I've been snorkeling and scuba diving a fair number of times, and am pretty comfortable in the water/around sea life. But I don't think I would ever be down for night snorkeling/diving. Just thinking about that gives me anxiety.

Lunch looks like a bowl of fish heads to me. Should prolly have Chop confirm tho.

leo/nn99 - more like fish halves, they were the front half of some big headed fish. Here's today's lunch being brought in right now, just took this photo 15 minutes ago:



Swimming with sharks and barracuda is far safer than staying on that sailboat, trust me.

maddog - it's definitely a different experience. Sharks are about 1000% more spooky at night because instead of seeing them from a distance at first, they just instantly appear near you which can be unnerving. Just came back from a dive where a larger black tip circled us for a bit at a distance, no way I would have known he was there at night. The current was super strong (~3kts), luckily we drifted with it. Very quickly. First time I've dived in a strong current, was an eye-opening experience.

We did do the night snorkel and will probably do another one tonight. Saw an octopus, big mantis shrimp (they are huge super badass gladiator shrimp that own their weight class), a few walking sharks, and some other night oddities. No photos yet, I was the torch guy and the girl with me did the camera stuff. Will post some sweet night octopus and other stuff later.

This dog keeps sneaking in my bungalow and hiding, then waits until I go to sleep to start whining to be let out. Don't know why it can't get out on its own since it always sneaks in that way:

Mantis shrimp our super tasty, rank ahead of lobster for me pretty easily and they have the fastest punch in the animal kingdom. Confirmed badass

Thread keeps on delivering. That dog thing made chuckle, I love stupid dogs like that.

Having done one night dive and a cave dive, I'd say both were great experiences but I wouldn't be super eager to do either again. The night dive was definitely quite spooky, but I was in a big group of people I knew, and I think that made me feel safer/more comfortable (obviously it makes no sense, just a mental thing). All in all that was pretty enjoyable. The cave dive made me claustrophobic as hell and I panicked pretty hard (was also deeper than I'd dove before, and with an unqualified instructor which didn't help the case). Luckily all this poker-playing has trained my brains to operate under distress and we got out of there without issues, but that was probably the closest I've come to just completely losing it and doing something irrationally stupid like panic surfacing and blowing up my lungs.

I find barracudas much more intimidating than sharks, but this might be because I read a thread on ScubaBoards where some huge barracuda bit a guy's arm off. I read it like 6 years ago so my memory is hazy, but the thread seemed legit although it sounds like bull****. In a nutshell, iirc there was some huge old barracuda that was always lurking in the same spot, and some brothers snorkeled there every day to feed it (whyyyyy would you do this). They did this for weeks, and then one day arrived without food. This genius apparently thought mr barracuda was his friend and thought it would be a great idea to open his arms to show that he's got no food, and the barracuda had attacked. Obviously that's just human stupidity, but every time some big barracuda starts stalking me I feel more uneasy than I ever feel with sharks. Damn you ScubaBoards.

I'm under the impression that Palau would be among the most magnificent places on Earth to visit, I'd definitely go since you're already a stone's throw away.

What are your plans for the winter? What place/country you haven't been to yet are you looking to visit the most?

While snorkeling today, we saw some locals cleaning fish at a jetty. We decided to check it out. So did about ten blacktip reef sharks.

Got some fantastic videos with the gopro. We had about ten sharks swimming all around us, some came as close as a couple of meters away. Most were about 1.5-1.8 meters (5-6 feet) long, but we did have one big boy. At one point they all went after the same large scrap of fish and it turned into a mini frenzy for a few seconds. Absolutely exhilarating.

If you've ever mistakenly considered me to be an intelligent person, these screen grabs of me spotting and then swimming toward a shark instead of away from it should resolve that issue. Did that a few times. I'm not a smart man, Jenny.

Chuck - sorry, didn't realize you had posted in here, our posts hit at the same time.

Cave dives do not interest me in the slightest. I'm not claustrophobic but caves are just creepy. I've never understood the whole spelunking thing.

Barracuda generally want nothing to do with you other than to curiously gaze at you from afar, maybe follow you around a bit to see if they can scavenge one of your kills. No barracuda is biting a person's arm off, not even a great barracuda. They just aren't big enough. They can give a nasty bite, that's about it.

