Nudi Gal

I was up before the Muslim chanting started. I heard the first refrains from my porch. It’s so weird. I feel like I’m hearing steps but it is really just the leaves/rain.

OMG. Now there are at least two competing Mosques chanting. This is insane! I’m not sure how people sleep through this!

I was on the boat with Graham and his groupies today.

Before the dive boat left, I did a little snorkeling on the house reef. I saw the blacktip reef sharks from underwater this time. They were just patrolling the shoreline. I can see why they like it there. There are tons of little silvery fish they can have for breakfast.

The dives were awesome. Amil said in the second dive briefing that the dive was not good for macro. But of course with this group, we were able to make it so. I never look out into the blue anymore really. And every once in a while I wonder… what if a whale shark is right behind me looking over my shoulder wondering what the heck I’m looking at. And today, that came true. I looked up and over at Amil and he dropped his pointer sticks. I thought that was weird. Why would he drop them? Something must be going on. So before he even rapped on his tank, I looked out into the blue and sure enough, there it was.

WHALE SHARK!!!!

I yanked out the Go Pro I keep attached to my BC, turned it on and just pointed the thing at the blue. It’s not a very good video, but it is proof we saw it!!!

I swam fast toward it but he was moving along at a pretty good pace. Also, I didn’t know what the etiquette was here. Some boats get mad if you swim toward a whale shark thinking you will scare it away.

Unfortunately, Graham/Kevin/Pat didn’t see it. And Kevin has never seen a whale shark.

I showed it to Valentina and Peter and some of the other guests and they commented that this is EXTREMELY rare. We should consider ourselves very lucky. Woo Hoo!

I donned my crazy wetsuit for the afternoon dive and it feels just so much more comfortable underwater. Maybe I’ll start wearing just that until I get cold.

I dove the house reef in the evening right after the afternoon dive and before dinner. So I am able to get in my four dives a day. Awesome! I’m going to make that my habit every day.

I actually took photos of the mandarinfish there. They seem bigger and more colorful than in Palau… and they stay out longer. I joked that it is because of my colorful wetsuit.

Here are the nudis I saw today:

21 - Chromodoris magnifica

22 - Nembrotha sp. 2

23 - Nembrotha chamberlaini

24 - Thecacera sp. 14

25 - Glossodoris cincta

26 - Dendronotus regius

27 - Chelidonura hirundinina

28 - Pteraeolidia semperi

29 - Dermatobranchus rodmani

30 - Jorunna funebris

31 - Phyllidiella nigra

32 - Tambja morosa

33 - Thuridilla gracilis

34 - Flabellina exoptata

35 - Unknown (juvenile phyllodesmium of some sort with white with brown curly lines running thru the cerata)

David Beherns thinks this is sp.2. Maybe sp. 9? I put this on Nudibase and Hsin Li said "Yes, a not yet described one. This is the 4th time I saw record of this Alor species." Terry Gosliner says Phyllodesmium opalescens.

36 - Glossodoris rufomarginata

37 - Phyllidiella pustulosa

38 - Aegires sp. 7

39 - Goniodoris sp. 4

40 - Phyllidia ocellata

41 - Dermatobranchus albus

42 - Favorinus tsuruganus

43 - Flabellina sp. 2

44 - Hypselodoris confetti

45 - Hypselodoris whitei

46 - Hypselodoris zephyra

47 - Phyllidia varicosa

48 - Dermatobranchus striatus

It’s 4am. I’m sitting on the front patio of my very nice bungalow and I just arose from approximately 14 hours of sleep. No, I’m not kidding. That is really unheard of from me. I usually only sleep like 5 hours a night. Although I slept on pretty much every plane ride here, I guess sleeping in an airplane is seat is just not enough.

When I got here yesterday I was able to unpack, shower, have lunch and bring my camera gear to the camera room and set everything up for charging… but that was about it. After that I crashed… so hard, they came to knock on my door for dinner. Twice. But then they just gave up and brought me a thermos of coffee for the morning.

I’m actually proud of myself for just sleeping. I think I would have made a stupid mistake on my first dive if I had tried to do the afternoon dive.

I already finished my first book (it was terrible) and started a new one from my favorite author (in order to reward myself). I’m already half way through!

Some highlights of the travel over here… in Denpasar, I had to get from International to Domestic and check in my two bags. I was prepared for the overweight baggage fee charge and sure enough the woman at the counter had a complicated algorithm to show me how much I was being charged for the overage and then by flight how much it was. It came out to like $130 USD, but I still didn’t want to pay it. In my nicest smile and voice I explained that this was SCUBA gear which I didn’t believe qualified for the overage fee.

