Life Aboard the Jaya

     When we arrived aboard the Jaya for our week of diving it was hard to know what exactly to expect. We knew we were in for small groups and world renowned diving, but for Laura especially, who had never been on a liveaboard dive trip, we had very little idea of what we were getting into. This cautious optimism continued throughout the trip and continued to pay off.

As we were shown to our cabin we found two small (2m x .7m) beds with some storage space under them and shelf connecting them at the foot of the beds. a hatch for ventilation in the ceiling and a simple air-conditioning unit (this turned out to be a lifesaver at times). It was certainly meager accommodations and the beds were a bit disappointing. After such a long and uncomfortable journey to reach this place, we did not relish more sleeping in uncomfortable positions. We quickly dropped of our bags and were shown to where we would set up our gear.

Liveaboard diving, according to the Jaya's crew, is the laziest form of diving. and to an extent they are correct. There is no hauling or even swapping tanks, no long boring rides or repetitious dive briefings to listen to. However the daily schedule is physically grueling and the expiriences were mentally overwhelming. Wake up at 6:30, eat a small breakfast (cereal etc.), dive 1, eat a bigger breakfast (usually eggs, toast, pancakes or similar fare), dive 2, eat lunch, dive 3, snack (fried bananas, popcorn etc.), possible night dive, eat dinner (very varied and delicious), sleep somewhere around 10pm, repeat. In between diving and meals, divers and guides played cards, sunbathed on the deck, or took a nap. There was no trouble falling asleep at night.


Day 1: 3/15/2017

Arrival, getting settled, introductory briefings, paperwork, safety briefings, split up into dive groups and finally the first dive. We were put in a group with one other person: Mimi, a French woman in her mid-late thirties, who was a very experienced and well traveled diver. The three of us were diving with Matt all week. Matt was born in Zambia to British parents and had been a dive leader for over a decade in the Red Sea and the Similan Islands, among other places, and had been in Raja Ampat for the last 8 months. The first dive was a check-out dive to establish the skill level and style of the groups, so initially I decided to leave my camera behind until I heard there was a chance of seeing pygmy seahorses. Of course I brought the camera but the left the UV filter on which causes the camera to not function inside the underwater housing.

The initial reactions to the diving were how different everything was. Visibility was nothing special. Maff called it about 10m I estimated it at 25-40 ft. at different parts of the dive. The water was incredibly green, It tasted different than Hawaii's ocean water, which was a bit of a surprise, and was roughly 82 degrees Fahrenheit. As we dropped down and found the bottom and began to explore everything was new and different. The coral, soft and hard, and fish were so colorful. All the colors of the rainbow can be found in the waters of Raja Ampat (pictured below).

We did see pygmy seahorses and were filled with wonder and excitement towards the upcoming 18 dives. Raja Ampat is known for it currents, and while we never experienced anything the dive guides considered more than "moderate", there were a few situations where the power of the water movement was felt. A current check was performed prior to each dive to give the guides an idea of what we were getting into. It was something that Laura and I were less familiar with and an interesting wrinkle into the dive planning.

Day 2: 3/16/2017

This was our first full day of diving, four dives including a night dive scheduled for Day 2. This day was mind-expandingly incredible. The shear volume of life and color and variety was astounding. Large schools of batfish and barracuda, clown anemonefish and beautiful flowing soft coral. At the end of the first dive of the day, we were treated to a variety of sharks swimming around us including white tip reef sharks, black tip reef sharks, and a single gray reef shark. The highlight of the day was surely the night dive where we had some close up facetime with a squid, as well as finding some scorpionfish, lionfish, a sponge crab, and a gorgeous juvenile batfish. The food all day was wonderful, and the shore visit to Arborek Island was a very interesting glimpse into a starkly different style of life. Below are two videos of children on Arborek Island dancing in the streets in very practiced and inclusive dances full of glee. A much simpler and incredibly isolated life.

Day 3 3/17/2017

Disaster Strikes! On our way out to the first dive site of the day (Manta Sandy, a natural manta cleaning station with a cautiously optimistic chance for mantas) traveling in the small boat to the drop point, Laura went to rinse the baby shampoo out of her mask and dropped it into the ocean. A few seconds of shock, a few seconds to communicate the problem, and a few more seconds to stop the boat meant we were hundreds of yards away from where it fell. The other dive group in the boat dropped in at scheduled drop zone and Matt spent a few minutes looking from the surface, but to no avail. No back up masks in the small boat so the other boat who had just dropped divers off was sent to retrieve a backup mask for Laura. Five minutes later, a mask had arrived and we began the dive.

