Bali, Ubud, Bunakan

This fall has been a whirlwind, teaching sailing until the end of September, a week later heading to Southern California to help leisurely deliver a catamaran to LaPaz over six weeks, then spending Thanksgiving with my sister and her clan before heading back to Minnesota for two days during which time I finished my Christmas letter and stuffed the envelopes, prepped the house for friends who were to stay at my place while I was gone, and packed for two months of traveling and scuba diving. After all that you'd think I could sleep on the 30-hour trip to Bali, but most of the time was spent catching up on movies.

The flight arrived during daylight hours so I could see the gentle azure waters I'd soon be traveling underneath. My friend Rose introduced me to Sally, a sweet woman with long white hair coiled atop her head, and the woman responsible for planning our three diving trips in Indonesia. She was renting a open-style villa from a hotel in Kuta, which means that the living/dining/kitchen areas have three walls, with the fourth one open to the outside. Sally's bedroom had four walls, though the master bathroom has venting to the outside. Rose and I walked the busy streets, me getting used to the swarms of motorbikes at every step. We walked the beach and listened to each beach bar band trying to outdo each other.

Rose had arranged with Sally's driver to take us on a tour around Southern Bali. We visited batik and jewelry factories, climbed through rice fields, gazed at volcanoes that had erupted as recently as the 1970's, watched some Balinese dance shows, embraced the lush landscape and relaxed the quiet of a homestay in Ubud.

After staying at Sally's for a few days, Rose and I flew to Sulawesi, where I'd dived before on the southeastern part of the island. No private Wakatobi jet this time. Upon landing, a Safari Tour van picked us up and explained about the numerous Christian religions practiced here as he drove us to Manado. At Thalassa Dive Resort, we showed our cert cards and sorted our gear and were in the water for14 dives over the next fives days. Diving in the Pacific is hands down better than the Atlantic. I was so happy to see the clown, false clown, tomato and other anenome fish, the Titan and Palette triggerfish, the sea turtles and the vast array of nudibranches the Pacific has to share with divers. I needed to wait until Lembah to see my beloved cuttlefish.