I’ve done it! I went out as far as the drop down and snorkelled over the coral garden. I was certainly the best coral I’ve seen, all the branches, fans and strange shapes that you’ve come to associate with coral from so many TV programmes going right back to Hans and Lottie Hass and Jacque Cousteau; in those days it must have been so exciting to see the real thing after watching it in black and white. Now, thanks to David Attenborough, reality is often slightly disappointing and it is the personal experience rather than the object to be experienced that matters. In my case because I am still a poor swimmer and lack confidence in the water, especially water packed with nibbling, biting and stinging creatures, to snorkel a coral reef on my own becomes a big adventure. I almost wrote awfully big adventure, but I don’t want it to go that far!
The adventure is made more so by the fact I have to put in soft contact lenses that make me farsighted but also very short sighted too. They take a bit of getting used to and getting them in is sometimes a bloodshot struggle, but I cannot take any other kind and without them snorkelling would be almost impossible.
What did I see? The extraordinary coral I mentioned earlier, many brightly coloured and strange shaped fish, -no big groups or shoals, except for a small shoal of brilliant little blue fishes - and lots of enormous starfish and sea anemones. I think I was stung by one of them. At one point I found that I was surrounded by a forest of pink anemone and had to do a quick turn around.
I came away with some sore red marks on my leg, but after an hour or so back on land they have faded and are almost gone.
I would have like to stay longer in the water but sun is bright and strong today and it would have been easy to get burned, despite all the sun cream. Though Tasikoki was very hot for most of the time we worked in the shade of the forest and avoided direct sunlight.
When I arrived there were only two other people here at the Sea Garden but another couple arrived this morning. It is a quiet place and that suits me, as I would not want to be surrounded by expert divers and snorkelers talking about places that would make my reef nothing more interesting than your back doorstep.
I still have not fully adjusted from leaving Tasikoki; three months of intense activity, communal living and strict routine has left me uneasy when I’m just lazing around. Every time I see a clump of fresh looking leaves and grass I want to get hold of a sack and start filling it.
Sonia who runs Sea Garden is very pleasant and the food is simple and good. Lots of grilled fish as you might expect on an island where most things have to be shipped in from the mainland. I was telling Sonia about the animals at Tasikoki and when I mentioned babirusa the first thing she said was, ‘Umm delicious!’ Poor doomed babirusa.
This is last day on the island and this morning I went snorkelling for the last time. Once you get out to the point where the ground drops away the underwater life is amazing, but to get to the drop off you have to find your way through a maze of coral in the low water at the edge. I found that quite difficult, as I did not want to touch or damage the coral, and certainly not touch the huge clumps of anemone again. I still could not avoid getting stung but like yesterday it is only a rash and slight soreness that vanishes in a couple of hours.
If I visit here again I think I would rather snorkel from off a boat where I would not have to worry about finding my way back to shore and could take a break a break from the sun now and again.
I find myself envying the divers who must see so much more than snorkelers.
There is still no internet connection, I managed about ten minutes from the café two days ago but that was all, so I’m writing this on my laptop and will load it at the airport.
Yesterday there was a tremendous tropical storm and I passed the afternoon lying in my hammock on the veranda listening to the steady thunder or rain on the tin roof broken only by the occasional clap of real thunder that shook the beach hut.
I have plenty of Indonesian books to read and films to watch on the laptop. I’ve bought a couple of small books of Sulawesi folk stories and am thinking of translating and adapting a few of them.
They are children’s books so the language is simple but like folk stories in English there are the odd unusual phrases, archaisms and surreal situations so sometimes I still have to turn to the dictionary.
I’ve finished the folk tales but still have the travel book that I was given in Tangkoko to get into. I have only read the first couple of chapters so far. It’s interesting reading an Indonesian travel guide written by an Indonesian. There is a subtle difference in the viewpoint; some things that a European would pick up on are just mentioned in passing and other details are mentioned that a foreign writer would probably ignore.
There is so much to remember that it seems as though I have been in Sulawesi far longer than three months and yet suddenly this is my last day. As well as the photographs and memories I’m bringing back much to think about, the problems and ethics of animal rescue and conservation in a young and growing country like Indonesia, the mysteries and puzzles still to be found in the history of Minahasa culture, the enigmatic waruga and also all the possibilities for the future that seem to be opening up.
There is a novel too hiding somewhere in the green tangle of these three months. I think Paul Sochaczewski will have covered some of this ground in his novel Redheads about rainforest politics, environmentalism and the clash of cultures, but my small patch would be sadder and darker, more Maughamish. Like the worlds of Conrad and Maugham in the last days of colonialism, and those that followed in the first turbulent decades of struggle and Independence, described so well by Pramoedya, I think there are more big changes coming and alike the animals there will be many people left behind, unable to adapt.
Those are always the interesting ones to write about.
It has been a strange few months packed with more characters and incidents than I would normally meet in a decade and that makes the time seem to have passed both very slowly and very quickly.
The constantly changing faces of the volunteers who usually stayed just two weeks had the confusing effect of making those two weeks seem more like a month. It became impossible to say who arrived and left in what week, and if Fiona met AJ, or Alex was with Anna on the fateful trip to Turtle Beach.
Were Bethan and Jan a couple?
I have started to make my own groups of people who should have known each other and create my own more interesting romances.
And life becomes more and more of a fiction, just like this blog.
Did you all follow the story of the treasure of Pulau Nangka? Were you disappointed when all that was found were two coins, that were probably forgeries and next to worthless? I wasn’t because it means the treasure is still there. The treasure hunters were almost certainly misled by a djin.
And talking of djin… I have been looking for tonic for weeks and they have some here.
But no gin.
Is that tragic or what? There is no what about it.
Tonight as I sat down to eat with the four other guests….
- We had some kind of sweet and sour omelette, small fish in a dark sauce, stuffed fried tofu and something else that I forget. I thought these buffetish things can be confusing. If I was Indonesian and faced with a buffet breakfast in Scotland I would pile my plate with haggis, bacon, kipper, croissant and top it with a sprinkling of cornflakes. I’d go home and tell my friends how delicious Scottish food was but what a strange way they have of mixing tastes. I might even try to recreate a similar meal for their appreciation and start a whole new cuisine. Like the Thai wok fried ‘American Breakfast’. –
… as I sat down to eat another thunderstorm broke and flashes of lightening lit up the mangroves and the sea beyond. I was immediately taken back to another place in the Kingdom of the Past where some years before I was born – those who know me well will understand – I worked in a Butlin’s Holiday Camp in Ayr. The camp had a tropical bar with it’s own tropical thunderstorm against a wall of potted ferns and a painted background. But it was a good effect in the darkened bar and I’d go there after work to have a drink and enjoy the storm.
If you cannot come to Sulawesi then go to Butlin’s in Ayr. If it and the bar are still there.
And give my regards to… But I was not born then and the things happened that could not have happened
or they happened to someone else.
My last meal before flying out of the elephant's trunk and off to another land and another blog.Another storm has broken outside but it will probably be over by the time I take off.