No fixed plans for winter other than to head back to USA#1 to celebrate holidays with family and remind friends I'm still alive. Have now passed the 1 year marker for being out of the States, left on 01 August last year. Definitely in Chik-Fi-La waffle fries withdrawal at this point.

As far as places on the yearning list go, not really any I'm feeling a strong drive for. Maybe Tonga. Palau was up there, but now that I've been to Raja Ampat, I find it tough to believe anything can really top that place.

Update time.

Raja Ampat was ridiculous. Extended my stay there a few times. Here's a photo of the little bungalow I was in most of the time:



That's a shared unit. I had the half on the left, and someone else had the half on the right. Just a small room with a mattress on the floor and mosquito netting covering it. Didn't have an electrical outlet for the first week, then they installed one. Electricity was only available when the generator was running for about 4 hours each night. Made it a pain in the ass to keep the phone & gopro charged.

Here is what the interior of a different bungalow I moved to for a few days looked like:




Mosquito netting is important because malaria is still existent in Raja Ampat (and other parts of Indonesia), so it was nice to have decent protection there. Used a lot of spray as well. Still got bit a few times, but not dead yet, so I have that going for me.

The toilets & showers were all shared and in similar construction:



The flush button doesn't actually work. You scoop water out of the bucket and pour it in the bowl to flush. The shower was just a small PVC pipe with pressurized slightly salty water pumped from underground. I thought not having actual fresh water would bother me but it didn't. Brushing your teeth with salty water is meh, though.

This is how lunch & dinner arrived:



Mostly rainbow runners & tuna. Almost always fish with every meal, maybe chicken about 10% of the time.

The diving and snorkeling were unreal. Never seen anything like it.

Here's a random few school of fish from one dive:




This is me checking out a big tasselled wobbegong shark:




It's hard to see them all, but there are five black tip reef sharks visible in this snorkeling photo:



Swam with sharks pretty much every single day I was there.

Dove down to hang out with this school of barracuda, and who's that down there in the center? Yep, another blacktip reef shark:




The white tip reef sharks mostly hung out on the bottom sleeping. Only saw them when diving. This is about 20 meters below the surface. The one below is still asleep. The one above just woke up:




Found some huge cuttlefish one day while snorkeling. They had no fear and were happy to swim right up next to me:



Cuttlefish are magnificent creatures. I recommend watching a youtube video to see them change color and observe how they move. They look a little funny, but they are really cool. This was the closest I've ever been to a big one.


This one is kind of tough to see. It's a screenshot from a video I took. I was snorkeling with a French woman and she kept swimming over the nests of titan triggerfish. These fish are extremely aggressive during breeding if you swim anywhere near their nests. They also have pretty big teeth and can chomp a hole right through your fins. This one charged her first, turning around less than a meter away, then went back down to its nest. Then it charged her a second time, same thing. On the third charge, it was done messing around and actually bit her in the leg. She freaked out a bit but calmed down and we got her out of the water pretty quick and patched her up. This is from the second charge:



The triggerfish is the black & yellow shape directly under her. This is right before he turned back around.

After a few weeks in Raja Ampat, I headed to Jakarta, where I am now. Been here for about two weeks and am ready to move on after getting my fill of electricity, hot showers, and internet.

Haven't decided where to head next. Philippines has been the default choice for a while due to its nice water and proximity to Palau. Also kind of tempted to head back to Thailand and crush smoothies and diving in Koh Tao. Will make a decision in the next couple of days. I have until 10 September in Indonesia thanks to a 60 day visa, but I'm done here. Other interesting options include Japan (been there already, but it was like 13 years ago) and South Korea.

One possible monkey wrench is that I just started talking with a sailboat that is doing a Tahiti -> Hawaii passage in October. That's about 2400 nautical miles or about 3 weeks depending on weather. We only just started talking, but if I end up joining them, that cuts available travel time down to the next five weeks. Maybe enough time for one of the potentials, but that's about it. Would almost certainly fly out of Auckland unless I'm in Japan. Would be cool to spend a few days there checking out geothermal stuff, only been to the South Island in NZ.