About 2 minutes, into the dive I hear the moisture alarm on my cameras housing. Having had trouble with the alarms sensitivity before, I ignored it for a few minutes until I looked and saw a shockingly troubling amount of water inside of my housing. It had not flooded entirely. Just as Laura turned to me to show me that she had found her mask sitting on the bottom, I was signaling to Matt that there was a problem with my camera. He took much longer than I wanted at the time to find someplace to leave us, and ascend to the surface to pass the camera off to a small boat driver and get it returned to the Jaya and out of its wet housing. Each second that passed as he did most of a safety stop, I knew that the chances of my cameras survival were diminishing. It made it really hard to fully enjoy the manta rays that we saw on the remainder of the dive, including the rare and Indonesian centered black manta ray, which has a black stomach as well. This gives it the appearance of, as Matt put it, "Ninja Mantas". This is the part where I would post pictures of this experience (the black manta came within 5 feet of me), but as I said, my camera was in limbo at the time. After the dive I made sure the camera, the lens, and the battery all were promptly put into a large bowl of rice, and stayed there for the remainder of the dives that day. By the end of the day, the camera was removed from the rice a new battery was inserted and everything was fine. I sighed, filled with relief and greatful to the actions of Matt and the boat crew for saving my camera. With the camera intact, I was able to fully enjoy and capture the Painemu Lagoon, a group of islands famous for their photogenic lookout point.

Well worth the 272 rickety steps to the top

Day 4: 3/18/2017

The first dive of the day, I was still doing rigorous testing on the housing making sure it was safe to take my camera in again. I stuffed it full of toilet paper so I could be sure if there were any leaks. It passed all the tests I put it through and survived two full dives without the camera, so I was ready to take it with again. Thankfully everything worked out, and the camera is still working today, and there was not another problem for the remainder of the trip.

We dove at Eagle Rock (named for the eagles which live on it, which are a very cool thing to see when exiting the water) and Black Rock (named for being black and made of rock). Excellent dives and ones I was glad to have the camera working for. The dive at Black Rock was the first one I started using the red filter more religiously, so there is a marked improvement in the pictures starting on the 3rd dive of the 18th. These two dives illustrated a new concept for Laura and me. The high currents in this area would create splits around the edges of reef. It was at these splits where divers could "sit" among multiple schools of fish swimming into the current. Highlights included: large schools of fusiliers and big eye trevally along with massive bumphead parrotfish and ribbon eel about the size of a pencil right at the end of the dive.

After the dives at Eagle and Black Rock, we did our scheduled night dive at an active pearl farm. We spent a few minutes snorkeling with our regulators in very shallow water looking for a walking shark. We were successful, albeit briefly, and I shot a short video of it scurrying away into some coral, (video will come later). Shortly after the walking shark, we dropped down and had a truly wonderful night dive full of amazing things. Most notably a giant moray, a crocodile flathead, and several tasseled wobbegong sharks. The wobbegong shark is as interesting and intricate as it's name suggests. The tassels around their mouth and their well camouflaged color scheme make them excellent ambush predators and a noteworthy find for divers.

Crocodile Flathead

Tasseled Wobbegong Shark

Day 5: 3/19/2017 

The fifth day included three very different dives. First was a typically fast moving drift dive which had very little current, called Chanel No. 5. This dive featured amazing nudibranch life, which also brought the interesting challenges of nudibranch photography without a macro lens. Minimum focus distance becomes a real problem when you are attempting to capture something that is less than a few inches and has important details that are smaller than the tip of a pencil. It is a fun challenge with excellent payoff when you get it right.

The second dive, Jaya's Secret, was different from all the other dives we did. It had many large hard coral structures laid out with sandy bottom separating them similar to much of the diving in the Caribbean. It boasted one of the most beautiful surfaces of all the dives with the stunning aquamarine pictured below. 

