2020 March Aborted trip to Indonesia

Unfortunately Lois and I set our plans for this trip 6 months ago. It is expensive and diving is our goal with the added pleasure of visiting with Averell Wallach in Singapore.

Averell is Lois' cousin's son. He joined a software start up which develops large cargo ship engine monitors.

We left LAX at 23:30 March 14 and arrived in Singapore 18 hours later and skipped a day too. The original plan was to take an early morning flight on the 15th, but cancellations due to the news about Covid 19 virus had caused singapore air to cancel that flight and reschedule us on the late night on the 14th. The flight was comfortable aboard Singapore Air business class. I actually slept 5 hours which is somewhat unusual on long flights like this. We checked into the Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel and immediately called Averell. We arranged to meet him for dinner that evening.

The Marriott hotel is nice , but not as nice as the International Hotel we usually stay in. At least, that's my opinion. The next morning after breakfast, which wasn't so great, we hired a taxi to take us to the Gardens by the Bay. This is a destination special enough to want to spend days touring. It's known for the amazing plant collection, but also, for the evening entertainment. we could only spent a few hours visiting, but what we did see makes me compare this garden with Disneyland complete with 'E ticket' rides.

17th of March we flew to Bali where we spent the night, then on the 18 to Kupang, East Timor also spending the night. Finally on 19 March we flew to Alor and were met by the driver for Alami Alor resort.

Alami Alor is a boutique resort accommodating only 12 guests in 6 bungalows. The dining/living building is open to the breeze and is very comfortable. Breakfast always had some of the best bread we've ever had for toast. Then there is the dive center/Camera dry room which is at the foot of the dock where we meet our dive boat each day.

the camera room is spacious and has plug strips and surge protectors in both US plug format and Indonesian plug format. (type B and C) All dive gear is stored in this building as well. The building is air conditioned so dive gear and camera gear dry out well during non-diving times.

Each day there are two boat dives in the morning after breakfast and either an afternoon or early evening night dive. Diving on the house reef is also allowed and free. Solo diving is also permitted with a monitor ashore.

I believe the coral life here is as healthy as I've ever seen. Strangely no large fish, though a blizzard of small fish. We saw no sharks in the 4 days we dove here. most of the dive sites are around or near the small island at the mouth of the bay called Pura. this is mostly wall or sloping reef diving with visibility around 50 feet. The night dives were close to the resort in the bay and were muck ding. Some of the most bizarre fish and animals are here and plentiful. Sea Wasp, and may kinds of scorpionfish, nudibranchs of amazing colors. We saw only a few small species of squid, but many sea stars and sea cucumbers. all in all I think Alami Alor is a great value and a place to revisit.

On Tuesday 24 March we heard Rumors that Singapore had closed Changi Airport which was followed closely by texts to each of our phones that our connection and return flight on Singapore air were cancelled. We also got an email from Dive Discovery, our travel agent, that Lembeh Resort ahd closed. Lois had the contact information of the Indonesian travel agent Dive Discovery uses. She was able to contact this fellow and within a few hours we had confirmed flights home. Surprisingly, most of the trip home was seamless. Except for a little hiccup in Surabaya when a flight we had reservations for was cancelled. The counter agent was able to book us on another flight leaving at about the same time so we were able to make our connections for the rest of the journey.

This Pandemic has caused world wide upheaval, but some good can be laid at that door. almost a total stop in transportation traffic means much fossil fuel pollution is no longer entering our atmosphere. When I walk Cocoa during the day, many more people are also, walking and out and about keeping their social distance of course, but walking in their neighborhood. That can't be a bad thing.