Islands and Parks of North Sulawesi

A little recovered from 2 days with hot water and a choice of food we are off again to the unknown.

Flight to Manado and a disaster of a hotel.  Firstly we booked a triple room, only to find it only has 2 single beds – on querying it they show us a room with one double bed – for 3 people??……..
Much discussion about extra costs for another bed (which would not really fit with bags too) or another room.  No care from the staff – just said contact agoda who we booked through.  (They also said this happened often?…). But in the meantime pay up more money for another room.  That sorted we go off to the shops, not seeing a lot of restaurants open around we decide to eat in the hotel that evening – WOW louder than a rock concert in the front row.  Some guy singing way out of tune so loudly it was awful, all guests tried to sit at back of the restaurant but it made little difference.  Steve & Chris coped, I gave up the idea of eating, really hate loud noise (OK if actual music, although still prefer not so loud, but just loud screeching…..).
It was a nice view from the corridor in the hotel though.

An unplanned resort is next on the list, we met Steve in the last resort on Waisai and he was on the same ferry, back to town.  He owned a resort in Lembeh – which we had considered but discarded as it appeared to be more for divers.  Not so we are told and he showed us photos of the most amazing creatures, so off we go.

Amazing resort, and a lovely sunrise, but coral and fish not quiet as good as expected – still there were some unusual things and sea snakes seemed to find me a target as 2 came up close to me on 2 separate occasions.
It is also volcanic sand so fish and coral against a black background is different – and surprisingly hard to photograph.

The food was really good as all made onsite by an excellent chef.  Interesting birds in the garden here and, so altogether a lovely 2 day stay – but also the most rubbish we have seen in the water so far. The most unfortunate thing here was my underwater camera stopped working in the middle of a snorkel on the 2^nd day – no idea why, nothing obvious.  So so annoying, especially as Steve’s is not working well, this leaves us with no useful underwater camera for the rest of the trip.  Lucky mine is under warranty (it was a replacement under warranty received just before going away, so really should not have an issue).

Our next port of call organised the transfer – car and ferry, think we must be having a string of bad luck.  Driver was the most unfriendly, unhelpful person in our whole trip so far.  Car journey around 1 hour, would not put on air cond, did not speak, did not help with luggage etc.  On arriving at a jetty – tide was a long way out, he just left us in the car and went off, eventually came back and told us to get our bags and walk up this very long jetty – we can not see how this will work as the tide is out past the end of the jetty but he could not explain and appeared to be having an argument on his phone.  Even then his phone kept cutting out as not much service so he was getting more and more hot under the collar.

Hanging around not understanding what exactly was going on, we did work out that whatever else we did have to wait for the tide and assumed a boat would turn up.  Wondering why the resort would not have told us this in advance and arranged car for a more suitable tide time?

A few days before we left Raja Ampat I managed to cut my toe – not much just took the surface skin off.  Off course I kept doing everything, swimming etc but now it was beginning to look infected.  I had not been in the water for the last day at Lembeh (or this travel day) and planned on keeping it dry and taking antibiotics.  When the boat eventually turned up they wanted everyone to wade to the boat – I explained I had to keep my foot dry so lots of debating – we were told that the tide most probably not going to get high enough and if it did could be a couple of hours.
Ingenious staff were amazing though, they took the boat to a part of the jetty where the roof of the boat was not too far down and then passed our bags and then us down to the roof and then we slid down into the boat.  Certainly, a new way of entering a boat for me.
On arriving at Bunaken Island one of the crew members gave me a piggy back onto land to stop my foot getting wet – they are small people but so very strong.

Found the above in a pond in the grounds. It is a lovely looking resort unfortunately with a large group of very noisy people (shouting and arguing nonstop),  still it was fun to watch them do the ridiculous selfie things in fancy dresses posing in the water for hours on end and a seemingly endless supply of different clothing.
Chris was able to go out snorkelling from a dive boat but I had to miss all this island – such a shame, I missed turtle city (loads of them) and some pretty amazing coral.  Steve went out snorkelling once from the beach but the current was very strong so it was not enjoyable. 

The resort food was very expensive, they wanted $19 aus for each meal – and it was a set 3 course thing with very limited anything (mostly stuff we wouldn’t eat. A 20 min walk to the village though found a great little local lady who cooked us the most amazing food (and lots of it) for $5 aus. First meal here was sweet and sour omelette which was surprisingly good and not something we would ever of thought of making.  As breakfast was included at our place, we ended up doing that and one meal around 2pm in town to last the rest of the day.
A trip out on a boat to see the spinner dolphins was amazing (although more expensive than we were told before we went) – so many of them everywhere you look and really showing off with spins and jumps.  Not the easiest to photograph though, a moving boat and moving creatures, still it was fun trying and amazing to watch them.

One of the interesting things in North Sulawesi is church design, like Raja Ampat this area has a high portion of Catholics and incredibly ornate church’s – and so many different designs.

Next return ferry and car to Tangkoko for birding.  The first evening we went out with the rangers (more of a fast route march than a walk, not sure what the hurry was as we had to wait until dark) to see the Tarsier’s (very small carnivorous primate),  also found a couple of interesting birds. 

When we got back our guide for the next 2 days met us – amazing people and we were so grateful that they honoured the payment we made them in 2019 for April 2020.  Just a family business but more than many did due to Covid.  Renny was the most amazing bird guide, very passionate and determined to find everything and her daughter Lea was the organiser and left nothing to chance.  

Renny employed Marcel to scout around too and he found us a bird that another guide had tried for 4 days to find for a french tourist (they were just leaving when our guide found it, so lucky for him).  Marcel was just as passionate about finding birds and we could not have been in better hands.  They also found us Tarsier’s during the day and Bear cuscus.

Great 2 days – even though on day one we had to shelter from serious rain for a couple of hours, we were exhausted though, so much walking up and down for 12 hours the first day.  Luckily the 2^nd day was more leisurely with more sitting and watching and a boat ride.
At the end we were invited by Lea and Renny to a meal at their brother’s house.  Fantastic food and a dance to “Down under” by Men at work was great fun which they live streamed.  Lea sings in a band with her brother and they do lots of shows around North Sulawesi.

Out again birding in the evening for the Owls and then off the next day to our next island Bangka.

Also at this point Chris finally gets another response from Virgin, saying that they now agree their staff “in Melbourne” (she left from Adelaide), were incorrect and mis-read the visa and that she will get the money back.  Let’s see what happens and how long that takes.

A different place, lovely island and what would have once been a fantastic resort but now is just a rundown relic, a little disappointing to see it in such a state – hard to know how much is COVID though as it looks like it has been run down for a lot longer than 3 years – but it is the tropics so who can tell.

My foot is OK now so straight in for snorkelling – a sunny day, flat water – perfect.  Surprisingly good coral and a lot of fish.  Weather a little disappointing for snorkelling on the next 2 days, pretty choppy with not great visibility so a sad end to an otherwise amazing few weeks.

2 days in Bali to de-camp and home, luxury to not have to put toilet paper in a bin, have hot showers and power all the time and to be able to choose good food.  Travelling certainly makes you appreciate the simple things.

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