So far, I have taken two rather long diving trips. The first trip was around a week diving at Bunaken, north Sulawesi. The other trip was with National Geographic Indonesia to Wakatobi, southeast Sulawesi. Both trips was quite enduring. I would like to reflect on both diving trips, the good and the bad.
The first trip to Bunaken was quite luxurious and off course expensive. We plan the trip nearly a year ahead. The trip was organized by Adolf and we invited several dive centers to submit their plan and pricing. After evaluating through chain of emails, we finally chose Immersion Quest that collaborated with Eco-dive. There were nearly 20 people join the trip. We stayed at Tasik Ria Resort. The room was quite luxurious, each equipped with air-condition, re-fridge-generator, laundry, hot water for shower. The food was western style and standard. I recalled one of the divers cannot finished the dish consist of hamburger with 15cm in diameter with 5cm thick beef. The ship was a luxury catamaran, with two toilets and shower facilities. The dive gear was set up and cleaned every day by dive operator. What we did is only relaxing, eat and go dive without set up the gear. No need to lift the tank.
The other trip, to Wakatobi was a subsidized trip. We only pay nearly half of actual cost or as Dina once said the cost we paid was nearly a quarter if compared to luxury dive with Wakatobi dive center. We were live aboard Menami wooden ship. We slept in non air conditioned room with exhaust fans that sometimes were not working. You can image, we were sweating all over when sleeping. Those who were not sleeping in the room, slept at the open shelter which were prone to heavy wind and rain. No hot water provided, and we have to get sea water using pail with rope to flush. The fresh water was only used for shower. The ship was overcrowded as there were additional 18 persons from media so in total there were around 40 people in the ship compared to the ideal capacity which supposed to be only supporting 10 people. We were then limited to shower only once in two days. So Kiky’s trouser was once called by team as trouser of salty fish to describe the smell associated with it. The food was nearly the same menu from day one consist of rice, instant noodle and fish. We have to lift the tank from the speed boat to the ship and vice versa on our own. We setting up gear on our own also.
Reflecting on them now, I can recall the sound sleep at the Bunaken Hotel, but I can also sleep well at the Menami although it was very hot. I can still enjoy the food to the last piece of rice in my dish in Wakatobi trip. Why was that? I now understood, the physical exercises such as lifting the tank, I lift nearly everybody tank in my group, made me tired. I initially did the tank lifting to impress NGI so I will be invited on the next journey, but soon after I did to make diving faster and so later we can eat on time later on. The tank lifting and gear set up made me very tired. The tiredness made me hunger for food. I ate a lot of rice and so I sleep better also with full stomach and tired body. The favorite exercise which I participated in Menami was lifting the anchors. The picture above taken by Keke, depicts the situation in lifting the anchors. It must be done together for both Anchors at the same time; otherwise the other anchors would be stuck.
The other advice, besides exercise, was to avoid problems with other divers. Personal and group conflicts in live aboard are common but we have to solve them before getting bigger. The other advice was to keep healthy especially in maintaining cleanliness. The most important to maintain was ear cleanliness as it is the location of body stabilization. I cleaned my ear after every dive with shower. A clean ear will make it dry faster. Wet and dirty ear prone to break by a cut and then infected by disease. The other important issue was to keep eating good food. Benry was once suggested to drink honey every day before dive.
Overall, in any type of dive trip, we have to adapt to the situation. Keep mind and thought healthy and we should always exercise in any conditions.