Due to general exhaustion and ear soreness Laura sat out the last dive of the day where the much of the soft coral was a bright yellow orange color which had garnered it the name, Citrus Ridge. Laura was glad she rested as there was nothing extraordinary new on that dive and she was well rested for...

Day 6: 3/20/2017

On day 6, we had a choice: wake up at 4:30 to attempt to go see "Birds of Paradise", a local endemic species only found on one specific Island in Raja Ampat, or wake up at the normal time to dive Blue Magic, a site known for the possibility of oceanic manta rays. For Laura and I, the choice was obvious. For me, even the opportunity to see oceanic mantas outweighs very many things in this world, and the 4:30 wake up time was simply "the nail that broke the camels back", as Laura artfully put it. Our decision could not have paid off more as we were rewarded with 7 circling oceanic manta rays which were with us throughout the entirety of the hour long dive. They were massive, majestic, shockingly nimble, and very clearly aware of us. Ranging in size from 14 to 18 feet wing tip-to-wing tip, it was truly an honor and wonderful experience to share the water with these creatures which were more than twice our size. I mostly took video, but here are a few of the pictures.

The two dives following the mantas had to be incredible to not be a let down, and while there was nothing that was quite as grandiose, they were certainly wonderful dives. Excellent dive for the last full day of diving, as they were somewhat of a summation of the life we had seen so far. This allowed me a second crack at some of the life I had failed to photograph successfully on previous dives, and allowed us to bask in all that Raja Ampat had to offer.

Day 7: 3/21/2017

For the final dive, it was back to Blue Magic so that anyone who went to go see the birds of paradise could have an opportunity to see the big rays. Unfortunately for Mimi (our other dive group member), she was the only person who went to go see the birds, and the second try yielded no mantas. There were however, several memorable things including pygmy sea horses and a leaf scorpionfish.

After the one dive, it was time to wash all our gear pack up and take the ferry back to Sorong. Unlike our trip to Waisai, we were not treated to karaoke, but rather terrible movies. First was "Countdown" which was notably a WWE production, and then they turned down the volume for the next film, which was "The Last Witch Hunter". While being a visually interesting film, it was impossible to follow, and the Indonesian subtitles did not help. The crew of the Jaya helped haul our bags and put us in individual taxis to our specific hotels. 

It was one of the impressive and immersive experiences of my life and it was well worth the trouble of travel. We left exhausted and smiling at what had just experienced and will surely not forget easily.

~Rivers

P.S. These Pictures are just thumbnails, to see the full quality photos and the other 300+ photos from Raja Ampat go here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/51179681@N03/albums

Videos will be coming soon...

In Pursuit of Paradise

Since I last posted in the Changi Airport in Singapore so much has happened.

     Although we got a short reprieve from travel in our long layover, it did very little to take the edge off of our next three legs. The over night trip to Sorong was a rough one on our bodies and our minds. Singapore to Jakarta, Jakarta to Makassar, Makassar to Sorong. We arrived, bleary and exhausted, the next morning, and thankfully our bags joined us. When we exited the airport, between turning down an offer for a taxi every several steps, we were able to spot our hotel across the highway. A quick walk and check-in led us to a most welcome king-sized bed, in which we availed ourselves of some serious napping.

     We did a little exploration by foot to change some money, which was a bit of a fiasco in itself, but found little reason to leave our hotel as Sorong is certainly not a place I would wish to spend much time. It is a very busy city, alive with the rumble of traffic and the honking of horns as drivers whiz around each other. There was not much within walking distance worth writing about between the hotel and the bank we were directed to for changing US Dollars to Indonesian Rupiah. When we arrived at the bank and got in line to see a teller, a security guard came over to us and in very broken English informed us that they did not take the 100 dollar bills that we had ready to exchange and would not take 50's either. This was fine with us as we stashed our 100's and pulled out 20's. after waiting in line for about twenty minutes and arriving at the counter, the teller looked at our 20's and said that they did not exchange them and the only took "thousands". We looked at him confused as he repeated that they only take thousands before he grabbed his smart phone and showed us a picture of a 100 dollar bill. "Ooooohhhhh" we said in unison "Hundreds, yeah we have those". So we pulled the hundreds back out to be exchanged.  We left feeling very glad we were visiting in the era of the smartphone. We found no vegetarian food on the way back before getting caught in a downpour and scuttling quickly back to our hotel. The next morning the crew of the boat was scheduled to pick us up directly from our hotel.

