Forgot to update the blog, but on Monday we arrived back to our favourite winter home Koh Tao and the same peaceful Sairee View resort as last year. The week was spent by some diving in the mornings and work during the afternoons and just chilling in general. :)
First flight done on the way to Thailand. :)
Arrived back to Bali, after two days of doing basically nothing at Bunaken. On Thursday we had to skip diving as we thought we would have a morning flight on before midday on Friday. However at Thursday evening the airline changed our flight to 06:00, making it impossible to reach from the island.
Hoping they would operate the midday flight on Saturday we stayed for an additional night, just to find out that the airline did the same trick again on Friday evening. This time we were a bit more prepared so we just quickly packed our bags and moved to an another hotel near the airport, being able to catch the morning flight.
Two flights and we are now in hot Bali, this time in a bit more quiet and peaceful district Sanur.
Last diving day at Bunaken was spent doing three dives. Seems like we are both starting to have a minor flu, but at least it's a good time for it, not disturbing diving.
The weather here has been excellent, was definitely a good decision to come back to Bunaken instead of Bali and Komodo. Only today in the morning there was a small rain, otherwise it has been sunny and nice for a week. Not to mention great diving and an extremely comfortable and nice resort.
And more pictures. There's so many turtles it's impossible to count them on dives.. :)
More dive photos.
And more diving.
Some more dives and day naps, nothing else. :)
After spending an another rather boring day at Bali we took a morning flight towards Manado and the island of Bunaken. Unfortunately our almost direct flight with a short stop at Makassar without even unloading passengers turned into a six hour wait there, thanks to the legendary reliability of Indonesian airlines. They like to cancel flights once in a while and then reroute passengers... Also, the downside of flying to Manado is that it's always scary. The landing is between mountains, often in a storm, and it's very unstable feeling and turbulent. Last time the aircraft had to do a goaround, this time only a sudden significant drop in the cloud definitely waking up all the passangers. :)
Arrived safely anyway, and Bunaken is just as good as it was last year. The weather is perfect, 3Will dive resort is beautiful and the diving waters are good, filled with turtles. Now a week in here, diving 3-4 times every day. :)
Also, we have been fighting the Komodo companies about our prepaid money for the liveaboard trip and a resort stay. Seems like we are progressing, the liveaboard money which was the most significant part of the prepayment is already on the way to us. Was a good reminder to always book directly with the operators and never with intermediate agents, as one of them made the process particularly difficult this time.
We are back in Bali after a hot spring spa visit and some more horrendous mountain terrain motorbiking and city traffic. And obviously won't be back to Labuan Bajo, as Komodo national park is closed for an another week due to the weather. Currently having some arguments with Komodo dive companies to refund the trips, but seems like we are getting it sorted out.
Now we need a new plan, and I guess the plan is to return to Bunaken for some quality diving like last year.
