THE FIRST DAY
THE FIRST DAY (6th May 2006)
I keep in my mind not to make my journal like a diary, as not counting on the chronological process, but as story. So, mostly, I would separate it into some parts, put things here and there as I remember and, BAM, it’s neither a diary nor a story. I would also mix the pictures and stories to make it more compact, and the pictures that I would attach with particular part of stories aren’t necessary taken during that story. Hm? Mess up.
It’s pretty hard to start, but when I’m in, it’s usually hard to stop. For fish identifications, I’d try as best as possible, I refer to books, websites, DM’s identifications etc. I’m sure to get it wrong at times, so I apologize in advance, and please enlighten me. : )
So, the first day, Saturday, 6th of May 2006, we woke up at 5.30 a.m, took MRT, ate breakfast together with group, now Cynthia and Leo minus Froggie, and boarded the 9.20 a.m plane.
It was three and a half hours ride with Silk Air. In this flight, it seemed like we only met two kinds of passengers. People from Menado went back to the hometown, and the other group is scuba divers. It is such a popular destinations, the plane was loaded from small Asian divers like us and those huge Mat Soleh with their huge dive bags and huge camera casings and huge thumbs. Even their kids were wearing scuba shirts, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were junior divers.
I was hoping all along that we could capture the pictures of Sulawesi K- shaped island, but it was a fat hope, either the island was too big or it was because Menado is located at the end of one of the K leg. Anyway, when Sam Ratulangi Airport was in sight, we jumped out from our seats and couldn’t wait to get out.
The baggage claim was a slow process and for a while, we had a thought in our mind to spend a week without fresh clothing when our backpack was nowhere to be seen.
We were picked up by Mr.K, a nice small-built guy who helped us arranged the whole itinerary, he was nothing matched with my imagination. On the way to the resort, we had a stop at small warung and bought tidbits for a week.
Menado’s street reminded me to Tangerang. He....there were a lot of Genie, in Indonesia we call it Tuyul, it is public transport ‘Suzuki Carry’ type. Tuyul is some kind of creature from the other world, with small shape, bald head and energetic. This transport vehicle is considered small between the big bus, and they can sneak and run faster so maybe that’s why they got their name.
We passed by busy two-lane road. Except Tuyul, there were private cars, motorcycle, and of course, we could see cows, chickens, and wait….pig!
I saw a dog with big pinky head, and when it came to focus, I realized that it was a pig, pig on the street! It’s not everyday we could see a pig in Indonesian road, well, actually, any road in the world. For a while, I was stunned, until I made my own conclusion. Menado, Minahasa are cities with 80-90 percent of Christian population. I don’t know the exact number, because in some sources I read that it has 95%, some others 80-something percent, and the rest of sources only said ‘majority’. But soon, my point was proven right, every few hundred meters, we saw a church. And almost every corner of the road, they erected big Red Cross, up to one storey building high, with some wording running vertically and horizontally, ‘Selamat Paskah’. ‘Happy Easter’.
At first, the sight of big red cross and some came with few little ones surrounded it, erected from the ground, reminded me of cemetery, but after a while, I got used to the scenery and I thought it was a great culture as a welcome and warm Easter greeting. I kept my own secret when I pointed at one white cross made from flower arrangement, “Look! There is a flowery one!” only to realize that that one was really a cemetery, single out, next to a front yard of a house, it was quite a bizarre location.
We also saw something new, at least for me, Easter Tree. It was something like Christmas tree, only some of the leave was made to shape as few big Cross patterns. It was located in one busy junction, and I swore, I saw it everytime we passed by, but when I stood by with camera, I missed it, doh! I really want to show everyone that Easter Tree.
The unique thing in Indonesia, it’s unlikely that we see a road without shops. So, typically, every where there were signs of Fotokopi Xerox, Apotik Cukup Manjur, Kweetiaw Ah Tjiap, and even hand written signs on DIY board stuck on the tree Tambal Ban Tumbles, Menyewakan Badut dan Alat-Alat Pesta, Tinja Bukan Masalah dsb dsb.
I made up some of that from the sign I used to see on my way home to Tangerang, but you get my point. :)
There was one busy road, one was a construction site of Hypermart, and every one who drove us would let us know proudly that the road we were, on up to the construction site, was used to be sea, so it was a reclamation site.
And everywhere, we saw the plank 'Menado Kota Tinutuan', I couldn’t figure it out what is the meaning of Tinutuan, didn’t ask because at first I thought It was a misprint, I hope somebody who knows would be kind enough to explain it to me. (For clue, it might be something such as Tangerang Berhias, sort of Bersih Hijau Indah Aman Sejahtera, Jakarta Ber-ber-something etc etc).
