Wild Earth Expeditions

11Indo, October 12 to October 28, 2011

(Please note:  The following is written as an article to be published, but not necessarily with these photos.  If you have ideas of publications for me to submit to, let me know!)

Indonesia is a country of over 17,000 islands stretching the distance from Chicago to London.  If you were to visit one island each day, it would take you at least 47 years to see them all.  Half a decade, and you would only skim the surface of this fascinating country.  To know Indonesia intimately is difficult, if not impossible.  The diversity of languages, cultures, religions, rituals and cuisines is mind-boggling.  

With a mere 17 days available to us, ten travelers and two Wild Earth guides set out to experience some of Indonesia’s underwater, terrestrial and cultural highlights.  The expedition started in Singapore where the guests’ flights converged from all over the globe.  Some travelled from the west coast of the US, others from Switzerland and Australia.  From Singapore, we all boarded a plane bound for Manado, which lies on the northern tip of the large Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Downtown Singapore, Financial District

Singapore Slings with Thomas at the Raffles Hotel, Singapore

Raffles Hotel

Sulawesi is east of Borneo and is located just over the famous Wallace Line.  Wallace was an avid and perceptive naturalist whose intuitions about species adaptations eventually helped lead to the theory of evolution.  During his studies in this region, Wallace also determined that animals and plants on the island of Borneo and westward from there, tended to be Asiatic in nature, while the wildlife east of Borneo was definitely more Australasian in character.  Sulawesi lies over the Wallace Line and hosts an incredible diversity of wildlife and cultures. 

Once in Manado we transferred by car and then boat to Bunaken National Marine Park and Siladen Island Resort.  The boat ride was perfectly timed for us to take in the gorgeous sunset over Bunaken’s volcano peaked island of Manado Tua. We arrived on Siladen Island and were greeted by the friendly staff of the Siladen Island Resort.  After welcome drinks and an orientation, we enjoyed a fantastic BBQ dinner on the beach and settled in for the night as the stars lit up the night sky. 

Cabin top transportation

Manado Tua - a volcanic island in Bunaken Marine Park

Siladen Island

Sunset on the first night at Siladen

The next three days were packed with dives and snorkels.  Bunaken National Marine Park with its steep and dramatic wall dives proved to be not only a haven for big marine organisms like turtles, Napoleon wrasses, eagle rays and cuttlefish, but also a refuge for myriad small critters such as squat lobsters, porcelain crabs, nudibranchs, manderinfish, juvenile frogfish and incredibly well camouflaged crinoid shrimp.  The abundant anemones were a favorite of the group.  Each anemone houses stunning anemonefish that will fearlessly approach a person in the water, often working themselves into a frenzy and charging the perceived intruders.  In all, easy dives, great meals, comfortable beachfront bungalows, sunny skies and gracious dive guides who could spot the smallest hidden marine creatures on the reef, spoiled us rotten.

Siladen Island Resort

Manado Tua: a snorkeler's perspective

Siladen Island Resort's house reef

Tridacna giant clam

A dive boat map of the Marine Park

Siladen Island

Fishing boats from Siladen village

When the time came, we packed our bags, bade farewell to picturesque Siladen Island and set out for the Minahasa Highlands of Northern Sulawesi.  Minahasa is a region with a higher than average quality of life and a rich history heavily influenced by Dutch trading and colonialism during the height of the spice trade era.  The region became well known for its bumper crops of coffee, nutmeg, and more recently cloves.  Dutch missionaries brought Christianity to the region with the result being that over 90% of the population are devout Protestants.  We experienced this first hand as we drove through the Indonesian countryside on a Sunday hearing church bells and seeing leagues of people heading to the first and then second church services of the day.  This was an interesting juxtaposition in the largest Muslim nation in the world. 

Volcanic lake high in the Minahasa region

Impromptu language lessons with a group of students

A preacher and her family going to Sunday service

During our outing in Minahasa we took in fantastic views of the terraced and meticulously planted countryside, ate local cuisine on the shores of a volcanic lake, enjoyed an impromptu housewarming party in a local village, walked around a steaming and sulfur-filled lake that is famous for it’s changing colors, and finally – as the sun was setting – we visited a traditional burial site.  In house-shaped, stone warugas, the Minahasa people traditionally arranged their dead in a fetal position.  The roof of each tomb was then carved with symbols and likenesses of things that were important to the deceased.  In the fading twilight we used our dive lights and headlamps to peer into the past and read the carvings on each waruga.  Some were renditions of what the person did.  For example, one striking waruga belonging to a medicine man showed, in four consecutive carvings, the progression of a woman giving birth.  Another displayed a colonial Dutchman in his leggings, tri-cornered hat and long waistcoat.  The likeness virtually marched out of the stone: a true effigy of his former self. 