If the sail thing firms up, it's likely:

- head to Manila in a few days
- spend a week in Manila, a week or two somewhere in PI more snorkel/dive friendly
- fly to Palau for a week or two
- fly to Kuala Lumpur as a jump off to Auckland
- Auckland for a few days, then on to Tahiti
- Sail to Hawaii, spend the first 3 weeks of November in Kauai
- Fly to USA#1 for winter holidays



If it doesn't, it's more like:

- make a decision in the next couple days to go somewhere that is not Jakarta
- go to not Jakarta
- re-evaluate

Does not look like that Bungalow has AC.

Cuttlefish looks pretty awesome.

Did you not see the giant turquoise air conditioner that stretches as far as the eye can see thru the window?

I heard somewhere you most likely weren't going to be doing that trip.

Chop,

What are the odds that someone who has there sea legs could tag along on one of your trips? If he was a hard worker and has spent a lot of time on boats. Coincidentally knows how to tie knots.

fuluck414 - No need to tag along with me, there are tons of resources out there to help you find a crew spot on a boat. Head to google and check out websites like findacrew, crewseekers, oceancrewlink, etc. If you already have boat experience and know what a bowline is, you're way ahead of most other people.



As de captain mentioned, the Tahiti -> Hawaii passage is no longer on the table. That's because I'll be on a Hawaii -> Seattle passage with him instead. How lucky!

Been wanting to sail with de captain since basically forever, considering his thread is much of the reason I got into sailing in the first place. He's invited me a few times but I was always on the other side of the world, already committed to another boat, or some other bull**** excuse. Not this time. We are going to murder as many tuna and mahi as possible over the second half of September while making our way across the Pacific.

Previously, I wanted to stick around in Asia as long as possible before heading back to USA#1 for the December holidays, but it's now been over a year since I've been in the States and I'm definitely in a pretty advanced stage of Chik-Fil-A waffle fries withdrawal at this point, best to make it back before the DTs fully set in. After arrival in USA#1, maybe head to Mexico for a few weeks to experience dia de los muertos there given the time of year.


So with two weeks left before flying to Hawaii, I decided to head to Seoul and spend them in South Korea. No plans for what I'll do there other than eat infinite Korean food. I like weird quintessential cultural experience stuff, so other things that will probably make the list will be spectating a Starcraft tournament, checking out a Jimjilbang (korean version of sauna), bbq some raw meats, and whatever else seems like a Korean thing to do.

GSL Code S going on!

Ro.4 Day1 Aug. 31 Wed 18:30 (KST)
Ro.4 Day2 Sep. 2 Fri 18:30 (KST)

skill - it sounds like you know about these things. I'm imagining it's a matter of going to a convention or a studio or something and sitting in an audience while looking up at a big movie screen of people playing Starcraft while surrounded by excitedly screaming Korean gamers. Something like that? I could make either of those date/times if it's in Seoul or somewhere nearby.

Tell me what to do plstks.

yes exactly like you describe. AFAIK the studio is HERE

with this added info, both taken from Reddit comments:


that said, i faintly remember that they maybe hold the ro4 at some outdoor station, possibly close to children's park. will investigate

Continuing to enjoy this thread! Couple questions:

1)Raja Ampat islands: After you got your fill of snorkeling & diving for the day, what else was there to do? Were their options for eating besides the place you stayed at? Much of a backpacker scene?

2) Why the hell did you stay for two weeks in Jakarta? Possibly my least favorite big city in the world...

3) You recently left a boat due to safety concerns. With regards to websites one can use to find boats to volunteer on (findacrew, crewseekers, etc.): seems kind of daunting task (to find a boat to volunteer or contribute to) in that sailing newbies don't have a base of knowledge or experience necessary to determine if a captain or boat would be a good (safe) one to work on. Comments?

Like everyone reading this thread I'm super envious of the experiences you are having. Can't help but wonder, however, if you will have problems adjusting to quote unquote "real life" if / when to decide to re-enter mainstream society (meaning settle down, get a job, live in one place, etc.). In my 20's I lived a very unconventional life (followed the Grateful Dead around the country for a few years, then spent 4 years living and backpacking around SE Asia) and it was not an easy adjustment.