Before anyone get more confused, and before I stuck too much in chronological order, we saw the Menado Sea from the street, and it was wonderful; flat, calm, blue as if it called us to its embrace right away, we could see Menado Tua volcano stood in glory with overhead cottony cloud on its top.
Our resort, Minahasa Prima Resort, was located in quite an isolated area. It has beautiful landscape, big water lily pond, swimming pool, dive center, and very big room. Let me borrow a friend’s term ‘Rustic’. We had TV in the room, which is not very usual luxury for diving trip, we stayed in cottage consisted of two twin sharing room, each with its own balcony, and the cottage was facing swimming pool.
Rushing for lunch and prepared for check out dive, I contributed first thing to my fingers. My pouch rear ear was dangling on a single string, I didn’t remember to sew it, so to put it fast, I was planning to dig few holes and ran it with cable ties. Because the pouch material was very thick, I pushed the knife hard and carelessly, it went through the pouch and cut my other hand which was holding it. It was a deep nasty cut on the middle finger, so I left out the pouch, tried to stop the bleeding and put few layer of waterproof bandage to prevent it from attracting unwanted guest in the dive.
The dive center was located near the mangrove, and there was a pier that led us to the boat. Four of us would share a boat with two Mat Soleh / bules, Lawrence and Mark, the Dive masters liked to call them Botak and Dolphin Gondrong. Our dive masters were Frankie and Refly. Minahasa Boat was a simple nice boat where we have tank deck in the back, covered sitting place in the middle, front area and upper deck to enjoy the sun and scenery.
First, check out dive, was for the DM to evaluate our dive ability and for introduction to us. We did the dive nearby in Prima House Reef, about ten minutes boat ride from the hotel. Because we did the back roll, me, Leo, Botak, Gondrong and Refly rolled from one side of the boat, and we did the descent.
After a while, we still couldn’t see Hubby, Cynthia and Frankie down there. I was quite distracted as I didn’t like to be separated from my buddies, on the first dive, and at first, the visibility was a bit murky, but Refly the DM decided that we preceded with the dive.
So, buddy with Leo, we strolled along sandy bottom and found a concentration of corals. It looked like underwater mines without the thorns, whatever it is, it’s man made but successfully host abundant marine life. There were vase corals and stony corals also, in between them, I saw what I thought to be sea feathers waving around in motion. But when I got closer, I saw hundred of faces and realized that it was a group of stripped cat fish. They were everywhere, stuck inside the mines, under the rock, inside the vase coral or just popping out in groups. They were the size of teenage, other than that, we found school of baby catfish too. I had never seen so many catfish, so I started to enjoy every moment of the dive despite my worry and kept appropriate distance with the catfish as they could sting with their barbed spines if provoked. We spotted few banded pipefish, and I was excited to find brown banded pipe fish hanging put on the top of some hard coral. Half a dozen of them in one spot, I was frustrated because I didn’t have camera, and Leo was so busy himself. I showed my found proudly to Refly and he didn’t look impressed, later, then I knew, I could find bent stick pipe fish almost everywhere, I think there were few species at least and I even spotted pregnant ones. Maybe for them, I was over excited, but how, I had only ever seen one in Bali! We also saw a lot of crocodile fish, juvenile emperor angelfish and flying gurnard.
There were many spot of anemone fish. Each anemone could host up to twenty-thirty anemones fish or more from grandson to great grandfather, anemone shrimps from the whole generation too, porcelain and anemone crabs. There were few species of anemone fish, and beside the usual harmless and friendly nemos, the anemone fish in Menado were fierce and braved enough to attack divers well, hundreds their sizes.
Later part of the dive, we hovered around long grass area. I was crazy seeing bent stick pipe fish everywhere. Other than usual motionless type, there were other types which were quite active and move here and there, blinked their big eyes and puffed their cheeks. Few minutes watching them in very close distance and I could confirm they had this funny blur and bored look.
We ascended after 45 minutes dive; it was my shortest dive in Menado. I was worried about my other two friends, turned out Cynthia’s tank leaked, so they changed the tank and they were around ten minutes behind us.
VIEW FROM SWIMMING POOL
It was a nice relaxing first dive; all of the rest enjoyed it too. With great first dive, it looked like we would have promising week.
We went to the room, dropped the wetsuit and swam in the nice warm water of sun-heated swimming pool, while enjoying our unfinished lunch. Beauutiful afternoon.
After dinner, we didn’t know what to do and turned in early, before nine. I remember I woke up after a loooong sleep and thought it was already morning, only to find out that I hadn’t even hit midnight hour yet.
*****
I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
- Herman Melville
To forget the pain is to be painless; to forget care is to rid of it; to go abroad is to accomplish both.
