A Very Close Call

Today was our last day of diving off Bunaken. The weather was questionable when we left, but the skipper assured us it's changing for the better, that the weather forecast for the day was only light rain. Connie, my friend visiting from the US decided not to go diving today due to a headache, and Marion, my colleague, thought she'd just snorkel around this area today, once the weather cleared up.

The hour-long trip over to the island wasn't too bad. We dived*, possibly my best dive in the 14 years I've been scuba diving, and then I stayed on the surface, seeing that my flight is at 10 tomorrow morning, so a second dive would cut into the 24-hour rest period.  Once the other three divers surfaced, we were told we're heading back right away since the weather was changing.

We were in a smallish scuba boat with just two little outboard engines. About 20 minutes into the trip, the sea got VERY rough. Some of the waves were about 20 feet tall, according to the skipper. It's plain scary when the wave behind the boat is much bigger than the boat itself. Fortunately, those were rolling waves, so they'd literally just lift us up and plop us down with a bang! But some hit us from the side, and sent some gear flying.

You know you're in trouble when the crew turns the boat around, then try going in a third direction, simply following the waves. The boat itself was hardly moving; the little propeller engines were worthless against the force of the storm.

You also know you're in trouble when the crew start yelling. (Fortunately, our dive master, Ken, was as cool as can be. If it weren't for that, we'd all be panicking! But he was going back and forth from the bow and the stern, trying to problem solve.) The skipper, Simon, suddenly gestured to us four divers to shift to the other side of the boat to shift weight... He didn't have to say a word! We moved like we had rehearsed for days!

I asked Yori, an Indonesian girl who was with the two Indian guys in the second dive party, what the skipper was saying. All I could understand was the word for "Help!" She was smart enough to say that they were speaking the Manadonese dialect, that she wasn't able to follow. But later, she told me that he was yelling to the rest of the crew to pray.

I didn't need anyone to tell me to pray. I was sitting there holding on to whatever I could, praying for God to calm the storm. The next moment, four life jackets come flying out from under the dive tanks, landing RIGHT at the feet of each one of us four. I kid you not. It was surreal! We looked at each other and immediately put on the life jackets.

The sound of the wind and the waves was deafening. As was the wind against the roof. Until the roof blew off with much of the wooden structure with it! Amazingly, no-one was hit by any of the poles! At that time, I told the rest of our group that we should probably get our dive booties on and get ready to grab our fins. But dive master Ken, who had seemed calm the entire time, suddenly yelled, "Put on your BCDs!" Which we did, of course! Afterwards, we laughed so hard at one of the guys who said he had forgotten so many of the little details regarding diving, but in that moment, he remembered right away how to manually inflate the BCD. Ken grabbed a phone and called for help. Then he told us to prepare to go overboard. (He said later he was CONVINCED the boat was going to capsize.)

Suddenly, there was a very loud thump or three, and our boat came to almost a complete stop! We had hit a reef.

Ken told us to take our BCDs and fins off but to keep our dive booties on, and to grab what we can and walk to shore. We grabbed towels to stay warm (thinking we were on an island where we might not find people!), and we were given some bottled water, which I think none of us opened, saving it for later, when we'd be stuck for the night? I was very thankful that I had a dry bag for my camera, and even before, I had decided to take the bag overboard with me with its own life vest, if need be!

We got off the boat, and we started wading through beds of sea urchins, through sand that was like quick sand, where we were stuck all the way to our knees at times, through mangrove forests, and finally (maybe close to an hour later?) we hit dry land. Then we learned that we were, in fact, right at the end of Sulawesi, rather than on one of the outlying islands, which meant that there were people nearby... We weren't going to have to survive on a remote island for the night, after all! (We weren't sad about that.)

We walked past homes out in the bush, through coconut plantations and past lots of cows. (Funnily, I kept thinking of beef rendang, my favorite Indonesian dish, which is beef with coconut. But that's beside the point.)

It "just so happened" that we ended up only about a kilometer or so from the house of a cousin of the skipper, where we could rinse out our booties as part of the marsh we waded through was full of sewage! From there, we walked to the main road, where we barely had to wait five minutes before the cars from the dive center (more than an hour away by road) arrived. We were whisked off in one vehicle while the men in the other vehicle headed to the boat to salvage what they could and to try and tow it to a safer spot.

All along the drive home, you could see the damage from the freak storm everywhere, with trees blown down, power lines being downed by some of those trees, and small roofs blown off. It was bizarre to think we were in the water when the worst of storm hit!

By the time we reached the dive center, the waves were still growing bigger, and were pounding the buildings. The dining area, which is right on the water, was hit several times, so much so that we had dinner in the back kitchen tonight.

