for those who know dive areas, we were in raj ampat (4 kings), which is easily equivalent in quality of diving to palau or PNG (which is to say, the best). the area only has good diving 4 months a year. to give some idea of the explosion of interest in diving here, 5 years ago there were about 2 boats operating; now there are almost 20. we were on an amazing dive boat and were pampered for 11 days.
getting to sorong is tough, i must say. [best to get out a map of indonesia now] the most common flights are 2 hours from jakarta or from bali or manado (north end of the island of sulewesi), our jakarta flight left at 5:00 am (!), which required us to get to the airport at 4 am. not so bad you say, but wait: many of us were over their weight limit (21 kilos), which is easy when you think of the dive gear and cameras; we paid a hunk of money and it all takes time especially as they were not using computers for any part of the ticketing (the seat assignments are stickers that are removed from a sheet showing the seats in the plane and stuck on your boarding pass). still, check in went smoothly because indonesians seems to throw bodies at solving a problem, not technology as we do. loads of fun while it was pitch black outside.
We then flew to makassar, on the southern end of sulewesi . then it is another two hours to sorong. the aiport is so small that it only recently got check in counters for flights. for those who have traveled to unusual places, this airport rates with the best of them (although it did have a taxiway, which some do not have).
in short,the diving was amazing. the problems arose for me on the third day when i woke up incredibly sick and never was able to kick the problem. so my diving was severely restricted and my ability to shoot sorely taxed.
so, here is the best i can do.
these are three of our wonderful divemasters, mostly hanging out at safety stops. notice that all are hanging on to rocks or are hooked in as there is a lot of current here.
love the socks; thinking of getting some for our next trip.
Requisite anemone fish, nudibranch, and manta shots.
the shiny things next to the anemone fish inside the hole are eggs she is guarding. 
for non divers, this is a butt shot.
this somewhat out of focus shot is mostly to give you some idea of how many mantas we saw together. there are 7 in this picture. on one of the dives the divemaster counted 17 total, which is more than they have seen in two years.
these two should give a vague notion of how humbling it is to be around these creatures as they are so incredibly graceful.
these next three give somewhat more of an idea of how many fish there were. the first two are mostly glass fish. these were shot at different locations.
lion fish,, which are currently an invasive fish in the carribean:
there are two series next. we stopped one afternoon to visit a fishermen's village on a remote island; some of our party brought medical and school supplies. mostly we wandered around the village. many of our party documented all the events (including watching crew members climbed coconut trees for coconut water drinks). i mostly shot faces (sorry). the second series were shot the next day under the jetty at the village. the figures you see in the water are the kids we met the day before.
the school teacher watching a guest pull one wonderful present (pencils, notebooks, etc) after another out of his bag.
Here are some of the crew. there were 22 crew members for 16 guests. and did i say the food was unbelievable? i am thinking of apprenticing with the cook on a future trip.
last -- sunsets. here are two shot the night we visited the village. i won't say it is typical of sunsets here but pretty close.
from this idyllic scenery and clean air, i returned to jakarta yesterday and went into town. today i wandered the streets of the central area, quite literally, as can be seen in thes two shots of the sidewalks. so, the streets are full of cars, buses, workers pushing dollies, pedestrians and of course, motorcycles. when they are not parking on the sidewalk, they are driving on it even if there are pedestrians.
also, security is very tight, not, i am told, because of street crime but from concerns of terrorist attacks. but the juxtaposition of two guards armed with medical detector and mirror and company they were guarding reminded me of the former slogan that the US Army was keeping the world safe for Coca Cola.
this is it for me. tomorrow early in the morning, i leave for bangkok, then taipei, and home to "America" as everyone calls it here ("hey, america. barak obama!" [accompanied with one or two thumbs up]).
my final piece of advice is that anyone who can come to this part of the world should and should take their time. the people, the scenes, the food (i am ending up at a mall for dinner as on the first night!) are wonderous.
thanks for reading.