     We awoke before our alarms and were entirely packed and ready prior to the opening of the breakfast buffet at 6:00 AM. Our rides arrived right on time at 7:30, and after some paperwork, whisked us away by car to the harbor where we boarded a ferry from Sorong to Waisai. The ferry took about two and a half hours, which is not counting the hour we sat on the boat after being boarded significantly early. Luckily our ferry ticket was included in our prepaid excursion, and they booked us in the VIP cabin. The seats were slightly bigger, but the main difference was the large screen at the front of the VIP cabin which played karaoke style music videos with light up subtitles. American pop was the majority of the selection ranging from Rihanna to Adele to Akon, but the highlight was for Laura and I was the full uncensored music video of "I Just Had Sex" by The Lonely Island, which was obviously ripped directly from YouTube with a 2011 promo for "Turtleneck and Chains" (the album it was released on) tagged onto the end. We made one of the dive guides who was escorting us on the ferry laugh in surprise by knowing all the words to the former SNL digital short.

     After the ferry arrived in Waisai we took a quick walk from the ferry to the other side of the dock to our awaiting home for the next week, "The Jaya": pictured below.

    She is a well aged vessel which has clearly seen a fair share of use, but all the necessities for a week chock full of diving were there. With more paperwork and introductions we pulled out of the Waisai harbor and our adventure began. We were two of fourteen passengers aboard the boat for the week. Two middle aged French gentlemen, a Brazilian couple, three young lawyers from Singapore, four older men from Hong Kong, one solitary French woman who we had met at our hotel the day before, and us. We were not only the only Americans on the boat but also the only passengers who spoke English as a first (and only) language. Everyone did speak English, mostly very understandably, and on top of that, everyone was very friendly. The whole of the group dynamic left very little to be desired.

     The crew of the Jaya consisted of four dive leaders and seven boat crew. The divers were Emma from Scotland, Matt from Zambia and London, Rachel from Melbourne, and Dais from Sulawesi. Dais was the only Indonesian dive guide, but the whole of the boat crew were local. Most of them were from Sulawesi or Komodo. Everyone on board spoke English and it was very interesting the range of accents just from the dive guides alone. Australian, Scottish, British, and Indonesian. I couldn't help but be reminded of Larissa Taras' accents aboard the Maka Koa in Hawaii and how she would have loved to hear all of the various dive briefings.

   Broad Strokes, our liveaboard experience in Raja Ampat was magnificent. But it certainly deserves its own post. more to come soon,

~Rivers

The Longest and Shortest Days

    Finally our day(s) of travel are upon us. The flight from Portland to San Francisco was average and uneventful. 5 hours in SFO went by fairly quickly as we attempted to watch the entirety of the PAC-12 Championship basketball game (unfortunately the Ducks lost to Arizona) and rushed off to our gate to endure our 17.5 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean. Luckily for us the headwinds which had been lengthening that flight over the last several months abated slightly and it cut our time in the air down to 15:45. Free movies, two seriously subpar meals, and a spouse to sleep on helped make the time manageable.Both Laura and I, who are prone to sore hips and backs after cramped flights, left feeling better than we had imagined.

     With that, we had arrived in Singapore's illustrious Changi Airport 32 hours later than we had taken off. Compared to the TSA's near strip search, customs and immigration were extremely easy-going. We had 12 hours before our connecting flight and decided to spend part of our morning exploring some of Singapore and getting some food. A little bit of figuring, looking around, and consulting our guidebook, revealed a tram that would take us from the airport into the city. after changing a few bits of currency and about a 30 minute tram experience later, we arrived near the Little India district in the center of Singapore. We walked about through the very humid streets doing a bit of window shopping and searching for a place with good vegetarian options. As it turns out we wandered away from Little India towards the adjacent "Kampong Glam" which is the Middle Eastern/heavily Muslim District. There was very little in the way of veggie food, but we did catch a glimpse of the Sultan Mosque (pictured below) Which was the highlight of very picturesque and interesting architecture everywhere we looked ((pictured further below).