But we were safe, dry, clean. And alive. I have no doubt that God heard our cries today. Though he didn't calm the storm, he provided a safe passage through it, he kept the boat from capsizing (the crew thought that the fact that the roof blew off saved us from being flipped over by the wind). And despite all the craziness of the trek through beds of sea urchins, sinking sand, and sewage, we made it through unscathed.

Despite the craziness of the entire event, I never felt like any of our group panicked. In fact, I finally took out my camera when we got to dryish land and shot a clip of the rest of the crew emerging from the mangrove swamp. Through it all, we were still smiling, infinitely thankful that the boat didn't capsize...



* In case you're wondering, dived is indeed the past tense when you refer to scuba. Soon after I started diving, I was told that dove refers to diving vertically, as in "I dove into the pool." But I just looked it up, and from some of the reading, it seems that both are correct past participles, but that that dived is actually the preferred past tense for dive. There. Just in case you, too, were baffled by this.

The Art of Planting Rice

I'm on the island of Sulawesi, one of the more than 10,000 islands that are part of the Indonesian archipelago, and one of the country's provinces. The island is K-shaped, and currently, we are about halfway up the vertical line of the K, high up in the mountains, where the Toraja people live.

It took almost nine hours to drive here from Makassar, the capital, but the journey was a beautiful one, for the most part.

Once we entered Tana Toraja, we stopped and watched a community plant rice. It seems like quite the process: prepare the muddy soil (burn off the stalks from the previous harvest, then plow the soil and finally, tread through the mud barefoot), separate the bunch of seedlings, and painstakingly plant them.

It's a community project, and seems to be done with much joy!

The green on the left is rice that has already been planted

These tufts of green are seedlings that had been grown for the past month

A Toraja lady. It's hard to imagine that she can look so happy after an entire day of back-breaking labor!

Final photos from the cruise

In most countries (other than China, that is) we didn't have to physically clear customs. Instead, the customs officials would come on board while we're taxiing into the harbor, and clear us for entrance into their country. This is the customs boat that from which the officials boarded our ship

And here they are, boarding the ship. Tricky business, I'd say, seeing that our ship kept moving during this process (albeit at a slower speed)

Nha Trang, Vietnam, here I come! This is a great dive spot, but our ship came in too late for me to join some dives. I might have to go back to Vietnam to dive...

The sign says it all

Kiptoo took the shuttle to town to explore. Water? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Camera & money? Check. Sense of adventure? Check!

Nha Trang's bicycle rickshaws. These drivers were relentlessly going after tourists, offering to take you around town for $5/hr. Kiptoo and I decided to explore on foot

The little guard dog at a little convenience store along the road

Despite the busy-ness of the market, it felt like I was walking in a scene from the 70s

I love the colors of the different fruits. Can you identify the different fruits??

Coconut vendor

Yummy mandarin oranges

The chickens were almost as orange as the mandarin oranges...

In Indonesia, as in Vietnam, quail eggs are often sold alongside chicken eggs. In fact, some of my kids sometimes bring boiled quail eggs in their lunch packs

I love walking through the markets and smiling at the vendors and getting permission to take their photos

Mushroom vendor

These Vietnamese clay pots reminded me a lot of some of the pots I had seen in Ethiopia

Amazingly, motorbikes (even with sidecars, such as this one) and rickshaws would squeeze their way through the narrow market alleys

Buddhist ghost money (burned for ancestors to use in heaven). But Vietnamese dong aren't worth much (around 20,000dong to a US$), so they were selling US$100 bills as ghost money so it's easier to burn (or can one say, wire) more money faster...

Though this girl doesn't look friendly, she explained in broken English to me that these banana leaf wrappings contained raw pork to be steamed

Dried seahorses and what, a flying rat or bat? Not sure!

After walking around for long enough, I found a halfway-decent-looking salon where I got a hair wash and blow dry, massage, manicure and pedicure for $4.60. If you're ever in Nha Trang, check these guys out :)

The next morning, we docked in the not-so-nice port of Phu My. Seeing that bad traffic is our nemesis in Jakarta, I chose not to take the day trip to Saigon, despite wanting to see that city. (The return journey would've been up to 6 hours.) So I took the shuttle to the nearest town. These water buffalo were simply out in the fields alongside the highway

Since there was little to see in the town we were dropped off in, I hooked up with some Aussie ladies and we negotiated a deal with a taxi to take us to nearby Vung Tao, where we saw this statue of Jesus. It was a bit surprising seeing this statue in a Communist and Buddhist nation

After seeing the beaches and the statue, the other ladies wanted to go shopping at the central market. One half of the market had clothing, shoes and jewelry, and this half had fresh goods. It's much more fun walking around the wet market and take photos!

I guess sitting on top of the tables makes for good use of space. Chicken, anyone?

