Happy October!
Aduh! I’ve been really slow. A big part of that I’m
attributing to the forest/ slow wifi life but the other part is entirely on me.
Anyways, the last couple of months have continued to be
super great. In short, life is awesome. In July, Avani and Sid came to visit
me; we met in Bali for a couple days then flew to Labuan Bajo in Flores. The
Wallace line runs just to the east of Bali, between Bali and the neighboring
island of Lombok. Flores is farther east again from Lombok so the vegetation is
quite a bit different. I really love Flores and Eastern Indonesia. We rented
motorbikes one day and tried to go to a cave that google makes look amazing but
arrived too late. The road to our target village was hilly and all rocky with
big rocks that totally worked our forearm muscles (who knew motorbikes could be
arm workouts?). We ended up just wandering around the village before heading
back to be sure we got back before dark. The next day we joined a dive boat and
dove in Komodo National Park (marine conservation area). The first dive spot
was (appropriately) called Manta Point and was a drift dive. I’ve never dove in
currents before but it was really cool. We just float along and then when a
manta ray comes by, we grab a rock and just watch. They are amazing animals,
definitely one of my favorites; so peaceful yet curious too; they would come
within a meter of us. I guess the current there brings a lot of plankton so the
mantas come to eat, funneling the water with their front fins into their
mouths. Man are they ever cool and huge. I’d guess about 4-meter wingspan.
We went back to Bali- to Ubud for another couple days before
Avani and Sid headed to Vietnam for the second half of their trip. I had a
couple days solo in Bali before Graham came so went to Nusa Lembongan to dive
and surf. We dove in Manta Point near Nusa Penida which was great but freezing!
We wore 5mm wetsuits and I was still super cold. The mantas were larger at
Komodo but still really fun to see in Bali. The second dive was in Crystal Bay
where mola mola are supposed to hang out from July to November. Unfortunately,
we didn’t see any although that’s now a personal diving goal, to see mola mola.
They’re the largest bony fish and eat only jellyfish! Not terribly nutritious…
Anyways, back to main Bali to meet Graham and we went back
to Semarang so I could move out of my boarding house, apply for my exit permit
and say my goodbyes. We did get to travel around Central Java a bit – to
Pacitan to surf, and Jogja to see some temples. August 7 I officially ended my
Fulbright and we flew to Singapore.
Last November I met the research director for a logging
company (a 100% FSC certified company who makes wood chips and sell to Japan
for paper production) in West Papua who invited me to do research in their
concession. Because of permit issues I wasn’t able to go during my Fulbright so
I went from Singapore stayed there for about 7 weeks. Wow is it beautiful.
Another win for eastern Indonesia. I went with 2 students from UNDIP (my host
university in Semarang) and they are helped me take soil cores from mangrove
forest stands of different ages. We are essentially repeating the study I did
in Brebes, to analyze carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus content of the sediment
at different depths (to 1 meter). The mangroves in Bintuni Bay are massive and
it’s really cool to see how the company works and handles the regrowth process.
They cut on a 25-year rotation cycle so we are coring from 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
year old and primary forest stands.
So many pictures...
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| Cool-as-a-cucumber-pilot from London - co-pilot from Portugal. Airline? Susi Air. Winning all around. |
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| Oh hello mangroves |
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| Basecamp on Amutu Besar from above |
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| even with my bad camera on my phone the pictures from our tiny plane came out great |
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Coming in for a landing
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| Babo airport... the runway was paved! Just not the walkway. Priorities. |
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| Tug boat from the airport in Babo to Amutu Besar Island |
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| View from the balcony |
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| Around basecamp. At high tide the ground is wet. At all tides it is super muddy, hence the boardwalks everywhere. Take that, Jersey! |
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| Alright... it was a logging company (pulp production) and here's the proof... mangrove logs going into the chipper. I have lots of feelings about this but surprisingly not 100% negative. Not 100% positive either of course. Rainbows and butterflies. |
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| giant pile of wood chips and the conveyor belt that will take them and drop them into the cargo ship |
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| Commute to work. I approve. Occupational hazards include running out of gas, and stranded but always with a happy (and hungry) ending. |
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The extra wide mudflat as the tide goes out. The sediment is a bit like walking in silly putty... Sometimes you sink in an inch, sometimes to the waist. Waist deep is very very slow going. How to take one foot out when that just causes the standing leg to go in deeper? Lessons from the field... brave the biting sandflies and walk in the river when the sinking is only about knee-deep.
