Monkey Forests, MUCK diving and the Bunaken Cha Cha

 

Contradictions...life is full of them.

For example, how can the world be sooo BIG yet seem so small. That one has been on my mind a lot since we left Alaska four months ago. In that four months we have been from Alaska to California to New York, halfway around the earth to Indonesia and back, and are now traveling back to Alaska.

Amazing...only 100 years ago it would have taken at least that long just to go from New York to Alaska (which is also a contradiction because 100 years ago does not sound like a long time ago but must be considering how much has changed since then). You might be wondering by now what all that has to do with monkeys, muck and the cha cha, and if you read on, you will find out.

A quick note: I can't seem to post my videos on this blog but if you click on any of the colored text, it will let you watch them. 

Lori socking away nuts for winter ?!?

But first, let me offer thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to keep posting about our lives on this blog. Sorry it has been so long since the last post but I have excuses...uh...reasons. Mostly it's because I was working so much this summer and fall that all I did was work and sleep...BORING!! What a contradiction, came to Alaska to goof off working in an RV park and wound up as superintendent/surveyor/SWPPP manager working 70 hour weeks for a roadbuilding company. The construction season (summer) is short up here so you work like a squirrel socking away all your nuts so you can take the winter off, which is exactly what we did.      

View from the back deck of the AMHS ferry at sunset 

We started our "snowbird season" - which apparently is the same as being a "winter chicken" to some - by loading our truck on the AMHS (Alaska Marine Highway System) ferry for the four day trip to Washington. If you want to see what that voyage was like, click on Our ferry tale and watch it on youtube. It was a spectacular trip down the famed Inside Passge that we had always wanted to make.

When we decided to be snow birds for winter our minds went to traveling and diving somewhere with warm, clear water. We had been saving our credit card rewards for 5 years and now had enough for 2 round trip tickets to Indonesia and one of our "bucket list places to dive". Indonesia is an island nation made up of over 17,500 islands divided into 34 provinces. We arrived in Bali, one of the main provinces after 36 hours of travel from Los Angeles.

This is Gunung Kawi Temple, built in the 11th century in the bottom of a river valley.
It was 280 steps to get down here and which seemed like 280,000 going back up. 

 

Bali is a beautiful and amazing place. Most residents are Hindu and therefore show tremendous respect to every living thing. Every village has at least 3 temples with the main one built around the largest and oldest tree in the area. They have very strong family bonds and most live together in “family compounds” comprised of a huge, walled lot with many 20’x20’ houses for each member’s separate family.

 

 

All over the island, every morning people made offerings with flowers, incense and other small gifts (money, cigarettes, candy)  to put out front of their homes and businesses to bless them with good luck and keep bad spirits away.
 

 

 

 

The four days we had on Bali we stayed in Ubud - a town considered the cultural center of the island - at the incredible Hotel Tjampuhan Spa built in 1928 . We spent one afternoon at the spa where you can get a one hour massage by the edge of the jungle river for 200,000 "rupiahs", about $20.



This is the hot & cold jacuzzi surrounded by carved stone



 

Now...back to our title and one of the subjects of this post...Money Forests!

The monkey forest sits on the edge of town and is actually the Hindu temple Wenara Wana - built in the 14th century - that is literally run by monkeys. We bought a bunch of small bananas and quickly had monkeys jumping all over us, which is quite startling the first time as you can see in this video of monkeys in the forest temple.
 

We got to visit this monkey forest on Bali in Indosnesia.



No, that's NOT the Gieco pig on a motor scooter

The first thing you notice on the roads in Indonesia is the traffic…trucks, cars, ox carts, bicycles, tricycles, and zillions of motor scooters…some carrying families of 5 and 6! The second thing you notice is the constant use of what must be the most important operating part of all Indonesian vehicles…the HORN ! To us foreigners, the honks all sound the same…annoying.

But to Indonesians, it is like another part of their language. One or two taps on the horn seem to mean everything to them - it’s not OK to cut me off…it’s OK to cut me off…I’m going to pass you…don’t pass me, you can pass me…you go first…no, I go first...I almost hit your scooter…I’m going to hit your scooter…walk…don’t walk – and they all seem to understand the difference of each honk.

Lucky for us (and everyone else on the roads) there was no need for me to try and learn that language as we hired a car with a driver for our sightseeing. For $40 Mr. Goodday drove us all over Bali for 10 hours while we visited ancient temples, volcanoes and the famed rice terraces at Tegalalang.