Or do you simply prefer some chicken feet? (The toes, I'm told, are handy for cleaning your teeth after dinner)

This vendor gestured that I should take a look at what she had in this bag... Only two furry feet were sticking out. I peered in and lo and behold, there were three slaughtered rabbits, ready to be made into rabbit stew

More quail eggs. Aren't they pretty?

All over town, one would see ladies wearing these funny toed socks with sandals

Back to the ship for the last leg of the trip

It was fascinating watching these fishing boats/house boats, with entire families seemingly living aboard. Behind them are the mangrove forests of the Mekong. I kept wondering what these forests have witnessed over time...

The skies were beautiful that night!

Kiptoo tried some coconut juice

Some of my new friends from the cruise... I met this family when racing around Xiamen, and ended up playing translator for them in Shanghai. Originally from Jo'burg, they all live in Perth now. Getting to know them was one of the nicest surprises of the cruise (and I'm not saying that because they might be reading my blog!)

Same family, but here you see some of the men. This was last night, the final night of the cruise, and the chefs and waiters were bringing in a parade of baked Alaska. People were twirling their napkins and clapping. It was a nice ending to a fun cruise

Mohan, the junior waiter at our table, with the baked Alaska. I didn't care for this dessert at all. It was way too sweet!

Another guest I was blessed to get to know on the cruise, a lady named Anne (pronounced in the German way, not the American way) from Geneva, Switzerland. She, along with a German friend of hers (from Texas) have been on the ship for the past 10 weeks! They started their journey in Rome, all the way to Cape Town, then to Asia. What fun!

And the final view from the deck where I had breakfast every day: Sentosa Island, Singapore, with the Hard Rock Hotel in the foreground and Singapore's mascot, the merlion in the back

We had a couple of hours to kill in Changi Airport. Kiptoo and I agree that we love Singapore! And we love exploring. Bottom line, we love life. :)

Nha Trang, Vietnam

Today, I'm adding a new country to the list of places I've visited. It's my first time to Vietnam, and I must say, it's a bit odd being in a country where I cannot speak any of the language! Right now, I don't have the cables with me to upload photos from my walk through the morning market in Nha Trang, but rest assured, they will come.

I had hoped to scuba dive while here, but our ship docked at 9:00 only, too late for the boats to the islands. Just got a message from one dive operation that they would pick me up at the ship at 9 with a private speed boat and I could do two dives, but alas, didn't get the news in time. So I walked around the sprawling markets of Nha Trang... One funny thing about Vietnam is that the ladies here seem to like wearing toed nylons. As in, there's a special spot for your big toe, but the rest are all like regular nylons, making it possible for them to wear nylons with flip flops or similar sandals. Personally, I have no idea why anyone would even consider wearing nylons in subtropical climates. But that's me.

After I had done enough walking, I slipped into a decent-looking salon where I got a manicure, pedicure and a hair wash & blow dry (with a good massage, of course) for a whopping $4.60. That's my splurge for the day. I figured since most of the nail ladies around the world seem to be from Vietnam nowadays, getting a mani/pedi while here would be a good thing. And it was. I'll return to the ship a happy camper.

We're leaving for Phu My sometime in the middle of the afternoon today... Now that we're in warmer waters, I might actually hop into my bathing suit for the first time on the trip! Not sure what I'll be doing in Phu My tomorrow, as the traffic to Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon) is purportedly worse than that in and around Jakarta. No guarantees you'll get back to the ship in time for its return to Singapore... So I'll stay closer to the ship. Maybe.

Speaking of the ship, I'm heading back. It's raining. Glad I brought my rain coat. :)

Till next time,
Adele (and Kiptoo, who is still convinced he's staying vegan after his second morning market visit this week)

2011, so far

These are the people I have dinner with most nights.

In Hong Kong yesterday, I went to Wan Chai to have my iPhone worked on. The computer center was not yet open, so I walked around the area, visiting the local morning market

After seeing these pigs, Kiptoo didn't want to show his face in the market

This was very hard for me to see, a soft-shelled turtle. Though it had been slaughtered, the mouth was still moving, as if it were breathing!

Fish with the egg sacs showing

These guys were slaughtering frogs

Kiptoo announced he's going vegan!

He was happy to come out when I arrived in Sai Kung and sat down at Starbucks, waiting for my friends, the Eitemillers

It was WONDERFUL to see Jessica and her sweet baby Josaiah, Joelle, and to meet Seth, Jessica's husband. Of course it was great to see Sue and Dave, too, but I've seen them more recently than I had seen the girls. :) I always enjoy visiting with them.

At the MTR station

Back on the ship, this morning, we had a cooking demonstration

The cook and the Maitre D', having just made a black forest cake. Wonder why I am craving black forest cake now!