Selamat tinggal family & friends:
The lure of travelling by sailing vessel through some of our planet’s most beautiful and diverse islands led us to Indonesia in the first place and we have not been disappointed. This 12 day adventure, titled “In the Wake of Wallace”, commenced on October 24 in Ternate, one of the fabled Spice Islands. It combined arduous trekking, snorkeling, wet and dry landings on a plethora of islands, birding, cultural exposure to rural populaces, shipboard camaraderie, brilliant sunsets, star-studded southern hemisphere skies and a lot of dripping sweat in the heat and humidity. We also were educated about the significance of the area we were covering, Wallacea (area map hyperlink below), which is, in a nutshell, the transition area between SE Asian and Australian flora and fauna. The trip was organized as a tribute to Sir Alfred Russel Wallace, a mid-19th century British biologist and naturalist who is noted most famously for coming to the theory on the origin of species. His work was mainly in the waters of the Molucca, Banda and Halmahera Seas, between Ternate and West Papua, New Guinea and south to the Timor Sea. Concurrently, his contemporary, Charles Darwin, worked off the coastline of South America.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/92/Wallacea-id.png/1280px-Wallacea-id.png
After a month on our own, at our own pace, we had some trepidation regarding the impending onslaught of 20 other folks (only 2 were known to us, Phil & Marilyn) on a 138 foot wooden Bugi schooner/ketch, with Hobbit-like cabin quarters, for 12 days. Then it happened, thrown in with a motley lot of 10 Aussies, 2 Hollanders and 6 Pacific North Westerners we had never met. It turned out our fears were baseless, for they were fun-loving, adventuresome and quite athletic for a group averaging 68 years of age. In addition to the 22 of us was Caroline, our Dutch coordinator, representing Sea Trek, owners of our vessel, the Ombak Putih (meaning "White Wave" in Bahasa, the universal Indonesian language). The trip leader was a self-described “Wallace Nerd”, Dr. Tony Whitten, a quirky, playful, smart, and totally dedicated Brit biologist, with the attendant British humour. He is also Regional Director, Asia-Pacific for Fauna & Flora International (FFI).
Our sailings, mainly powered by diesel engines, leaving the 7 blue sails furled until late in the voyage, took us to some major islands like Halmahera, the largest of the Maluku islands (6,865 sq. miles), shaped much like Sulawesi with many arm-like peninsulas and to Waigeo, the largest of the Raja Ampat islands (1,218 sq. miles) in the West Papua province. We also anchored offshore from much smaller islands like Moti, Kusu, Dowora Lamo, Mios, Klaarbeck, Arborek, Gam and Kri in the waters of the Molucca Passage, Obi and Dampier Straits and the Halmahera Sea.
Leaving Ternate and sailing south on the waters of the Molucca Passage, we passed by the volcanic island of Tidore on our way to Moti for our first of a dozen snorkeling experiences. Later we moored off the shores of West Halmahera to visit the village of Payahe, where Caroline presented a volleyball to the village donated by Sea Trek. Several of us hiked 20 minutes to a waterfall, now a mere semblance of what it should have been due to the lack of normal rainfall. We scaled over boulders to get as close to the 40 foot high falls as we could without injury, watching children fearlessly scampering all over the smooth, slippery rock face. Upon returning to the village we were treated to a fierce volleyball game between some of the villagers and other passengers, testing the new ball! We returned at 3:30 a.m. the following morning for our first of 3 major birding excursions, this one to view Wallace’s Standardwing Bird of Paradise. The starlit sky was magnificent at that painfully early hour, rife with constellations that were hard to identify due to such a congestion of stars.
Our 6-car caravan to East Halmahera proceeded over pitch dark winding and gravel roads, encountering goats sleeping on the still-warm paved areas in one village and several wooden beams in another, acting as a form of speed bump. We arrived 2 hours later at our destination and hiked 25 minutes to a small clearing to await the day’s dawning. The activity of these beautiful birds lasted about 30 minutes, followed by dead silence. In that time, the males with their white feathers and iridescent blue/green breasts, dropped down from branches 30 feet above us, rapidly fluttering their wings creating a blurred likening to a fluffy white dandelion bloom, landing on a lower branch and then repeating the cycle again and again. Interspersed with this phenomenon was a cacophony of other birds’ songs, some melodious, others raw and grating, like the Paradise crow. A distant Pitta’s “cooing” was returned by our guide, drawing this infrequently seen bird closer and closer with echoing “coos”, but, in the end, ‘no cigar”! Our morning was topped off with the thunderous sounds of a squadron of Hornbills flying overhead through the treetops as we headed back to the Ombak Putih.