The rice terraces of Bali are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and date back hundreds of years. They are irrigated by a system of canals known as subak and are controlled through each areas local temples by a cooperative of the villages. We took the opportunity to trek through the best of them as you can see in our video on YouTube.



The temple pictured below is the Supreme Water Temple of Pura Ulun Danu Batur on the edge of Lake Batur whose crater lake is regarded as the ultimate origin of every spring and river used to irrigate the main food source of Bali.

 

Supreme Water Temple of Pura Ulun Danu Batur

  Bali is also the home of Kopi Luwak, a very expensive coffee made famous in the movie “the Bucket List” with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

I thought it tasted kind of crappy.

The coffee is made by feeding the coffee beans to mongoose, waiting until they crap them back out, washing them, drying them and then roasting them. Supposedly the animals stomach enzymes “enhance” the beans before they are ejected almost intact. It makes it either the best coffee in the world or one of the best con jobs ever on tourists by a bunch of laughing Indonesians.

 

MUCK diving ?!?!

After 4 days of sightseeing on Bali, we were ready and anxious to get on to the heart of our trip, the main reason we had flown so far around the world…MUCK diving in Lembeh Strait. After a 4 hour flight to Manado - the second largest city on the island of Sulawesi – and a 2 hour car ride, we were finally at Black Sand Dive Retreat where we would spend the next week diving…MUCK diving…3 times a day.

That's a Giant Frogfish staring at you

At this point, let me attempt to explain what MUCK diving is and try to convince you we are not crazy to have dreamed for years about coming this far to MUCK dive. Most people think of scuba diving in clear water with beautiful coral reefs and lots of colorful fish. MUCK diving is a contradiction to all that. We dove in areas with black sand/mud bottoms with scattered piles of various debris (iron scraps, coral heads, tires, logs, garbage, etc.) in visibility that was usually 20 feet or less…you know…MUCK!

Now  you might be asking…???...which is what we both were asking ourselves a few minutes into the first dive. Soon we had our answer and were seeing all the creatures that made us dream of MUCK diving this place – the Mimic octopus, Ambon scorpion fish, Hairy octopus, Frog fish of all sizes and dozens of different kinds of spectacular Nudibrachs - many of which are found no place else on earth, and here they were on every dive!

 

 

 

 

 

 



Nudibranchs come in many brilliant colors



 

 

Many are quite small with fantastic camouflage making them hard to spot and even harder to get good photos of them. We used our magnifying glasses all the time to get a good look - like a scuba version of Sherlock Holmes and Watson – and by weeks end we had seen all the creatures we had dreamed of seeing and were hooked on MUCK diving.

 

 

 

 

Now if you want to try MUCK diving without getting wet you can watch our mucky video by clicking on this link http://www.youtube.com/watch mucky

 

And now...the Bunaken Cha Cha !!

With the week of MUCK diving behind us we were ready for part 2 of our dive trip - a week of diving the coral reefs of Bunaken - a small island off the northern tip of Sulawesi that sits in the middle of the Bunaken Marine Preserve which was established in 1989.

Lori flies off the wall over the 1000' deep blue ocean

The diving here is quite different – clear 84 degree water and very healthy coral reefs. The entire island is fringed with reefs that have vertical walls, some plunging over 1,000 feet deep only a few hundred yards from shore. Check out our video by clicking on this Cha Cha diving. 

North Sulawesi can almost seem like a separate country from Bali – a much poorer country. Hundreds of years ago it was known as the “Spice Islands” – one of the only places for Europe to get Nutmeg, cinnamon and clove. Most of the population is Christian and most seem to survive from their own farms and livestock.

Flying dogs or dinner??

The local markets are outdoors, where you can find anything you might want and also some things you don’t even want to see. They think of most plants and animals as food…including dogs…which is a contradiction for me because I think of them as friends. So it is gut wrenching (literally) to see a friend roasting on a spit while the other friends are in cages nearby waiting to be bought and roasted. Makes you re-think the whole hot dog thing.

 

Sulawesi is mostly Christian which is very obvious in every village.

Tourism is still fairly new to this island – less than 20 years – and therefore very undeveloped. The local people work very hard just to survive and jobs would be very few

 

While planning our trip we had heard through email from the Cha Cha resort that they and the village had built a new children’s library and would be grateful for anything to help stock it since the government does not fund any of it. With help from our grandchildren we were able to bring a duffle bag full of books, pencils, crayons and candy to donate.