     After our short foray into Kampong Glam we returned to Little India where we enjoyed a delightful meal from a vendor right off the main street which included a large portion of rice and vegetables with spiced tofu and an Indian style pancake with egg and onion inside which cost us six Singaporean dollars (about $4.50 US). Feeling very satisfied with our morning, and ready to find some air conditioning we split an ice cream cone and headed back to Changi Airport.

     A long layover in any airport can drag on and cost plenty of money, but this particular airport is certainly a cut above the rest. I sit now typing this post in a comfy recumbent chair in one of many "Snooze Lounges" peppered throughout the airport equipped with charging ports and 3 hours of free wifi. after a short nap we plan to explore more of the free amenities such as a butterfly garden and movie theater. We still have essentially a full day of travel before we will arrive at what we would consider the starting point of this vacation, but today was certainly a nice reprieve from the travel induced soreness and lack of flavor.

     By tomorrow morning we will be landing in Sorong, Indonesia where we will prepare to go diving in the Raja Ampat Islands. We are pretty excited, not only to dive one the places routinely ranked in the top 3 diving destinations worldwide, but too get back in the water in general. It has been over two weeks since I have been diving which is the longest drought since I became a divemaster back in august of 2015.

Internet may be hard to come by until we are back in Singapore in about 10 days, so if I don't post until then you can bet my next posts will be full of diving pictures. Also if there is any particular portion of our trip you are curious about feel free to leave requests in the comments, I'll try to answer them as best I can.

Ta-ta for now,
~Rivers

Prologue

Prologue

It has certainly been a busy and trying couple of weeks. Finally I am feeling relaxed, refreshed and ready.

For a little backstory for those less familiar with my life, My name is Rivers and I was born and raised in Florence, Oregon. I met my wife, Laura, at the University of Oregon, and after my graduation in 2013, we moved to Rochester, NY. We only lived there for 12 months as Laura graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in nursing. Following our time in the cold north, we decided that Laura's versatile career would allow us to follow my dream of SCUBA diving for a living. Happy to leave a place that was white from November to May, we set off for Hawaii. After a short stay with our parents in Oregon preparing for the move, Laura was hired by Maui Memorial Hospital and 13 days later was on a flight to Maui. I was able to realize my dreams and become a Divemaster, and there we stayed for two years. The longest we had lived in any single location since our four years in Eugene at U of O. For various reasons, we decided our time in Hawaii was coming to a close.

We certainly crave permanence after living in 7 places in the last 6 years, but opportunity to save enough money to be young and free from responsibility for several months was too inviting, so we set to planning. This trip is the culmination of several months of saving and planning. We depart tomorrow and will be in at least 6 different countries over the next 4 months, and this will be the public record of our journey.

So, with that out of the way...

Our last week on Maui was hectic to say the least.
Without going into too much detail, we finally escaped with a little help from our friends (actually a lot of help) and packed our three bags each, plus our carry-ons and the personal items (one of which was our cat Clifford), plus the dog, Malina, under the plane.

Clifford: a cat accustomed to travel

Malina who only lived on Maui

Now that we are back in Oregon, staying with Laura's parents in Corvallis, we have barely had a moment to stop and smell the roses. We have been down to Eugene to drop off Clifford with a close friend with whom he has already lived, and we have braved a snow storm to visit two of Laura's sisters and snowboard on Mt. Bachelor. 8 days have gone by quickly.

Hours after our engagement (7/14/13, Roatan, Honduras)

Now it is the eve of our departure. We are almost fully packed, and I have started a blog to recount and document our travels. Tomorrow we will fly from Portland, Oregon to Singapore through San Francisco. About 90 min on our first flight and 17.5 hrs on the second leg. We leave PDX at 3:15PM on a Saturday and arrive in Singapore 7:45AM Monday. That's the fun of the International Dateline.

From There we will be off to East Indonesia for the first big stop: Sorong, from where we will embark on a liveaboard dive trip in the renowned Raja Ampat Islands.

I am excited and nervous and it certainly doesn't quite feel real yet. Laura and I have both commented that until we stop having to constantly pack and organize and get off a plane somewhere else it will still feel like a continuation of the grind of moving. I am quire looking forward to experiencing relaxation and the wonder of exploration.

Hours after our engagement (7/14/13, Roatan, Honduras)

~Rivers Gage-Hunt