Thursday 1 January – doing the sites of Piaynemo

Woke up to a lovely calm blue sky day, perfect for visiting the Piaynemo Geosite (significant Indonesian site of Geological heritage). We had a good couple of kms in the dinghy which with six of us, is quite a load in open water. We were very grateful for calm waters, we did manage one nosedive that filled the dinghy with water, luckily we had a bailer and got most out as it only added to the weight for poor JeldiJeldi. We went into the Geosite first where there is a wooden staircase up to the top of one of the karst (limestone) pinnacles. Rowan and I have done it before, and were surprised by the amount of people here today, but it is the holiday season, so not too surprising. There were great photo opportunities and amazing views from the top over the karst islands with their turquoise/green water. We did a second climb up in a different area, where they have concreted steps over the limestone to make steps up to the top.This is much harder going, the limestone is so jagged and sharp you definitely don’t want to put a foot wrong. We each had a coconut to drink at the bottom where some enterprising guy was doing a roaring trade, it replenished all the sweated out salts. We have seen so few coconuts for sale here in Indonesia compared to the rest of our travels.

We then headed over to a little island to snorkel Rufas’s Garden, it was great visibility and the current wasn’t nearly as strong as the last time Rowan and I did it. There was lots to see and some big fish including some huge Wrasse who we got really close to. Always a reef shark lurking in the deeper water. Then we did another couple of kms over to Melissa’s Garden another well known dive spot, which was stunning too. Rowan and I had not done this before . There were what felt like fields of antler coral with blue tips which was very picturesque. Our last snorkel was along Keruo’s Wall which we did last time in a roaring current. This was loads better even if it was in the shade, the colourful wall was absolutely stunning. A great day of snorkelling for everyone.

We got back to PolePole around mid afternoon. This is Milly and Luke’s last day, tomorrow we head to Waisai for them to catch the ferry to Sorong. They made the most of snorkelling going in again from the boat, Milly was really enjoying it, she is a real water baby, that is until a shark sent her scurrying back to the boat! We had a great last evening with them, the usual slow cooked chicken, chocolate treats and some mean rounds of cards!