The muddy trek in the rain through the jungle from the resort to the village felt like another Super Dave Adventure Tour. After mud gushing for 30 minutes, we popped out into "downtown" with it's concrete "road". We had fun playing a kind of “reverse trick or treat” handing out “gula gula” (candy) to anyone we saw.

 

It’s always an adventure to get to these remote places and this was no exception. The two resorts were going to arrange all the transfer details and assured us in their broken English “not to worry”. But when it involves 2 boats, a car with a driver that speaks no English and unknown connections…you worry anyway.

After the 2 hour ride back to Manado, we were dropped off at the smelliest, dirtiest, crowded little boat harbor we had ever seen by a boat with some guys who did not speak English. See if you can smell it in this stinky video.

They only phrases we all seemed to understand were “Cha Cha” (the resort’s name) and “20 minutes” (when they said we would leave). After a nervous two and a half hour “20 minutes” wait we were underway for the hour and a half boat trip to Bunaken Cha Cha Nature Resort…we hoped.




 

We had one last night back in Bali where we lived it up like rock stars with our own private villa.



Our villa even had it's own private pool

OK, maybe not rock stars since it only cost about as much as a "Motel 6" back in the good ole USA but that's what it felt like to us. We even got another hour massage (in our villa) for $20 to ease all the old muscles from 2 weeks of floating in the warm ocean. To take a tour of the room with us, check out our video with this link Rock Star living in Bali

 

Now you know what monkeys, muck and the cha cha all have in common...US!

 

The saddest part of this whole story is that it is over for us and now we are headed back to Alaska, reality and that four letter word (I don't even want to say it)...you know...the one that gives us money so we can do things like the monkey muck cha cha. 

 

 

Our BEST FRIEND

This post is long overdue and will be very short. I have lots of reasons for it being overdue. This summer has found us both working lots of hours...too many really. But that's not the whole reason or what this post is about. This blog has been about our lives in Alaska, the 3 of us...Me, Lori and Spaz and we have enjoyed sharing it with all of you.

It is with the greatest of sadness that we must now also share the loss of our best friend, Spaz. We found out she had cancer in early spring and it took her from us on July 25th. She was the greatest dog to have ever lived, a once-in-a-lifetime dog and we miss her. Our adventures will go on but I'm sure there will be fewer smiles.

Here's to you our SPAZ WAD

(Wilderness Adventure Dog)

Wake up...Spring is here !!

Ahhh...Spring. What a wonderful time of year. Everything seems to come alive. Change is everywhere you look ! The changes here in Haines have been dramatic to watch and experience. 

 

Pussy-willow blossoms

Our days up here are getting noticeably longer. The sun rises at 5:30, sets at 8:30 and we are gaining 5 minutes of daylight per day. We have had lots of sunshine and highs of 50 degrees. 

After our record snowfall this winter (over 30 feet!) we weren't sure it would all melt before next winter...or at least July. But instead, we have been amazed to see it disappear quickly and it is almost all completely gone now. 

It seems like everything is waking up for spring; plants and trees, all kinds of birds and animals, even the town itself.

We still managed to get a few days of skiing in the last week of March. We can drive 25 miles out of town where there is still plenty of snow in the forest and it is good enough to ski on. The elevation is only a couple of hundred feet but the temperature near the coast is much warmer than out the highway because the ocean actually warms the air. 

These Trumpeter Swans were also out enjoying the spring weather where we were skiing. When you hear their calls, you know why they got their name. It's fun to watch as one group calls out and then the other group trumpets back.

We also saw fresh moose tracks in the snow so we started looking around to find her. When we finally spotted her, it was amazing how close we were. We never heard her and would not have seen her if we didn't see the tracks. Check out this photo and you will see what we mean. It is incredible how half a ton of moose could be so invisible.






Now that it is spring, I guess it is time for us to wake up and get back to reality. The reality is we are not rich and we have to get back to that four letter word I don't even like to say...w-o-r-k, especially if we want to eat and stuff. Staying the winter here and not working was an amazingly fun experience. We have been kind of easing into the idea of w-o-r-k this past month.

For example, Lori worked a week in her old occupation tending bar at the Elk's club. The regular girl went on vacation so she asked Lori to fill in for her. She even worked burger night on Friday. The sad part is, the Elks club closed its doors permanently two weeks later. Something about losing their charter for lack of interest. Now where are we going to get a burger, there's not a Five Guys for hundreds of miles!!

