Indonesia Tour 5 2015

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START OF TOUR 5

July - August 2015 ....63 days

The second half of the dry season : 🌞34°C / 🌒29°C with good visibility, light winds

and few clouds while the thunderstorm and wind build-up starts around 1300L

There were several birthdays within our team in Nabire but [unfortunately] I was away on leave.

Still the crew made a video to mark the event....

This will never get old (1200 kg of cement).

Unbelievably, that day we also carried 1000 badminton shuttlecocks

....proudly manufactured locally by IndoCock

Silk full-face masks are all the rage around here to keep the dust out - this soldier in Ilaga sports one of the more creepy ones

Another trip to the whale sharks and Pulau Nuburi.
This 4.5 meter teenager stayed after feeding and played for 20 minutes.
It would circle very close until you chased it,
then swim away just fast enough for you to be able to keep up.
Amazingly, it understood that when it went too deep the human floated
to the surface and it would come around again to pick you up.

Friendly young whale shark in Cenderawasih Bay
....come and play please

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After the whale sharks a visit to Pulau Nuburi GoogleMaps,

last visited in January....when it looked like this

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Tragically, less than 7 months later, 70% of the reef has
been destroyed by a dragged net and/or dynamite.
Most of the fish are gone and the remaining corals are dying off

Located off the main reef in deeper water, these tube sponges were missed by the nets

....for scale

Typical highland early morning weather.
Blue skies and then a cloud moves in and closes the airstrip within minutes.
We were stuck for 45 minutes enjoying a chat in the cool 21°C.
More accurately, the bule ( boolay = foreign ) pilots were comfortable while
the Indonesians were bundled up in coats, blankets and hats and still shivering

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If you notice some differences.... Papuan place names vary depending on :

language ...be it Bahasa, local tribal, English or Dutch colonial
the exact spot within that place - 100 m can make a difference
whether you are a visitor or resident
politics and ownership

For example : our most frequent destination Bilogai was also called Sugapa, Bilorai and another name I cannot remember. By the time I left Papua in 2016 it seemed Sugapa was the area, Bilogai was the town and Bilorai was the airstrip.

We also visited Pulau Ahe. Even today I am not sure whether Ahe was the name of the island group or the specific island nor whether the name has changed or if Ahe was used by Nabire people while islanders called it something else.

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Another trip to Pulau Ahe with a plan to catch the low tide and search for
the submerged WW2 aircraft wreck we heard about during Tour 3 GoogleMaps

On-board entertainment during the hour-long cruise to Ahe

Arriving on Pulau Ahe's beach

The remains of a pier which once served the hotel built on the island.
A disagreement between the hotelier and local Chief was concluded by an accident
( pier remnants still visible on GoogleMaps in 2025 )

A part of the reef around Ahe's pier had also been dragged by a net.
Although the damage was not as severe as on Pulau Nuburi and there were fish,
the balance was disrupted and the remaining reef was in a poor condition

Unmolested but sadly unhealthy corals are still habitat for an anemone and a family of Three Band clownfish

The further we got from the pier the healthier the reef looked and we started searching for signs of the WW2 aircraft wreck.
Most of these pictures, including this Lionfish, were taken by the GoPro in continuous photo mode and then placed onto the reef.
I then swim away and let the fish do their thing
(Lionfish are native to the Indo-Pacific but are considered a
dangerous invasive species around the rest of the world Wikipedia)

Big Maroon clown sharing his polyp home with a Common clownfish

Orange-lined Triggerfish with a mouth designed to crack coral and rocks.
Always great to see but if offended they will take a chunk out of your GoPro

Up to this edge of the shallow reef (3-7 ft 1-2 m deep at low tide) the visibility and light were good, despite the slightly rough seas and overcast cloud

As the reef dropped off we found a stunning tube coral at 16 ft 5 m depth and.....

....our first sight of wreckage 40 ft 12 m below the surface at low tide

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The wreckage is said to have been a Dutch Fokker G-1 fighter bomber shot down by the Japanese in January 1942. The two engines ended up on the island while the rest is spread around the reef. The left wing lies in shallow water on the reef 40 m from the beach. The right wing and parts of the fuselage lay in deeper water just beyond the reef. The fate of the crew remains unknown.

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The water at depth was not as clear as in the shallows so some of the photos have been 'washed' thru PhotoShop

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The largest piece of fuselage 40 ft 12 m below the surface at low tide

Further on we had the impression this was part of a large, buried piece of the fuselage

The right wing lay about 50 ft 15 m below the low tide surface.
I had already scared myself diving down 40 ft 12 m to the fuselage, fascination keeping me at the bottom far longer than was safe
...and I struggled to get back to the surface.
So the right wing was only photographed from a distance

The left wing sticking out from the edge of the reef

The rest of the left wing lays in 7 ft 2 m almost completely covered by corals.
The tide was starting to come in and the wind had picked up bringing murkier water

Left wing

Pulau Ahe ...the left wing of a WW2 aircraft wreck

Drifting back to the beach I stopped off for another look at the clowns and their polyp residence

Reef fish are territorial and Maroon clowns are tough and can be aggressive.

Placing the GoPro for a third time to get a video went beyond what this Maroon considered reasonable.

Note when he disappears to the left on the video.

As I retrieved the GoPro he reappeared from behind a large coral and bit me, drawing blood from my arm. As I backed away he escorted me until satisfied I was not coming back

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The full movie of this visit to Ahe is on YouTube

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Onwards logistics - Papua style

1200 kg of steel frame neatly fitted together and well strapped to prevent shift in flight

Loading building materials for highland prison

Nabire - sunset rainstorm

When we approach from the North (usually forced off track by the weather)

we see a small reef not far from Nabire, and during Tour 3 we made some low passes

and saved a GPS position and this Tour we made the trip GoogleMaps

From Nabire it took 25 minutes at speed to have an hour
reef time before the tropical rain arrived

Although with the tide out the reef was only a few meters below the surface,

from the boat it would have been impossible to find without the GPS

Passing Nabire's fuel terminal GoogleMaps

The reef itself was 100 meters end to end, surrounded on all sides by
a steep drop off in a strong current flowing north along the coast.
This close to the human population the visibility was not great.
A special treat were huge schools of fish passing all around us every few minutes.

The reef was suffering from dragging nets and anchors as well as pollution and
compared to the other reefs further out in Cenderawasih Bay there were few fish

Not used to visitors these Domino Damsels
put on a ferocious display defending their patch

Although a nice trip and some interesting sights, none of us thought of returning to this particular reef. There was something in the water and we came back itching all over.