She obliged. I didn’t have to pay any overweight baggage fee. Woo Hoo! I figure at this point, I’m already $130 ahead of the game.

After three flights (all of them a complete blur)… I made it to the Alor airport. It is so small and only has three flights in/out per week. As per usual, there were a hoard of taxi drivers outside the exit, but I was told to look for the Alami Alor sign. While I was waiting for my luggage, I poked my head out and saw the sign. But I really didn’t take too much note of the person holding the sign. Call it being tired, lazy or just insensitive… these guys all look alike and I figured he’d still be holding the sign up when I got my luggage. But he was not.

Ugh.

OK, then this guy (maybe the one holding the sign?) approached me and said “Alami” and to wait here for the car. So this guy went and brought around a nice vehicle and I hopped in.

As we were pulling out, we exchanged pleasantries but this guy barely spoke any English. I know, shame on me for not knowing any Indonesian (OK, I know after coming here for the 8^thtime, I should actually learn some of the language. I may try to bone up on the few words that are in the welcome packet). I said, it was so great that you were holding up the sign for “Alor Alami”. He gave me a funny look and I realized he didn’t understand what I was saying. So I just looked around the car and Charade gestured a sign for… well, “sign”.

He had no idea what I was talking about.

Oh Lord. I was going to be one of those stories. Stupid tourist girl gets in the wrong taxi. The driver takes her away to a jungle prison camp, ties her up and harvests her organs for top dollar (or for dinner at his neighbor’s house). Or worse. Ransom!!! The thought of my parents having to pay money to get me back to the states!?!??! Ha! I think they’d just be OK with it. Letting me fend for myself and live (or die) in that crazy country I always seem to be escaping to anyway.

So, all of this flashed through my mind when he couldn’t produce that sign. So I insisted that he bring me back to the airport. Now. I must have been pretty convincing, because he did it. But then he called the resort and put someone on the phone stating that he in fact is the official driver for the resort and not to worry. Whew. OK. I apologized to the driver and we were on our way. (Don’t think for a minute though that I didn’t wonder if the person he called was just his accomplice faking to be the resort!)

After the hour long drive with closed roads, detours, stray dogs (and children) in the road we finally arrived at the resort. This is even more remote than my last resort in Romblon! I was relieved to finally be here.

A woman named Valentina met me and gave me a brief… well, briefing of my room before she ran off to say goodbye to the guests who had just hours earlier vacated my bungalow.

I asked if I would be having a roommate. She said that yes, I would and her name was Patricia and that she would not be arriving until tomorrow. OK, that meant keeping my belongings to less than half of the area of the room. It will be interesting though because there is one large bed and one small bed. I never have issues with the small bed, but since she won’t be arriving until tomorrow, I’m claiming the big bed (at least for tonight)!

I took a shower and headed over to the dining room for lunch. I started by introducing myself to this nice girl… and it turns out it was Valentina. She just had her hair up and sunglasses on. Whoops. I am REALLY out of it. I introduced myself to all the others as well. Everyone is very classy and very nice.

Thank God for this lunch. A real meal not served on an airplane seat tray. It was delicious and everyone loved my nudi dress so of course I pointed them to redbubble.com so they could own one too. One thing though, there is no diet coke. Well, that’s ok. I brought some Crystal Lite pink lemonade packets… but now I need ice.

I believe that Valentina and Peter run the resort. Peter told me that after a dive the other day, they saw a Mola Mola! He showed me the video and it was pretty cool, but it was hard to tell the size. After all my dives, I have never seen a mola mola (some call it a sunfish).

Peter also mentioned that the water is going to be soooooo cold. He said that he barely got his temperature gage to read 17 degrees farenheit. OMG. I may have to wear ALL my neoprene for every dive!!! But I guess that makes sense. Mola Molas like the cold water.

Valentina also told me that the little lagoon right outside my bungalow serves as a safe shelter and a hunting ground for the juvenile blacktip sharks. Even as I sit here writing this, I am hearing disturbances and splashes out there and possibly even a fin or two breaking the surface. She said that one of the guests set up their Go Pro and left it running while he went on a dive and captured some pretty great footage. I may just have to do that!

I’m excited to get going on my first day of this month long Indo Odyssey!

Let the dives begin...

Baeng Bay and Hot Rocks was an hour away and was so amazing! The last few minutes near the surface and the shore was 86 degrees! So much for being cold. :) Yay!

Here are the nudis I saw today:

1 - Flabellina sp. 1