Although snorkeling was not the main emphasis of this adventure, it became a major event that was looked forward to by all, as much as a respite from the trekking and humidity as for the beauty of the reefs. Around the small islands mentioned earlier and in the bays of Kabui and Mayalibit, we were blessed with some of the best visibility (30 feet at times) and healthiest soft and hard coral many had ever seen (good number of divers and snorkelers amongst us). The sea denizens put on quite a display over time and locations: Giant Moray eels (diving down 10’ to see its massive head and teeth up close and personal), trigger fish (our personal favorite, the Clown Triggerfish), Butterfly Angelfish, Sergeant Majors, Pufferfish, Wrasses, Blue Sea Stars, Damsels, Parrot Fish, Moorish Idols, Banner fish, Snappers, Groupers, Manta Rays (off Manta Sandy) and a couple of Lion fish! Voluminous, colorful and otherworldly!! The most humorous moment was off Sapokren, on our last snorkel. I thought I had espied an octopus hiding underneath some coral and excitedly called Maggie over. Diving down for a closer look, she surfaced, letting me down gently by telling me it was merely some colorful fabric that was undulating with the movement of the waters.
A main focus of this experience were the visits to villages for collaboration on efforts to improve ecotourism, to thwart destruction of the fauna and flora while also aiding the villagers in finding additional ways of making a living. The village Maggie and I enjoyed visiting the most was on the island of Dowora Lamo off the southern tip of Halmahera where some of the Bajau sea gypsies had been relocated to a municipally erected site. It sported concrete walkways and both masonry block homes and traditional thatched stilt (piling) ones. Waterways were interspersed throughout the village, dugouts moored off the pilings, simulating the Bajau way of life on the open seas. We all felt like the Pied Piper, with the children following us excitedly. In exchanging scary faces and engaging physically with them we received their love as well as the frowns of the mothers, who would have to deal with their hyperactivity upon our exit. One young boy glommed onto me, holding my hand all the way up the hill to their school house and back down to the pier, with another 20 children in our wake. Since he had provided the scariest growling face of all the boys I gave him a Garuda Airline souvenir pen I had in my pocket. This broke Caroline’s cardinal rule of only giving gifts to the village leader to dispense as appropriate, which I had forgotten, acting in the moment. My action did in fact set off a frenzy of covetous behavior, which was met with displeasure by Caroline. I found myself temporarily in the dog house.
Each village was different in their makeup, customs and degree of openness. At Warimak, in Waigeo’s Mayalibit Bay, we were met with a marching band sporting fifes and drums, leading us to a shaded area for a Q&A session regarding the FFI project, what the villagers wanted to know about us, and we them, finally treating us to lunch with freshly caught fish, yams, corn on the cob, coconut water and crab. At Lopintol, also on Mayalibit Bay, we interviewed 20 kids, ages 6 to 12, who had been collected into one classroom. Caroline proceeded to teach them a song in English, writing the lines on the blackboard (“Hello, hello, hello how are you?”/”I am fine I am fine”/”Hope you are too”), which we all sang in rounds. Laughs and smiling faces prevailed.
Our other major birding excursions were both launched from Sapokren on the SW coast of Waigeo Island. One was to view Wilson’s Bird of Paradise, males sporting a yellow cape, crimson back, turquoise crown and a green breast. The other, to view the Red Bird of Paradise, with the male’s emerald green face, yellow bill and glossy crimson red plumes with white tips. Our wake ups were at 2:30 A.M and 5:00 A.M., followed by wet shore landings and the local villager guide leading us on narrow and well-travelled foot paths. Frankie’s pace, in leading us to the Wilson’s, was perfect for us on the almost 2 hour hike, using our head lamps (Frankie didn’t need one), brushing against the wet leaves of plants encroaching on the trail, mixing this fresh dew with our humidity-generated sweat dripping off our bodies and into our eyes.
The sounds of the awakening forest slowly grew louder as the dawn neared, some melodious, others pretty menacing (think fiendish wildcats…the imagination runs wild in the dark). At the blind, which was made of cut branches holding up a disintegrating tarp with raggedly cut holes placed in front of a crudely made “bench”, we waited to hopefully witness these birds. They would present themselves on the ground, males showing their feathers to attract a suitable female. Almost 2 hours later, no females, ergo, no male dancing and only 1 Wilson showed up…3 times in 15 minutes and that was it! My impatient nature was sorely tested. Patience is a virtue!! Daylight on our return hike provided us with sightings of butterflies, white cockatoos, their loud and harsh cries belying their beauty, green cockatoos, and many hornbills with their thunderous swooshing sound (think jet airplane), as well as the vegetation that was invisible to us before the dawn.
