Singapore
On our first day in Singapore we took the MRT from Ion Mall to the Marina Bay Area to check out the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and toured the Gardens by the Bay, the Cloud Forest Dome and the Flower Dome. On day two we decided to go back to the Botanical Gardens and walked there from the hotel and spent most of the time taking photos of orchids in the Orchid Garden. After dinner at Ion Mall we took the MRT to Bayfront and walked around taking photos and enjoying the beautiful, lit up Singapore skyline. We spent the next morning relaxing, then traveled to Denpasar, Bali later that afternoon.
Bali
Balinese cooking class – We decided to try something different so we signed up for an Indonesian cooking class, which we both really enjoyed. We went to a local market for supplies and then went to a local Balinese home where we made four Indonesian dishes; curried chicken, chicken with green chilies, beef dendeng, and vegetable tunis. All were delicious, but very time consuming as we ground up roots, spices, etc into a fine paste for each dish using a mortar and pestle. Later on when on the live aboard, we had a couple of cooking demonstrations and the Indonesian chef used a food processor to grind up the roots and spices.
Wakatobi
We flew to Palau Tomea and boarded the Pelagian, Wakatobi Resort’s liveaboard dive boat.
We spent the next two weeks diving the beautiful reefs in Wakatobi National Park and also doing several muck dives in the bay near Pasarwajo, Indonesia located on Buton Island. Two of the muck dives were dusk/night dives to watch very colorful Mandarin fish come out from the rocks where they are hiding until sunset to perform a mating ritual. The ritual lasts only a few minutes, then they go back to hiding in the coral or in this case large concrete stones, which was the base of a dock. While I prefer beautiful coral reels, muck diving allows you to find creatures not normally found on a coral reef.
We both did forty dives, the most dives to date for a dive trip, during our two weeks on the Pelagian.
On liveaboards it’s known you eat, sleep and dive. Below is Sue’s dive schedule while on the Pelagain:
5:30 get up
5:50 1st cup of coffee
6:00 grazing breakfast
6:15 analyze tank
6:30 dress for dive
6:45 dive briefing, then dive
8:30-9:30 breakfast
9:45 analyze tanks
10:00 dress for dive
10:15 dive briefing, then dive 2
12:30-1:30 lunch
1:45 analyze tanks
2:00 dress for dive
2:15 dive briefing, then dive 3
4:00 tea/snack time after dive
5:10 dress for dive
5:15 analyze tanks
5:20 dive briefing, then dive 4 mandarin dusk dive or
5:40 night dive or if not diving, shower and relax
7:15 shower
7:30 dinner
8:30 slide show
9:30 collapse/sleep