I'm sure the transit with De Captain will be great, but hope you eventually make it to the Philippines. I spent six weeks there way back when and can't recommend it highly enough.

Chopstick, your life rules. Well played.

The de captain + chop voyage needs somehow to be live blogged, lol. Middle of the Pacific? Whatever.

Live blog:
<Drunken voice from below deck>

Caught a live Starcraft match yesterday, was the SSL Patience vs Solar match which you can watch the first game of with English commentary here:



I was down in the audience (I'm in the first row, center - hat, shorts, & blue shirt) and heard none of that, everything I heard was in Korean. Should not have sat that far forward, really had to crane my neck to watch the screens above the Korean commentators who were center stage. The first part of the video gives you an idea of what the studio looks like and how things are set up before it goes into just showing a computer screen. There was a raffle at the end that I think I won, but I had no clue what numbers they were reading off because it was in Korean, so they called another number and someone else won instead. He can probably put that high end gaming mouse to much better use than I ever could.

Having played the first Starcraft like 15 years ago, I was able to mostly follow along with what was happening, even though the units and things like that have changed. There were some other Americans in the audience that I got to talking with and after the match we went out for dinner and then to a PC cafe, where we played the original Starcraft (from 1998!) together. The guy running the cafe was like "wait you want to play what?!" It was a blast from the past, somehow I even remembered some of the commands. I got annihilated obviously, but it was a lot of fun. That's the longest I've been around other USA#1ers in over a year. Hearing American accents again for that long was weird.




PoC -

1. diving & snorkeling is about it for the island I was on. There are larger islands there with more things to do, but the one I was on only had a few scattered homestays, so not much beyond the water activities and just hanging out with people. We could eat at other homestays if we paid to do so, but pretty much everyone just ate at the homestay that they were staying at. Most of the food across homestays was basically the same anyway - fish, rice, and a veggie. Not so many backpackers, mostly couples.

2. Stayed in Jakarta about 3 weeks, even worse! Keep in mind that I was coming off not just the two weeks in the homestay bungalow, but also about 40 days living on a sailboat before that. After two months roughing it, I wanted a change of pace, like hot water and consistent electricity. Agree with you that Jakarta is meh, and was glad to leave it. Didn't have a fixed plan for where to head next and still had time left on my visa, so..

3. Best thing to do for noobs would be to stick with boats that have highly experienced captains. I knew going into this one that the owners had little experience. That's not an issue for me given the knowledge and experience that I have now (I'm now up over 20k nautical miles!), but when they refused to consider alternate suggestions and insisted in engaging in unsafe behavior, it became a serious problem. Probably the best approach for the noob would be to only get on a boat where the captain has already done at lease one passage similar to whatever is being considered. Taking a few lessons beforehand (like the basic ASA courses) would also be a good idea.

4. Would prefer you were inspired to envious. I'm not trying to make anyone jealous, nor do I want anyone to be. Just want to show that other options are possible, and how living them works. In December I will hit the 4 year marker myself for this lifestyle. The plan right now is to not ever go back to a traditional lifestyle, but of course things change, including circumstances, desires, and approaches. My plan is to continue not having a plan. Don't know how I'd adjust back to real life, but I imagine it wouldn't be too tough given that I already have many years of real life under my belt. Waiting until I was in my 30s to pull the trigger on this makes it somewhat different than starting off this way in my 20s without having spent any time real lifeing.

5. Will totally make it back to the Philippines one day. Just ran out of time right now, and would rather be sailing with de captain than chilling in the PI.


Rich/amead - yeah pretty sweet, right? Live blogging ain't gonna happen given the whole middle-of-the-ocean thing, but I'll see if I can take some decent photos of all the sweet fish we catch.

NhlNut - that's why the middle of the ocean is much safer than the coast.

Uncharted desert isles though

Hawaii to Seattle sounds brutal and possibly cold. Will be interesting to see the dieter fish you catch along the way going from the tropics to the northwest.

How many days crossing is that? 15-20?