Saturday 1 November – hiking up to the look out post

We went into the resort after breakfast. The mooring fees include all the resort facilities, they take our rubbish and do laundry which is rather impressive. We hiked up to their observation deck on top of a lime stone pinnacle, it was a good climb up with loads of rope, very well done with wooden ladders over the trickier parts. It was a great view from the top, a lovely view of Polepole tucked into the anchorage. We also walked to a beach on the other side of the island, it was so good to stretch our legs. We attempted another walk to the other side of the island, the wooden walkway over the Mangrove swamps was a bit rickety, generally this path was not so well maintained, a bit overgrown with plants and spiders! The lunchtime gong saved us, we had booked in for lunch. We had a delicious Indonesian chicken curry and vegetables, Alex got a vegetable omelette which he was very happy with. We then had a stop at the resort shop, which turned out to be very productive. We found a great strap for our new mask that had broken, plus a neoprene case for my Epirb, it’s original case had completely disintegrated, a new head buff for Rowan to snorkel in, some good ear drops for me, plus a little Christmas shopping.

After lunch we attended the welcome ceremony for the new guests arriving. They only make the journey once a week to pick up guests in Sorong, and get all their catering goods for a week, it really is very remote here. The local staff band turns out to sing and dance with a few dressing up in traditional gear to welcome the guests onto the jetty. Maya the founder was on the boat with the guests, a member of management always accompanies them. She was very impressive, besides being very tall with a very gravelly voice, she joined the staff dancing and was very engaging, we had a good chat with her, we were impressed.

We snorkelled the house reef afterwards which was pretty impressive. They are nurturing some huge clams that they have brought in, all over 1m in length. Plenty of fish again, turtles and sharks. One shark had at least 4 big Remora fish attached to it. Alex stayed on at the resort while we went back to PolePole for a late afternoon read and relax. We had a great evening catching up with Phoebs and Han.