid's home in Thornton, Colorado on Christmas Day after spending the morning watching the grandkids open their presents. We got on the road following breakfast and drove to Amarillo for the night. We had Christmas dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing and green beans at the Iron Skillet restaurant. Certainly not fancy but good old fashioned hearty, comfort food. On Thursday, December 26 we were back on the highway heading south for Smithville with a planned stop in Bastrop to pick up our new Mac laptop computers. Arrived home to the RV around 10PM and retired for the evening.

On Friday, December 27 after unloading the truck from one trip, we began the process of preparing to repack our luggage all over again. We needed to get this done over the three remaining days we had to prepare. After unpacking cold weather clothes, doing the laundry and opening mail we systematically started the process of packing clothing for the tropical weather as well as selecting the needed diving gear, drone, underwater camera equipment and our Starlink Mini satellite antenna. All of these needed to be sorted and packed to meet the size and weight restrictions for the multiple airline carriers we would be using.

New Year's Eve arrived and we loaded up our neighbor Nancy Harlow's Toyota at 3 PM for the trip to Austin International airport. Nancy graciously offered to drive us from the village so we didn't need to park and pay for airport parking for the twenty days we would be away. She was a real blessing to us for offering.

We srrived early at the airport expecting delays checking in at the ticket counter with luggage and the TSA line. Neither was an issue. We got to our boarding gate two and a half hours early for our first flight leg to Seattle departing at 7:08 PM. This was a 4 hour 45 minute flight that turned out to be full and included some crying and unrulely children in front and behind us in our section of the plane. Fortunately I was prepared with industrial quality ear plugs for just such an occasion; a real lifesaver for me but I felt bad for the other passengers around me.

The next leg of the journey was a 13 hour flight departing at 12:10 AM New Years Day. Our flight was on EVA airlines to Taipei, Taiwan. We had flown on EVA to the Phillipines in the past and knew we would have a good experience. Karen and I had an empty middle seat on this long flight with leg room, a nice reclining seat, pillows, blankets and even an complimentary eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste. We ordered specialty meals for this flight. Karen had a vegetarian entree and I choose the seafood entree. The flight was uneventful. Long flights like this are always challenging requiring getting up often to use the facilities and stretching. The service was wonderful and made this long journey relaxing.

We arrived in Taipei after losing a day crossing the International Date Line on January 2 at 5:20 AM. We both were able to get some sleep on the flight but not the best kind of solid sleep our bodies needed.

Our layover was 3 hours and 40 minutes, so we stretched our legs and looked for a comfortable place to hang out. We charged our devices and used the airport wi-fi to catch up on messages from our fellow travelers enroute. I discovered a unique Taiwanese wheel cake pastry in the airport, a small stuffed pancake. The batter is poured into a hollow cast iron pan whose hollows form relatively thick “wheels" with a different variety of fillings. Mine were filled with sesame custard and peanut butter; delicious!

I was fascinated to find an amazing LEGO store in the airport with model kits of cars and art pieces like the Mona Lisa and Starry, Starry Night.

Our next departure was delayed almost an hour.

At 9;45 AM we departed Taipei for the 5 hour and 20 minute flight to Jakarta, Indonesia.on our third leg of the trip on EVA airlines. Once we arrived in Jakarta we had to get our Visa, clear Customs and pick up our luggage. We had arranged to stay at the local Fairfield by Marriotts before our final flight to Sorong. Our original layover was about 11 hours, but was shortened by our later arrival to Jakarta, but we still took advantage of a hot shower and got horizontal for a four hour nap.

At 8;45 PM we met Bill and Mathias, two of our group who arrived from Singapore in the lobby of the hotel. We took the airport shuttle back to the terminal and checked in to Garudia Airlines for the final leg of the journey by air. We visited the local ATM to get some local currency; the Indonesian rupiah. $100 US is 1,617,035.62 IDR. We ended up getting 7,500,00.00 IDR for the first week of our trip (about $463 US dollars). With the largest denomination being 100,000 rupiah, we have a wad of cash in our wallets.

The flight was at 12:10 AM on January 3rd and would take another 4 hours to travel west to Sorong, Indonesia arriving at 6:15 AM. The total flying time amounted to 27 hours not including the layovers!

But at last we arrived. Kind of...just more different traveling to do. This time by a ferry boat to Waisai on the island of Waigeo to the PapuArts AlterNative Resort. We boarded the ferry at 9 AM, departed the dock at 9:20 and took three hours to get to the island that will be our home for the next 6 days. This resort is rustic, includes 3 fresh, delicious meals a day and is in a beautiful setting with amazing snorkeling right off the pier!

Drone views of PapuArts, our home in Raja Ampat before the dive live aboard trip.

Karen sweeping sand off our front porch and our beach front view.