Saturday 4th July 2015
0 degrees 52.995S
131 degrees 14.168E
Pulau Doom
Sorong, Papua
10m
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| Cheery Doom Girl |
We arrived in
Sorong and intended to get out of there as swiftly as possible. Sorong isn’t a bad town, but the anchorage in
the harbour isn’t very pleasant. Dirty and
noisy, and there is really nowhere to leave the dinghy. All of the jetties are Private Property and
the access from dinghy to shore is perilous in any case – slippery, sharp,
smelly…
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| Our beautiful Doom anchorage, so close to Sorong! |
But – oh so lucky
– we saw a big yacht (SV Four Friends, NZ,) anchored near a little island in
the harbour so we went closer to ask them how things were. And things are great! This is Pulau Doom. Doom is absolutely the wrong word for this
delightful little island!
 |
| Gorgeous Doom Girls |
We are peacefully
anchored in 10 metres of clean-ish water, and the village nearby is full of
colourful houses, with very friendly people.
There seem to be
thousands of children, all beaming.
 |
| Pete with Deddy, Carlos, Orlando and Echo |
And there is a
nice man called John, who will look after the dinghy for not very much per day.
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| John, giving Pete a stern warning re BadBoys |
And getting to
town – easypeasy! If you don’t mind a
small narrow rock & roll boat jam-packed with people…But MUCH nicer than
going in to shore in the dinghy to find Private Propery and slippery slimy
sharp rocks.
We had a quick
stop at the Harbour Master office and then off to Immigration. It all seemed to be taking forever…so we rang
Eflin, our contact from Stephy and Martin (Raja Ampat Dive Resort.)
Eflin acts as an
agent and sponsor, for $50 per person.
And well worth it...
Everything stops
for lunch, in the Immigration office, so we went off on our other quest– the
fuel barge office, leaving kindly Eflin to wait for the office people to
return. We had the address – 8A Jalan
Gunung Gamalama. The problem is…there
are no town maps and nobody knows where anything is. So – not such an easy quest! Eflin had suggested we go in a bemo as far as
the Mona Lisa Hotel, where there MIGHT be some Gunung streets. We were very hot and slightly bothered by the
time our bemo driver dropped us off…right near the Mamberamo Hotel…and we knew
that this hotel has a very nice bar. Why
not go in there and ask for directions??
 |
| BLISS!! |
Our kindly barman
didn’t know where our street was, but he suggested walking up – yes – to the
Mona Lisa Hotel, where there might be some Gunung streets. Not sure why they are called Gunung – gunung
means mountain and this is the flattest part of Sorong…Never mind! We asked all and sundry along the way,
because people here are so very friendly, and they all want to chat and help. They would wave their arms in this direction,
and that, but…nobody really knew where Jalan Gunung Gamalama was.
 |
| Sorong is very colourful! |
Along the way we
found a very grand building, unlike anything else in Sorong. Wow!
What was it?
Well…an executive
club, of course!
And finally…our
street!
It was not the sort
of place one would expect to find a busy fuel office. In fact it looked as if tumbleweeds would
blow along at any moment.
There were, of
course, cheery children wanting to be photographed. When I first saw these girls they were
sitting in the barrels in the driveway – a perfect photo opportunity, I
thought. But no of course they wanted to
do The Universal Pose!
And at last
8A! A suburban house, with no sign of
fuel-ishness about it. But we knocked
and were greeted very civilly; it was the right place, indeed. But…we needed to buy 1,000 litres and they
can only sell a minimum of 3,000.
So…back along the
colourful streets
to meet Eflin, at
Saga Supermarket. She had our papers so
we are now free to be in Indonesia for another month.
Back to the little
ferryboats…Once more we were jammed in and off we went but…suddenly, before we
had left the shore, it all went wrong and we had to get off onto an adjacent
one, clambering out with not much dignity with all of our heavy shopping bags.
The second boat took
off backwards between some big solid concrete pilings and then there was
another bit of a bugger-up and we started smashing into the pilings side
on. BANG, CRASH, SMASH, SPLASH. It was, I say mildly, very unpleasant. The extraordinary thing was how calm all of
the passengers were. They were totally
happy and confident, with the odd appreciative giggle as yet another large wave
smashed through the plastic side curtains.
I did some deep breathing and sat very still. I was a bit worried about our shopping going
to the bottom of the sea – many cans of beans, a large cabbage, some precious
Fuji apples, cheese. Pete of course
wanted to FIX things, by going onto the deck and pushing the boat away. He started getting to his feet. Well you can’t get to your feet in these
boats, there is only about one metre of clearance, so he was having some
difficulty as the boat crashed and ricocheted into the pilings. I said very sternly, NO, PETE!! (He paid no attention to this at all.) I did not want him being a human buffer! Fortunately the boatmen got us up and
running, with many more merry smashes into hard concrete. Not sure how the boat didn’t get smashed to
smithereens, but maybe this happens all the time??
We were very happy
to get to our beautiful little Island of Doom!
I bought some eggs at the little market, and then we got into two bicycle
rickshaws and had a beautiful ride back to the dinghy, with just a little bit
of a walk along the waterfront path to get us there.
We were happier
than I can describe to be back on 2XS…A few cheery children came to visit and
we said, Yes lovely come back tomorrow…I
had just enough energy to cook stir-fried prawns and to drink a G & T while
watching the beautiful sunset.
It is so nice we
are spending another night at Pulau Doom.
Pete thinks he has organised another source of fuel, arriving today at
4pm. We will see!
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