A Nice Combination

Today was our last day of diving. It has been an incredible trip...such a great mix of culture and diving. I hope it will be a trip that the kids will remember the rest of their lives.

Watching the kids on their 8th dive of the week was a real pleasure. They finally turned into experienced divers. They were all with their buddies, buoyancy control was perfect, they were looking at their gauges, paying attention, and looking at things in the water. It was a remarkable transformation from their first dive when they were mere monkeys.

Camp Fire and Singing

After a long day of diving and other activities, Otto, pictured above, arranged a camp fire on the beach for the kids. He gathered all of his singing buddies, and they entertained us with Papuan music and dancing. With 6 guitars and a bongo drum, they filled the air with really great music.

Otto has been with Max since the start of the dive operation in the early nineties. He is an incredible divemaster. He has over 10,000 dives, and can find anything you want to see in the ocean. I asked him if he could show me a ghost pipe fish, and he said, "what kind do you want to see?" I said, "How about an ornate ghost pipe fish?" We went diving, and he showed me three different kinds of ghost pipe fish. Unreal. He can also look at the ocean, and based on the currents he can see on the surface, can tell you whether or not the mantas will be out there or not. He really is unbelievable, and was a tremendous help with the kids underwater.

Max

Monday was another day of diving. Max entertained the kids with his little pet who would climb onto the kid's heads and into their shirts.

We all settled into a nice routine. Breakfast at 7:00, first dive at 8:00, a 30 minute nap, second dive at 11:00, lunch at 1:00, third dive at 3:00, an afternoon activity, dinner at 7:00, journal writing, and then lights out at 10:30.

Let the Diving Begin

Sunday was a day of diving. The kids completed their first three open water dives. We took them to a sandy spot with no current for their first dive. As expected, they were all over the water like monkeys in a cage. With 18 divers to watch underwater, it was no easy task for me, Mike and the divemasters to keep track of them all. The second and third dive were a little trickier with some current. It was an exhausting day, but we managed to return to the resort with all the kids in one piece and three dives under their belts.

Service Project

Every Project Week has to do some community service. I had arranged with Max a few months ago to do something for the Papuan community, and we had agreed that the kids could buy some cement, and put a floor into the new school the village had been building. We donated $250 to buy 30 bags of cement. The kids first had to load the cement bags onto the boats to bring to the village. All kids, including the girls, helped wheel the bags down the pier to the boats.

When we arrived at the village (about an hour boat ride), the entire village was on the beach singing psalms for us (they are Christian) when we arrived. They were lined up on the beach with the eldest in front, and the youngest at the back. They presented us with colored palm hats they had made for us in the weeks before we arrived.

It was very touching to see how happy they were to receive something as simple as a new cement floor for their school. The kids all mixed cement, and spread it onto the dirt floor, and 6 hours later, the school had a new floor. It was a very successful service project.

Snorkling and Lost Photos

Before I left for Papua, I had taken the team photos of the Boy's Varsity Baskeball team. Since we let the kids have most of the day off for snorkeling, I took a walk on the beach to take some photos. Well, for some reason, the photos never made it onto my portable hard drive, so I lost all the photos I took.....talk about frustrating. I had some beautiful shots of driftwood on the beach and some sunset photos.....not to mention the team photos I will have to re-do. Arggggggh!!!

At least I didn't lose any of the underwater photos I took. The one above is of Mike, my fellow instructor.

Back To Paradise

It was a long night on the airplane. We left by bus at 6:00 pm, and climbed on board the plane with 18 kids at 9:00 pm, and then flew through the night making three stops before finally arriving in Sorong at 6:30 in the morning. I have no idea why they have such a bad schedule for flying to Sorong.

Anyway, we were greeted at the airport, stuffed into 4 small buses, and taken to the pier where we boarded three boats for the two hour boat ride to the island of Kri. We let the kids relax most of the day with an afternoon snorkel.

Two New Galleries

Be sure to check out my PBase.com account (link is just over to the right of this post). I have posted two new galleries. One from our boys trip to Flores and Komodo (small gallery) and one that contains some miscellaneous photos from trips all over.

I am off to Papua tomorrow with 18 freshmen students. Nine girls and nine boys. Mike and I have been working with the kids the past month getting them ready for their open water dives. We have had four pool sessions and four academic sessions with them, and will do the 5th confined water and academic session with them when we get to Papua. Most will be very good in the water. There are a couple of mousey Korean girls that we are bit worried about, but in the end, I think they will do fine. I am most worried about myself. I picked up a cold yesterday, and it is in full form as I write this post. I will have to take some major drugs to dry myself up in order to get down. The timing is really bad...why couldn't it had been last week or the week after the trip?? Argggggh!!

No internet, no TV, no nothing where we will be diving. We will be in paradise, and be rest assured I will take plenty of photos....so this will be my last post for a week.....see you next Thursday.

Traffic Nightmare

The photo really does not show all. I think Indonesia gets the gold medal for worst traffic on Earth. It was UNREAL. Thousands and thousands of motorcycles mixed in with every type of transportation known to man. The first 8 hours of the drive was relatively good...at least it moved. Then at around 1:00, we hit the major stuff. For NINE hours, we sat in creeping traffic encountering the worst idiots known to be behind the wheel or in most cases, the handle bars. Thank God for Muz, who drove all but the last three hours.

Despite the traffic, Kayla was once again incredible. She sang songs, laughed, took naps, talked about motorcycles, joked around, and NOT ONCE, NOT ONCE did she complain or cry. We are really blessed with that little girl. She did choke on some juice that caused her to throw-up everything in her stomach, but even after that she told us all, "No problem....just throw up, Mommy"...and then started laughing. Unreal.

We made it home by 9:00pm (left at 4:00am), and all of us just unloaded the car and immediately crashed into our beds for a much needed sleep.

Hangin' Out in Sragen

Saturday was spent entirely in the house. I read my golf magazines and took several naps, and Kayla had a good time pretending to be a rice paddie worker and just hanging out at the house. Tika talked, talked, and talked some more....and she talked....of course all the talking was done in Javanese....totally foreign to my ears, so I just stayed tuned to my golf magazines.

A Side Trip Near Sragen

On Friday, we took a short trip up to the mountains to see the tea plantations. Sisters, brothers, cousins, and other assorted kids joined us on the trip. It was very beautiful, and nice and cool in the upper altitudes...a nice break from the heat down below.

More On The Road

Here are a few more photos from the trip down to Sragen. The bottom photo was an eating stop along the side of the road next to some nice rice paddies. The middle photo is the entrance to Tika's village, and the third photo is of our little house we own.