Lori has a really cool job lined up for this summer. She won't start until the middle of May but she is very excited about it. It is a little bit different from her last job back home. Watch this video and she will show and tell you about it.

You can also check out Chilkat River Adventures and book your reservation at  http://www.jetboatalaska.com/

  

She will be going from no job to 2 jobs. She will be working on the river 3 or 4 days a week and 2 or 3 days a week back at the Hitch Up RV Park where we both worked last summer. We will also be moving the MLS back into the park next weekend and living there. We will find out then how we did winterizing the 5th wheel and hope for the best.

We are excited to be moving back into our own place but will definitely miss the king size bed and the incredible view. 

I will be going back to work for SE Roadbuilders and have been easing into it for the past month. They sent me to some training courses because they want me to assist with contract administration as well as surveying for the project they have right here this summer.

I flew to Anchorage for a 2 day course at the end of March. The flight from Juneau was spectacular! There were no clouds and blue sky as we traced the deserted frozen coast north. The view was staggering. Miles and miles of a vast frozen landscape for as far as you could see. Huge mountains, ice-fields, frozen lakes, glaciers and not a sign of civilization anywhere. My face was almost frozen to the window the entire flight.

The end of March is also when "the Iditarod...the last great race" is held. In case you don't know, it is a dog sled race that has a very interesting history. The race starts in Anchorage and ends 975 miles later in Nome.

The dogs in this photo were on their way home after having had to leave the race before finishing. They had run over 600 miles and had just arrived back in Anchorage by plane that afternoon which explains why they are all sound asleep...or dead.

 My company also sent me to Juneau for a day of training a couple of weeks ago. Since it cost them the same amount if I flew down or if I put my truck on the ferry, I opted to put my truck...and my wife...and my dog on the ferry so we could stay a few days and all have some fun before we had to get serious about work (not Spaz, she's never serious and she doesn't ever work).

The ferry ride is always a treat and this trip was no different. We were treated to an encounter with a pod of Killer Whales traveling our direction.

We went to the movies, ate at McDonald's, did some shopping and enjoyed everything the BIG city had to offer. We stocked up on food at CostCo and Walmart which is always what you try to do when you get the chance to go to Juneau. We also went out to the Mendenhal Glacier. You can drive to within about a mile of the glacier and then hike almost to the face. I guess I could have walked right up to the face on the frozen lake if Spaz wasn't such a chicken about the ice breaking and us falling in. 

On a fun side note...for any of you who are fans of the Discovery Channel's TV show "Gold Rush Alaska", you might recognize the guys in this photo. The man on the right is my boss Roger who owns SE Roadbuilders. The other guys are his father and son. For those who aren't fans, here's the brief story; 92 year old John has given his "Big Nugget" gold mine to his 17 year old grandson Parker to run. Parker still goes to high school and runs the mine almost single handed. Tune in for season 3 to see if Grandpa's hunch pays off and they hit the mother lode on Smith Creek. For some real fun you can check out Parker's Facebook

The commercial fishing seasons are starting to open and the harbor is waking up. A couple of weeks ago the whole town seemed to show up at the harbor on a sunny Sunday afternoon for the annual "Blessing of the Fleet". The preachers from every church in town came down and said prayer blessings and asked for the safety of the fishermen. A small choir sang a song and the names of everyone who died last year in Haines was read...all 48 of them! The nearby church bell tolled for each one while people dropped palm leaves in a basket for the names that touched them. The leaves were taken out and tossed to sea by one of the boats afterword. 

Stan heads out for a week of fishing for halibut

Speaking of fishermen. Stan, who is 80 years old and owns the house we stayed in this winter returned last week so that he could go out long-lining for halibut. Stan, who was also one of the towns first doctors has fished commercially for halibut for 49 years! The fishery is based on an allotment system. Stan has a 9,000 pound quota that he hopes to catch in 5 days about 20 hours from here in "Icy Straits". 

This town is full of characters like Stan Jones and John Schanbel. Long time pioneers of Haines, hearty men (and women) who are tough and full of stories that make me feel like a wussy. Maybe some day I could write a post about all these characters and their stories but not tonight...I have to get to bed...

I gotta wake up and go to w-o-r-k tomorrow. 

It' been SNOW much fun !!

Well, if you watch this video it will pretty much let you know how we have spent most of our time this winter in Haines.