The Red Bird of Paradise experience was more productive and satisfying, with the birds waiting for us in the trees by 5:30 A.M. for an hour of viewing pleasure, watching the dancing, wooing, thrusting motions, general flitting about and finally, actual mating. All this was possible since the females showed up!!
Tony Whitten’s information sharing was delivered throughout the entire 12 days, with specific lectures given whenever we had some spare moments. The subjects ranged from Wallace’s early life, biological exploits, widely varied interests (spirituality, socialism, economics…he was a true Renaissance man), the competition with Darwin and Wallace’s accomplishments.
Tony’s lecture on plastics was especially interesting to Maggie and me, as we had witnessed so much garbage throughout Indonesia, with plastic being the most visible elements. I am convinced that the destruction of our planet will be the result of suffocation from our plastic wastes versus being hit by an asteroid or nuclear self-destruction! Of course Maggie losing her plastic snorkeling tube to the sea depths didn’t help matters much. In conjunction with this lecture we spent an afternoon on the island of Mios, conducting a prescribed grid-based recording of trash, from the shoreline to 2 meters into the vegetation off the beach over a 30 meter span. The stack of Styrofoam, flip flops, plastic bottles and containers that we collected was staggering. It was so much, we terminated the project after the first grid since we did not have enough bags to contain the first batch of refuse. No lecture/convincing needed here!
Tony shared with us the efforts of Fauna & Flora International, which can be summed up as “involved in conserving threatened species and ecosystems worldwide, choosing solutions that are sustainable, based on sound science, taking into account human needs, tackling threats to biodiversity and addressing climate change by safeguarding threatened ecosystems, habitats and species together with the communities who rely on them”. Hence, the visits to the villages.
On a more personal note, Tony shared the story of the 2.5 years he and his wife spent on the small island of Siberut, off the west coast of Sumatra, which reflected his immersion in the culture of Indonesia and his penchant for preserving the natural resources of this country. His love of these people showed clearly through the photos he shared, including ones with his Sumatran ‘blood brother’.
This dispatch would not be complete without a mention of something dicey happening. So here it is. On an excursion through the Wallace Channel in the upper reaches of Kabui Bay we stopped the launches to snorkel off some mangroves. In getting out of the launch, Maggie and I were caught in a ferocious current that had us trying to avoid the sharp karst rock cliffs by hanging onto the side of the boat, me at its stern, which was being pushed toward these cliffs at great speed. The motor was not on, everybody was yelling. Fortunately I couldn’t see how close the back of my head was to this danger, so I was yelling through my snorkel and laughing somewhat at the chaotic nature of it all. Maggie was at the bow, hanging on to the snorkel ladder and not in as much danger. At the last minute the engine roared and veered us away to safety, dragging us for a while until common sense set in and we were hauled in.
Since Halloween occurred during this voyage, it is only fitting that we spent that day in the Kalepale caves of Mayalibit Bay, for bat and insect viewing, slogging through 2-3 inches of guano, with up to an inch sticking to our soles, seeing crickets, crabs, wood lice, whip spiders, fruit and insect bats. The fruit bats’ screeching pierced our ear drums, while our headlamps reflected off the beady red eyes of the insect bats hanging high up near the ceiling. We did manage to bottle up specimens for Tony to inspect later back at the vessel.
Our last night aboard the Ombak Putih was spent singing and dancing with the crew after dinner. Several crew members played guitars, while one wore a jester’s hat while drumming. For their special song they wrote the refrain on a white board for the passengers to sing along with them. Our turn was to come. It was hilarious. The Americans sang the Nudibranch song (don’t ask), while the Aussie’s sang Waltzing Matilda and Home on the Range. Not sure the crew were all that impressed, except for Phil’s emulation of a Red Bird of Paradise, dressed in a red shirt and yellow scarf, providing the thrusting motions in giving Caroline her tips; she responded as only a female Red would do (imagination required here).
This has been the most challenging and rewarding adventure yet for us, both physically and socially, with the bonds formed quickly aboard the Ombak Putih. Of special significance with the NW contingent was the realization that “6 degrees of separation” is really only 1 or 2 degrees when you share and ask the right questions!
Finally, we can honestly say at this writing, awaiting our flight home, that we’re feeling “rode hard and put away wet”, even after a restful week on Bali with November’s full moon.
Happy trails to you,
Stan & Maggie