23rd July - Waisai - Mansuar - Arborek - Raja Ampat

Thursday 23^rd July 2015

00 degrees 25.991S

130 degrees 48.392E

Waisai duckpond marina

Going back to Waisai was a bit like coming home – we are familiar with this little town now.  I know where to go for pulsar (top-up for phone and internet) one after the other when they say they have run out.  (Which they all do…)  And we know which stalls at the market have the best tomatoes, the least mouldy potatoes, the juiciest shallots.  We needed to clamber onto motorbikes with our shopping to get back to the boat.  I had a backpack full of veggies, a coolbag with a sad and scrawny frozen chicken therein, and two and a half dozen eggs clasped to my chest.  My motorbike rider did NOT understand that I REALLY wanted to go to the marina, to a boat.  He kept slowing down at various hotels and homestays along the way – This one?  That one??  I felt like smacking him just a bit – if I were staying in a hotel would I be lugging two and a half dozen eggs with me??

Along the way to Waisai we were followed by a big black storm cloud.  It allowed us to tie up at the pontoon, go into town, do our shopping etc, very considerate, really, before it let fly with a beautiful big rainfall.

00 degrees 34.517S

130 degrees 36.904E

Masuar Island

Raja Ampat Dive Lodge Resort

Mooring no longer there…

The next morning we set off, bright and expectant, to go to Mansuar Island.  We had been on the mooring at the Raja Ampat Dive Lodge, with John, and we knew it was a safe and secure mooring.  Hmmm…well it was, and I am sure it still would be but…it wasn’t there!  Some of the resort men came out to the end of the jetty and they too gazed off into the middle distance, hoping, I suppose, that the errant mooring would suddenly bob up.  It is much too deep, and the current is much too strong, to anchor there, so…we left!

00 degrees 33.781S

130 degrees 31.114E

Pulau Arborek

16.4 metres depth

And we found ourselves back at beautiful Pulau Arborek, ready to swim with the manta rays again.  Apparently I was very lucky, a few days ago, to have such a lovely friendly one turn up so punctually, because there wasn’t a sign of one yesterday, no matter how keenly we peered into the water.

All through the night there was music – party time on the island, with their visitors from another island just outside Raja Ampat.  This morning they embarked, with much cheer, on a big wooden boat and off they went, with the band playing raggedly on the pier.