It hasn't all been fun and doing nothing...okay...yes it has !! 

 

It is official now !

Us desert rats have survived a record winter here in Haines. This winter has seen the most snowfall ever recorded in the history of Haines. As of March 11th, we have received 354.7" (over 29.5 feet) of snow this winter smashing the old record of 309" set in 2007.

REALLY want to walk through those trees but can't get through the snow to get there!

 If you want to check out some snowfall stats and other cool Alaska weather you can go to my friends blog at http://www.williwaw.com/

These are "wind driven" snowballs in the Hitch Up RV park

It's been fun experiencing many things we have never seen, or even heard of before, like "wind driven" snowballs (which by the way are exactly what they sound like). When snow conditions are just right and the wind is blowing hard, little balls of snow will start rolling across the ground, growing as they roll, just like when you start to build a snowman. It's amazing fun to watch them grow and leave trails behind. 

Alaskans find many ways to have fun in winter. In fact, many locals in Haines have winter cabins 25 miles from town on Chilkat lake. There are no roads to get there, so most of them (and their dogs) ride in on their snowmachices (only non Alaskans call them snow mobiles). These cabins are rustic, they have no electricity or running water and are heated by firewood.

Sounds like fun to me!

Kite boarding on the "Valley of the Eagles " golf course

This Haines local has a pretty exciting way of having fun. In the fall I watched this guy kite boarding in the Chilkat river on a wake board. He would speed back and forth across the mile wide river delta catching BIG air from the waves that were being generated as the tidal current fought the river current. Now I see him at the golf course where we sometimes go to ski, zipping around on a snow board, but only when it's windy. I'm trying to get Lori to do it but...

Haines doesn't have a ski resort but has still become world famous for skiing and boarding thanks to "heli-skiing". Some of the most extreme riders in the world come here for the (very) steep mountains and deep powder to film movies and commercials. They come in March when there is still plenty of light snow up high and clear weather to fly and film. Type "Haines heli skiing" in Google or YouTube to take a peak...get it...a peek.

Note "extreme Spaz" waiting to launch at 33 mile

Out the Haines highway, 33 miles from town is a tiny wide spot in the road where most of the heli skiers stay, eat and launch from. There are a couple of small cabins, this cafe and a gas pump. They were rumored to have the best cheese burgers for hundreds of miles - a rumor we have since disproved. They are actually found at the Elks Club in town every Friday night at the "burger feed" and sometimes we volunteer to help out  so we get a free burger.

We do go out the highway to ski often. The terrain may not be quite as steep and the skiing not really extreme (unless you are old like Lori...not me) but the snow is light and deep and the scenery is difinately extreme. Those tracks are part of the 10 mile loop along the river we made about 2 weeks ago. The tree trunks are evidence of some very severe flooding in the past.



That is the end of Alaska's shortest river coming from the frozen lake



As you can ski, we have been doing lots of cross country skiing this winter. We can be at the golf course in 4 minutes where they have about 6 miles of nice flat trails that volunteers keep fairly groomed. We have also done some snow shoe hiking. We did a 5 mile round trip up to Lily Lake which is the natural lake reservoir for Haines drinking water. This is Lori skiing along the Chilkoot river where we fished last summer. 

There is a lot more wildlife running around in winter that you might think. We see lots of Ptarmigen - a chicken sized fowl that has white feathers in winter and brown feathers in summer.

There are always bald eagles along the water and lots of ravens.

We have seen a grey fox who was too shy and quick for pictures (or I was too old and lame to shoot him).

There are also lots of moose around down low in winter (we even had moose tracks in our front yard a few weeks ago). We saw this cow coming home from skiing right around dusk. As I was taking this shot, we could hear a pack of wolves howling and barking that sounded to be nearby although we never saw them.

It is kind of sad to think that winter is coming to an end because as you can see, we have found many ways to have snow much fun this winter.

Some are funner than others and this would have been more fun if I had not messed up the "e" so badly...guess I needed to drink more water.

Well, snow much for this post and for winter. Have fun!

Sorry to add a sad footnote to a happy post:
        

I told you all about the extreme heli skiing that Haines has become world famous for. Well, I'm very sorry to say that the day after I posted this, the news was NOT fun and 2 young souls paid the ultimate price for chasing their passions and dreams.

http://www.adn.com/2012/03/14/2371015/second-man-dies-from-haines-area.html