Ok, the NEXT blog will be about ghosts

Last weekend I went diving in Gorontalo with my friends. Gorontalo (as a province) calls itself a "hidden paradise", and the diving at least is really underappreciated. There's only one dive operator, and he's not there all the year, which is kind of a shame! It's not quite as easy to get to Gorontalo, and there's no convenient island like Bunaken to keep tourists nicely secluded in beach bungalows and stuff, but the coral is well worth the visit. It's very big, for one thing. There's a big expanse of coral, and plenty of variety in organisms.

My friends have seen whale sharks, but they were a no-show both times I dived there. We did, however, see two species of dolphins from the boat. For someone who as a pre-teen adored dolphins and who had never actually seen on in the ocean before, it was totally cool.


Julianne snapped some photos of the whale shark. Still haven't seen one myself!

All coral in Indonesia suffers from environmental damage. Trash is a problem, and bad fishing techniques can cause a lot of damage. During one of my dives in Gorontalo, we heard an underwater bomb go off somewhere in the distance. Although officially discouraged, dynamite fishing is still practiced and is, of course, a horrible environmental practice. When we surfaced, there weren't any boats within sight, which is a pretty impressive example of how well sound travels underwater. It must have happened pretty far away, but I knew right away what it was when I heard it. (It's funny how I can just know; it was the same way with the earthquakes. Things start moving and instantly my mind says "earthquake".) Since Bunaken was named as a national marine park, there has been a great effort to protect the coral, and dynamite fishing is nonexistent there now (there are enough people diving that everyone would know immediately!). It's a shame that Gorontalo's coral is not protected in this way; in a place where new species are still being discovered, destructive practices need to be stopped.

Anyway, to get off my high horse, ten or eleven hours south of Gorontalo by ferry lie the Togean Islands, which are also a cool place to dive. Four of us took the overnight ferry one Friday, crossing the Equator in our sleep (way cool!). There was some cool stuff, like an octopus!! It was kind of disappointing to look in the book afterwards and discover that it's a "common reef octopus". Well, I feel special anyway.


Pretty nice, isn't it?

Sunday night meant another overnight ferry back. This is actually a pretty decent way to travel. We just rented a (crew) cabin and slept pretty peacefully. It's certainly more pleasant than an overnight bus ride.

The Togeans were a nice place to stay, with beaches and palm trees and all that nice scenery. My one regret is that we didn't get to dive the sunken World War II bomber (!!), but for that reason I'm going to do my best to get back there next month! A sunken plane is really too good an opportunity to pass up.