Articles written by 'Art'

What a great time we've all had in Bali however, this is the last stop we have in Indonesia for this season. We're moving onto Malaysia to rest up for a number of months before pushing on across the Indian Ocean. Langkawi is a great stop as it's a duty-free zone so parts can get shipped in far easier than any other place. Although not as exciting of a location as Auckland, there will...

After 10 days in Komodo National Park our permit ran out and we moved onto a new location just outside the park boundaries, Banta Island. Using Google Earth to preview the anchorage (using the routine described in this article) we found a nice location. The location is quite steep right up close to the reef so we had to anchor a bit deeper that normal but it's in sand so no worries.

In the pass between islands dive boat come drop off divers to shoot through the pass flying like superman. For us, the shoreline leading up the pass is the sweet spot for snorkeling and diving. It's a perfect location for easy diving with the top of the reef 1-2 meter underwater sloping off to a sandy bottom at 17 meters. The coral is in excellent condition and there are clouds of...

What a lovely place all to ourselves! We've stayed on other moorings but are constantly besieged by local tour boats who either want to take our mooring or want to tie up to us. Regardless they run their Honda generators and deck lights all night long and we're constantly on the lookout to make sure they don't swing into us. So imagine our delight when we find a perfect little beach...

This is one of the most popular areas of Komodo Island as the tour boats first bring their guests to the ranger station to see the Komodo Dragons, then stop by Pink Sands Beach on the way back for some great snorkeling and diving. So we too visited the ranger station, took our obligatory photos then motored over here to hang out for a few days. Turns out, the locals are right. The...

Whenever we arrive in a new country we purchase a local SIM card for our phones. Upon arrival in Tual, Indonesia we bought a SIM card from Telkomsel, the largest mobile carrier in Indonesia with great coverage all over the country. For about 1,500,000 rupiah (about US$10) we got a SIM card and 8GB of data usage for 30 days. Note, this does not include any credit for phone calls or SMS...

Just outside the boundaries of Komodo National Park is Pulau Sabayor where most of the live-aboard dive boats out of Labuan Bajo come to do the checkout dive for their guests. There's also a nice dive resort, Komodo Resort and Diving Club close by where we had a nice dinner one night. The snorkeling and diving are excellent and the water temperature is perfect for just wearing a dive...

Once again, we're leaving a place we really love but we need to keep moving west and our next stop will be at Labuan Bajo which is the city at the entrance to Komodo National Park (yep, the big dragons!). At 4 degrees south of the equator, there is not that much wind so we motored for most of the way and had to keep a watchful eye out for fishing nets. The passage had some moments of...