- Mark Twain
I keep in my mind not to make my journal like a diary, as not counting on the chronological process, but as story. So, mostly, I would separate it into some parts, put things here and there as I remember and, BAM, it’s neither a diary nor a story. I would also mix the pictures and stories to make it more compact, and the pictures that I would attach with particular part of stories aren’t necessary taken during that story. Hm? Mess up.
It’s pretty hard to start, but when I’m in, it’s usually hard to stop. For fish identifications, I’d try as best as possible, I refer to books, websites, DM’s identifications etc. I’m sure to get it wrong at times, so I apologize in advance, and please enlighten me. : )
So, the first day, Saturday, 6th of May 2006, we woke up at 5.30 a.m, took MRT, ate breakfast together with group, now Cynthia and Leo minus Froggie, and boarded the 9.20 a.m plane.
It was three and a half hours ride with Silk Air. In this flight, it seemed like we only met two kinds of passengers. People from Menado went back to the hometown, and the other group is scuba divers. It is such a popular destinations, the plane was loaded from small Asian divers like us and those huge Mat Soleh with their huge dive bags and huge camera casings and huge thumbs. Even their kids were wearing scuba shirts, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were junior divers.
I was hoping all along that we could capture the pictures of Sulawesi K- shaped island, but it was a fat hope, either the island was too big or it was because Menado is located at the end of one of the K leg. Anyway, when Sam Ratulangi Airport was in sight, we jumped out from our seats and couldn’t wait to get out.
The baggage claim was a slow process and for a while, we had a thought in our mind to spend a week without fresh clothing when our backpack was nowhere to be seen.
We were picked up by Mr.K, a nice small-built guy who helped us arranged the whole itinerary, he was nothing matched with my imagination. On the way to the resort, we had a stop at small warung and bought tidbits for a week.
Menado’s street reminded me to Tangerang. He....there were a lot of Genie, in Indonesia we call it Tuyul, it is public transport ‘Suzuki Carry’ type. Tuyul is some kind of creature from the other world, with small shape, bald head and energetic. This transport vehicle is considered small between the big bus, and they can sneak and run faster so maybe that’s why they got their name.
We passed by busy two-lane road. Except Tuyul, there were private cars, motorcycle, and of course, we could see cows, chickens, and wait….pig!
I saw a dog with big pinky head, and when it came to focus, I realized that it was a pig, pig on the street! It’s not everyday we could see a pig in Indonesian road, well, actually, any road in the world. For a while, I was stunned, until I made my own conclusion. Menado, Minahasa are cities with 80-90 percent of Christian population. I don’t know the exact number, because in some sources I read that it has 95%, some others 80-something percent, and the rest of sources only said ‘majority’. But soon, my point was proven right, every few hundred meters, we saw a church. And almost every corner of the road, they erected big Red Cross, up to one storey building high, with some wording running vertically and horizontally, ‘Selamat Paskah’. ‘Happy Easter’.
At first, the sight of big red cross and some came with few little ones surrounded it, erected from the ground, reminded me of cemetery, but after a while, I got used to the scenery and I thought it was a great culture as a welcome and warm Easter greeting. I kept my own secret when I pointed at one white cross made from flower arrangement, “Look! There is a flowery one!” only to realize that that one was really a cemetery, single out, next to a front yard of a house, it was quite a bizarre location.
We also saw something new, at least for me, Easter Tree. It was something like Christmas tree, only some of the leave was made to shape as few big Cross patterns. It was located in one busy junction, and I swore, I saw it everytime we passed by, but when I stood by with camera, I missed it, doh! I really want to show everyone that Easter Tree.
The unique thing in Indonesia, it’s unlikely that we see a road without shops. So, typically, every where there were signs of Fotokopi Xerox, Apotik Cukup Manjur, Kweetiaw Ah Tjiap, and even hand written signs on DIY board stuck on the tree Tambal Ban Tumbles, Menyewakan Badut dan Alat-Alat Pesta, Tinja Bukan Masalah dsb dsb.
I made up some of that from the sign I used to see on my way home to Tangerang, but you get my point. :)
There was one busy road, one was a construction site of Hypermart, and every one who drove us would let us know proudly that the road we were, on up to the construction site, was used to be sea, so it was a reclamation site.
And everywhere, we saw the plank 'Menado Kota Tinutuan', I couldn’t figure it out what is the meaning of Tinutuan, didn’t ask because at first I thought It was a misprint, I hope somebody who knows would be kind enough to explain it to me. (For clue, it might be something such as Tangerang Berhias, sort of Bersih Hijau Indah Aman Sejahtera, Jakarta Ber-ber-something etc etc).
