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We made it home, safe and semi-sound . . .
NO PROBLEMS WITH THE COMPUTER OUTAGE -
I don't know if it's because we were in Asia or
if it's because Singapore Airlines doesn't use
CrowdStrike, but the computer outage that
affected thousands of flights did not seem to
impact us getting from Manado to Singapore to
LAX. And maybe it was because we were in the
Bradley International Terminal, but even LAX
seemed "normal" Friday night in terms of getting
bags and traffic leaving the airport and stuff
like that. So we dodged a bullet. (Vick Thomas &
Elisabeth Sykes, who live in Santa Fe, NM,
weren't quite as lucky as their flight out of
LAX to Phoenix the next day was delayed and they
missed their connection to Santa Fe, but they
made it home Sunday.)
IT REALLY WAS A LOVELY TRIP -
I know I say that a lot after trips but the fact
of the matter is that at Reef Seekers, we really
DO end up with an awful lot of our trips that
produce lasting memories. This trip was no
exception. We had some slightly marginal water
conditions - choppy - our first dive day there
but after that it was pretty much calm seas and
sunny skies all the way. The only rain we got
occurred overnight plus there was a mild
post-dinner drizzle. We got in 25 dives overall
during eight dive days, which included a night
dive and a night black-water dive, we visited
Bangka Island for a day of diving, and visited
the Lembeh Straits for a day of diving as well.
We saw all kinds of critters but probably the
thing that left the greatest impression on us
were the number of turtles we saw on dives at
Bunaken. On one dive (we used a slate to keep
track), we counted 63 turtles. That's on a
single DIVE not throughout the day. So if you
like turtles, this is the place to go.
MUREX TOOK GOOD CARE OF US -
We did our diving with Murex Dive Resorts, using
Manado as our home base and they took excellent
care of us as always. The rooms were nice, the
food was very good, the dive staff not only
guided us on great dives but also loaded,
unloaded, and washed our gear each day, and the
whole operation runs very smoothly.
ONE HICCUP - POST-TRIP ILLNESS -
My family and friends (and my voice-over agent)
always tease me about not traveling well since
it seems I always get sick when I come back from
one of these long trips. Looks like this one's
no exception. (It's not COVID, which is what I
brought back in 2022 from this trip.) But it's
annoying as hell - runny nose, mild fever,
laryngitis, cough - and it seems to have hit a
couple of our other travelers as well. Lousy
"souvenir" to bring back.
THREE RESORTS -
Murex has resorts that they full operate in
Manado and Bangka and in Lembeh, they run the
photo/dive operation at the Lembeh Resort.
Because I don't like to pack up and move once we
get there, we have always used Manado as base
camp and do day trips to both Bangka and Lembeh.
But we've got 6 people that extended their stay,
2 going to Bangka for an extra three days, and 4
going to Lembeh for an extra 5 days. When they
get back, we'll relay to you what their
experiences were like. As we said, we love
diving the area but have always felt that using
Manado as home base gives us the greatest
variety of options in terms of planning where to
dive.
WORKING ON THE TRIP REPORT AND PIX PLUS VIDEO -
Hope to have those to you later in the week,
including an only-turtles video.
THE PROOF IS IN THE PICTURE -
Lots of happy faces here. (Although I forgot to
mention not to block the Reef Seekers logo on
the banner.) On top of that, the staff assembled
as we left and sang us an Indonesian departure
song. Really nice touch. |