Minahasa village with rice fields

The stuff of life

Sunday kite flying

A family heads to church

The next two days and three nights were spent at the elegant and contemporary Lembeh Hills Resort on the eastern shores of Northern Sulawesi adjacent to Lembeh Strait and the busy market city of Bitung.  If you are a diver, you may well be familiar with Lembeh Strait.  It is home to some of the best muck diving in the world.  Muck diving is reef diving’s alter ego.  Basically, on a muck dive there’s no coral, or any relief at all for that matter, unless you count the occasional abandoned length of rope, barrel, coconut shell or piece of trash.  But incredibly, hiding in the odds and ends on the bottom, or buried in the black lava sand, divers find some of the world’s most amazing marine life.  The waters are rich with masters of camouflage like the hairy frogfish, ghost pipefish and bottom dwelling stargazers.  We found mantis shrimp, nudibranchs, squid, juvenile flounders blended in with the seafloor, and the incredible mimic octopus that can impersonate lionfish, flounders, jellyfish and sea snakes.  Probably the jewel in the crown at Lembeh though, is the well-named wonderpus.  Also a mimic, this octopus has small eyes on long stalks on the top of its head.  A good divemaster can spot these eyestalks rising ever so slightly up off the bottom.  It’s an extraordinary feat and illustrates true identification skills.

Looking out over Lembeh Strait from the resort's gorgeous pool

Lembeh Hills Resort

Best pool ever

Banggai Cardinalfish

Peacock Smashing Mantis Shrimp

Kidney Coral

Floating net fishing platforms like this pepper Lembeh Strait

Fishermen spend all night out in these small open boats

Our dive boat out in Lembeh Strait

Bustling fish market in Bitung

Fisherman w/catch of small, colorful reef fish :(

Incredibly, six huge yellowfin tuna were unloaded from this tiny boat

A truckload of yellowfin tuna ready to be flown to Japan or the US

Small fish in the market

Leaving Lembeh, we drove up into the highlands again, this time to Tangkoko National Park for a chance to see endemic Black Macaques and Spectral Tarsiers.  With uncanny luck, a troop of large, black macaques with their fantastic punk spiked hairdos happened to be strolling down the dirt track in the park as we arrived.  The monkeys were walking in and around us and we all had a chance to snap some photos and watch them climbing trees, strolling along the road, and swinging in the trees.  As the light grew dimmer we hiked off-road into the forest and peered up into the canopy to see imposing Knobbed Hornbills settling in for the night.  Quickly, we continued along the narrow forested trails to a giant banyan tree favored by a family of Spectral Tarsiers.  As the dark crept in around us, the first small monkey with its giant eyes gingerly climbed out of a crevasse and clung there staring at us apparently unfazed by the lights and curious crowd.  As more family members crept out of hiding, our guide placed an insect on a nearby tree and we watched the tarsier leap through the air to snag the bug off its perch.  At 9 cm in height, these little guys can leap roughly 6 meters.   As for us, after hunting for hairy tarantula spiders, we leapt over to Manado for the night before flying to Sorong in Western Papua. 

Black Macaque - love the mohawk

Spectral Tarsier (body height is ~9 cm) 

Sorong is the gateway to one of the most pristine coral reef environments on the entire planet:  Raja Ampat.  Recognized as a hotspot of biodiversity above and below the water, Raja Ampat has been the focus of much international and local conservation work and the result of all this dedication to preservation is a chance to peak back in time and experience an Indo-Pacific reef, as they must have been everywhere at one time.  The sheer abundance and biomass of fish and invertebrates is stunning.  Huge schools of barracuda, jacks, fusiliers, batfish, and chromis hang on submerged sea mounds bathed in plankton rich currents, while thousands of silversides mass together in constantly changing schools that form torrents of individual silver-blue-green bodies, entwining and splinting off and joining together again in massive clouds.  We stayed for six full days in a remote corner of the region at the Misool Eco Resort.  At least a four-hour boat ride from Sorong, the resort is build around a welcoming cove peppered with guest cottages that are built out over the water of the sheltered lagoon.  The house reef is accessible from stairs that lead right into the water from each cottage’s front deck and guests spent siestas and time between outings lounging in their hammocks or day beds and watching the fish below.

Misool Eco Resort, Raja Ampat, Western Papua, Indonesia

The view from our deck - note stairs to the water on the right

Celebrating 40!

Gorgeous blue hard coral

A vivid seastar creeps along the reef

Divemaster's tatoo - we dove and snorkeled w/massive manta rays

Orchids growing wild along the resort's hillside paths

Checking out massive crinoids

 The diversity of coral, fish and invertebrates is second to none in Raja Ampat.  On every dive we saw species that were new to us, including several that are endemic to the region.  A favorite from night diving was the Raja Ampat Epaulette Shark.  This small shark is relatively new to science (and divers) and finds its prey by walking along the reef on broad, flat pectoral fins.  For a diver or snorkeler in the waters of Raja Ampat, experiencing the array of colored sea fans and soft corals on the reef is like being a kid in a candy store.  And better yet, these octocorals house perfectly camouflaged shrimp, pygmy seahorses, clingfish and cleaner crabs.  From beginning to end, our dives with the Misool Eco Resort were eye-opening experiences as we witnessed the treasure trove of life and interactions on the reef.  It was just fantastic.

Swimming over soft corals

A reef-walking Raja Ampat Epaulette Shark on a night dive

Man, the colors!

Wild Earth Expeditions put together a tremendous sampling of Indonesia.  From diving the steep walls of Bunaken Marine Park to the verdant Minahasa Highlands, and from the mucky depths of the Lembeh Strait to the lush forests of Tangkoko National Park, we took it all to heart.  And of course, the best was saved for last, with plenty of time in the water in the heart of Raja Ampat.  We leave Indonesia with a taste for the diversity of this fascinating country and the desire to return to the smiling faces and beautiful sites of this nation of islands.

Sunset during our last night beach cookout on a remote island 

Good times...