Before anyone get more confused, and before I stuck too much in chronological order, we saw the Menado Sea from the street, and it was wonderful; flat, calm, blue as if it called us to its embrace right away, we could see Menado Tua volcano stood in glory with overhead cottony cloud on its top.
Our resort, Minahasa Prima Resort, was located in quite an isolated area. It has beautiful landscape, big water lily pond, swimming pool, dive center, and very big room. Let me borrow a friend’s term ‘Rustic’. We had TV in the room, which is not very usual luxury for diving trip, we stayed in cottage consisted of two twin sharing room, each with its own balcony, and the cottage was facing swimming pool.
Rushing for lunch and prepared for check out dive, I contributed first thing to my fingers. My pouch rear ear was dangling on a single string, I didn’t remember to sew it, so to put it fast, I was planning to dig few holes and ran it with cable ties. Because the pouch material was very thick, I pushed the knife hard and carelessly, it went through the pouch and cut my other hand which was holding it. It was a deep nasty cut on the middle finger, so I left out the pouch, tried to stop the bleeding and put few layer of waterproof bandage to prevent it from attracting unwanted guest in the dive.
The dive center was located near the mangrove, and there was a pier that led us to the boat. Four of us would share a boat with two Mat Soleh / bules, Lawrence and Mark, the Dive masters liked to call them Botak and Dolphin Gondrong. Our dive masters were Frankie and Refly. Minahasa Boat was a simple nice boat where we have tank deck in the back, covered sitting place in the middle, front area and upper deck to enjoy the sun and scenery.
First, check out dive, was for the DM to evaluate our dive ability and for introduction to us. We did the dive nearby in Prima House Reef, about ten minutes boat ride from the hotel. Because we did the back roll, me, Leo, Botak, Gondrong and Refly rolled from one side of the boat, and we did the descent.
After a while, we still couldn’t see Hubby, Cynthia and Frankie down there. I was quite distracted as I didn’t like to be separated from my buddies, on the first dive, and at first, the visibility was a bit murky, but Refly the DM decided that we preceded with the dive.
So, buddy with Leo, we strolled along sandy bottom and found a concentration of corals. It looked like underwater mines without the thorns, whatever it is, it’s man made but successfully host abundant marine life. There were vase corals and stony corals also, in between them, I saw what I thought to be sea feathers waving around in motion. But when I got closer, I saw hundred of faces and realized that it was a group of stripped cat fish. They were everywhere, stuck inside the mines, under the rock, inside the vase coral or just popping out in groups. They were the size of teenage, other than that, we found school of baby catfish too. I had never seen so many catfish, so I started to enjoy every moment of the dive despite my worry and kept appropriate distance with the catfish as they could sting with their barbed spines if provoked. We spotted few banded pipefish, and I was excited to find brown banded pipe fish hanging put on the top of some hard coral. Half a dozen of them in one spot, I was frustrated because I didn’t have camera, and Leo was so busy himself. I showed my found proudly to Refly and he didn’t look impressed, later, then I knew, I could find bent stick pipe fish almost everywhere, I think there were few species at least and I even spotted pregnant ones. Maybe for them, I was over excited, but how, I had only ever seen one in Bali! We also saw a lot of crocodile fish, juvenile emperor angelfish and flying gurnard.
There were many spot of anemone fish. Each anemone could host up to twenty-thirty anemones fish or more from grandson to great grandfather, anemone shrimps from the whole generation too, porcelain and anemone crabs. There were few species of anemone fish, and beside the usual harmless and friendly nemos, the anemone fish in Menado were fierce and braved enough to attack divers well, hundreds their sizes.
Later part of the dive, we hovered around long grass area. I was crazy seeing bent stick pipe fish everywhere. Other than usual motionless type, there were other types which were quite active and move here and there, blinked their big eyes and puffed their cheeks. Few minutes watching them in very close distance and I could confirm they had this funny blur and bored look.
We ascended after 45 minutes dive; it was my shortest dive in Menado. I was worried about my other two friends, turned out Cynthia’s tank leaked, so they changed the tank and they were around ten minutes behind us.
VIEW FROM SWIMMING POOL
It was a nice relaxing first dive; all of the rest enjoyed it too. With great first dive, it looked like we would have promising week.
We went to the room, dropped the wetsuit and swam in the nice warm water of sun-heated swimming pool, while enjoying our unfinished lunch. Beauutiful afternoon.
After dinner, we didn’t know what to do and turned in early, before nine. I remember I woke up after a loooong sleep and thought it was already morning, only to find out that I hadn’t even hit midnight hour yet.
*****
I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.
- Herman Melville
To forget the pain is to be painless; to forget care is to rid of it; to go abroad is to accomplish both.
- Mark Twain
posted by aping at 11:31 PM
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