Journey 02 · Indonesia
The Current Decides
Ten days of homestays and nitrogen
Published 7 Nov 2025 · Travelled 18–27 Oct 2025
- 9 moments
- 10 days
- 162 km
- Autumn
- Indonesia
- 0.5900° S, 130.2600° E
- Fam Islands channel
- 15:30
- 31°C, flat sea, big sky
Two flights, one ferry from Sorong, then a longboat that took the scenic line through the karst because the boatman saw me holding the GoPro and took pity. Every island is a green mushroom on a turquoise table. I had the housing open on my lap doing the o-ring check by feel, because looking away from this seemed like a waste.
- 0.5622° S, 130.5100° E
- 0.5622° S, 130.5100° E
- Arborek
- 16:40
- 30°C, afternoon glare
The homestay jetty runs out over its own reef, which means the house reef briefing is just somebody pointing down. Kids race outrigger canoes around the pylons after school and lose races on purpose to keep them going. I did one dive before dinner and logged 'jetty, 8 m, everything' because my pencil was wet.
- 0.5670° S, 130.2450° E
- 0.5670° S, 130.2450° E
- Piaynemo viewpoint
- 10:50
- 32°C, humid, bright
Surface interval tourism. The stairs are honest work in this humidity and I did them in booties because my trainers were somewhere at the bottom of the drybag under three kilos of spare batteries. At the top a family from Jakarta applauded the view like it had performed, which, in fairness, it had.
- 0.5655° S, 130.2430° E
- Piaynemo lagoon
- 11:05
- 32°C, bright
There is no arrangement of pixels that gets this wrong, which is why every phone in Indonesia has this photo. Mine has it too now. What the postcard leaves out: the heat, the smell of wet limestone, and a monitor lizard under the platform with strong opinions about dropped snacks.
05 · Dive log, days three to five
- GoPro · 4K60 · red filter off at 18 m
- 0.5480° S, 130.6600° E
- Sardine Reef
- 08:15
- 29°C, sunny above, busy below
Twenty-five metres of visibility and no empty water in any of it. Fusiliers came through like weather, in fronts. I stopped filming at some point because the battery said 40% and my brain said just look, and for once I listened to my brain instead of the battery.
- Moving image
- Manta Sandy
- 09:40
- 29°C, current mild, viz 20 m
Manta Sandy · the one that did show up
Forty minutes kneeling in the sand at Manta Sandy waiting for mantas that had other plans, and then a spotted eagle ray crossed the cleaning station like it was late for something. Two wingbeats, gone. The mantas never came and I keep watching the eagle ray clip instead, so who exactly missed out.
Overheard · Cape Kri mooring
"Current is small today." He said it while tying the boat to the mooring with both hands and one foot, leaning at an angle the sea was choosing for him. Underwater it was the strongest drift of the trip. I have decided 'small' is a relative term measured against what Yance has seen, and I hope never to dive in 'big'.
- Arborek jetty, last evening
- 18:25
- 29°C, dead calm
- Last frame
Gear rinsed, batteries on the solar charger, logbook up to date for the first time since Tuesday. The sunset went a red that no filter of mine has ever produced and the whole homestay drifted out onto the jetty to watch it without anyone suggesting it. Ten days, sixteen dives, and the best thing I shot all trip was the sky, from land, on the phone.
- 0.5620° S, 130.5090° E
The route
9 stops
Journey completed
Ten days, nine stories
- Frames exposed
- 4100
- Dives logged
- 16
- Deepest, metres
- 28
- Batteries drowned
- 0, finally
- Favourite moment
- The eagle ray at Manta Sandy, which was not the ray we were waiting for and was better
- Best food
- Grilled fish at the homestay, caught during my surface interval, eaten before the rice finished steaming
