This has been a wonderful trip again, and once I leave I will have completed nearly seven weeks on this island total, in 2019, 2022, and now 2023. The native Indonesians are friendly and warm, and I have met some very nice people also staying at the Happy Gecko. It has been busy the entire time, which was not the case in my previous trips. In 2019 I was the only one staying here about a third of the time, and last year I was the only one nearly two thirds of my stay here. I prefer to have some people here that I can get acquainted with. The last few days I have been the only man among five women other visitors. One woman close to my age is very easy to talk to. She has two homes, one of which is in Italy, and is traveling on to Bali to meet her son the same day I am leaving. Two other women who I like very much are from Australia. One is a marine biologist. They are divers and have been going out with the dive boat every day. I went out with the dive boat nine times, but have been skipping it the last few days because of the high tides during the morning trips, preferring to wait until the low tides to go out solo in the afternoons. (or with Yan). During the peak of the 8 foot high tides you are just too far from the reef in my opinion.

Yesterday morning I got to know the Aussie ladies, and shared some of my videos on my tablet of what it is like just outside the reef during these full moon low tides, when the top of the reef is above your head and light is shimmering on the undersurface of the water. And of course they got to see photos of my border collies, including my favorite for the summer so far of one year old Jess standing next to her mentor and best buddy Beau, above timberline, which was taken about a month ago. I told the ladies how much I have enjoyed my time here, but am so excited to start the journey home to see my beloved border collies. I set up a draft email with all the links to my journeywest and coralseas blog, which I will be adding my Bunaken photos to, and have them enter their email address and send it to themselves - a way of staying in contact after this trip.

The cooks have been teaching me more Bahasa Indonesian, and yesterday one of them and I had an almost complete conversation in Bahasa before breakfast! I connected to the dogs with my tablet and showed them to her. She liked seeing them bark and howl at the sound of my voice. Last night when retiring to my cottage, one of them ‘Baik, Baik’ (good, good), and Selamat malam (good evening). She smiled and replied ‘Selamat tingal’, which I understood to be ‘Goodnight.’

I have added to my best practices knowledge/info during this trip about what it is like to travel to the other side of the world, and be in the water every day. One is that after a several hour swim the steep steps to my cottage are a lot harder to traverse. Another is to be careful of mental mistakes about six days in, when you are exhausted from all the activity and still recovering from days and nights being switched. I learned that it is common to be disappointed the first time you view the photos and videos from your most recent snorkel/free dive out on the reef. They just never can match what it was like out there in real life. On the plus side, always having my yellow buoy behind me in the sea went a long way for keeping me safe. These large Indonesian jukung boats have a very shallow draft and are built with a raised up front. Not all of the boats have spotters in the bow and it would be very easy for a snorkeler to get run over by one of them. Many times I have raised my head out of the water to see boats passing by who have altered their course to avoid me, thanks to my yellow buoy.

I have managed to stay healthy despite all this time in the sea, which I am very happy about. Nothing would be worse than having a health problem keep you away from the beautiful reefs after traveling all this way. I continued to use a combination of vinegar and olive oil to wash out my ears and have had zero problems with ear infections in spite of all the time I have spent in the sea.

One of these years I will need to have the discipline to accept that I have aged out of travel to wonderful places like Bunaken Island. Now is not the time to make that decision though, when all I want to do is be home to see my dogs again. Whatever the future brings, It will always be a postive thing to remember my absolute life and soul immersion in these tropical seas, and will warm my heart to think of what I have experienced. But it is not over yet. I still have one more swim in the reefs to go, and I am going to enjoy it!!!