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This coring is muddy business (although this was a fairly clean day). Spa treatment? The biting insects kind of detract from the vibe... If no mosquitos, sand flies, if no sand flies, biting ants. Side note. The biting ants have a green butt and taste pretty nice. A bit citrus-y. Just be sure to bite first or else they bite your mouth!
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One year after harvest. The trees left are seed trees for natural regeneration
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| Pirin fell in |
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| Some nice fungus |
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| Coring |
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| Pulling the logs to the river to take to the factory. All man-powered. |
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| Stacking the logs by the river to be picked up |
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| So many amazing sunsets. They didn't follow the tropics rule either and were really long! Still need to figure out why... on Java, the sun is up, then, whosh! It's dark. Not so in West Papua |
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| Big big Avicenna marina tree. DBH 2.24 m |
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| Canopy |
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| Hollowed out but still alive |
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| Pirin, Meriadec and me |
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| Mahbub among the Bruguiera gymnorrhiza root |
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| Kitchen on the pontoon |
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| Outside the pontoon |
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| This is the inside of the pontoon, where the loggers live when they are harvesting - about 9 months of the year. They are all from the same village (generally in the Pacitan area) and work, eat, earn wages collectively. |
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| Bintuni Bay has tides that range from 5 to 6 meters... that's hugeeee. These are ma boyz on a sandbar that only appears at the lowest tide of the month (It's surrounded by water) |
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| Epiphyte ant house! Apparently it is a natural medicine... what it cures? Still undetermined. But you're cured, okay? |
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| Cool roots! In the drylands forest (behind the mangroves) |
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| Team dryland forest, minus the photographer, plus me. Hardhats. |
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| Kasuari foot print - sorry I didn't include anything for scale but it was definitely larger than my hand. |
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| Hiking out of the drylands forest. |
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| After this I had to put my camera away to use all hands. These plants (I'm blanking on the name now) grew on little island-mounds. Between the islands of roots and fairly stable sediment was super sticky and sink-y mud. My boots seemed to prefer the mud to my feet. Stuck in the mud, real life. There was a lot of swearing and sweating (in all orders, all combinations) on my end but I think I might have also enjoyed it the most... |
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| Dryland forest |
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| Heading into the drylands forest |
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| Myristica genus trees bleed red sap when cut |
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| Leaf skeleton? |
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| Town of Bintuni |
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| Bintuni |
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| Bintuni |
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Baby Kasuari pet (before they get hugeeeeee). We're talking about baby dino huge. |
Wah, I love Papua. Felt like the final frontier :-) Of course, it isn't... we humans are everywhere but I'll take the illusion.
Currently in Singapore primarily for a visa run and so I’m
staying with my friend from the logging company for a week, then back to West
Papua! Singapore is a funny and amazing place. So clean... so many rules obediently followed... excellent food. Not a lot of grit, which I tend to like, but there are pockets.... Little India just made me soooooo excited to go to Big India. No plans yet but between the clothes and the food, sign me up!
My friend lives in this extremely fancy apartment complex with 15 pools. FIFTEEN. So, I made it my personal mission to swim in them all. Have no fear, mission stated so mission must be accomplished. Full disclosure, about five pools were shallow splashing pools and three were hot tubs but I made sure to do a lap in even the smallest of them, because, well, goals.
Expect more pictures…… Kaimana, Raja Ampat, then a conservation
conference in Manokwari!
