Paddling Papua – Around Gam Island

After our first day paddling we arrived at a terrific homestay (called Kordiris) in the evening. Maria, a nice woman who Daddy had texted with when he was planning the trip, worked there. The food was great—especially the breakfast cake—and we met many interesting people. There was a man who came all the way from Libya who worked as a traumatic injury doctor and had come to Raja Ampat for the amazing diving. He had previously gone mountain biking in Bali. We learn many fascinating things about Libya from him. For example, he said that before the unrest most of his cases involved car accidents, but afterwards they were caused by accidental gunshot wounds. We also met a family from Singapore, who described their city as a “concrete jungle.”

There was great snorkeling, although quite a distance out. There was a vast array of coral and lots of beautiful fish. On the second day, Mommy and Daddy went out kayaking to see the mangroves, while we collected shells and watched hermit crabs on the beach.

On the way to the third homestay, after a beautiful paddle along the coast, we stopped at a local Papuan village. A woman with red teeth from chewing betel showed us around. The village was centered on a school and a church, and we visited a small store before continuing on. The homestay that we reached at the end of the day had three dogs, one of which was missing a hind leg, and a cat (the only one we saw on the entire trip). At one point a cuscus (nycticebus coucang, a small monkey-like animal) climbed on to the front of the dining room. It glared at us before venturing across the pole in the top of the dining hall. One man tried unsuccessfully to get it down. After a while it went away.

After that, Natalia, Mommy, and Daddy decided to go snorkeling. Daddy had seen others take a shortcut though the mangroves, so they headed in that direction. The long exposed roots hindered their progress, and stepping backwards to avoid tripping over the flippers was difficult. After a while moving like this through the shallow water and holding hands, Mommy, Daddy and Natalia finally made it into the open area. A few people were snorkeling in a sandy area—they were looking for nudibranch fish, after which the homestay had been named. Swimming further out to the exquisite reef you could see colorful fish amid the rich and varied coral.

When we got back, Daddy and Mommy went for a walk through the woods to the nearby village. They came upon a church, many houses, and finally a graveyard. The burial plots had roofs built over them, though no walls. Behind the palm trees, the sun was setting in glorious shades of pink, and as they walked back and darkness descended they stopped to talk to a few people who knew words of English and interact with children playing outside. When they returned to the homestay, they chatted with an Australian couple that was sitting by the water watching the sunset. The man was a sailor who worked a month on, and then had a month off, throughout the year. The woman designed jewelry, which was made in Bali. They had previously spent over a year living in Bali.

The dogs fought with each other all night, and a spider wove a web over Mommy and Natalia’s bed, but we still managed to get good night’s sleep. In the morning we tried traditional Papuan food (one of which tasted like a macaroon), which we had never seen before. Nevertheless, it was very good. We set out on our kayaks, and after a couple hours, we came upon beautiful Beser Bay. The owner of the homestay we were headed toward, Daniel, came by on his boat, accompanied by his family. He warned us not to snorkel in the Bay because there were crocodiles, and then proceeded to throw coconuts into the water for us to eat. When he learned we had no knife, he brought his boat around and scooped them back up.

In certain parts of the bay there were ladders to climb from the water onto small hilly islands, and we stopped at one to see where it went. It turned out to go nowhere in particular, although we saw a hut some distance up. But we did enjoy the beautiful views. Coming up and down the ladder was no easy task, but we managed.

We were exhausted when we reached the homestay. It was a far cry from the previous homestays we had stayed in, as it was entirely over the water. It had two rooms, although they were building more, and the rest was occupied solely by a family of three. In Isaiah and Daddy’s room, there was a table with pitchers of water and rice, plus silverware and napkins. Another table had books and magazines that visitors had left there. The bathroom was simply a hole in the wood floor, surrounded by three walls. Instead of eating in a dining room, they brought the food to our rooms. Natalia played with the little girl, whose name was Marsinche. Daniel had a big English-Indonesian (and vice versa) dictionary, which he was using to learn English. Since we had a notepad where we were keeping track of any Indonesian words we had learned (in a addition to an Indonesian phrasebook), we took the liberty to write down several pages of words from Daniel’s dictionary. Indonesian happens to be one of, if not the, simplest languages in the world. It is written in Latin script and has no tenses, plurals, or articles (the, an, a). However, we were not in Indonesia long enough to learn more than a few words.

The next morning, after a snorkel and a Papuan breakfast of fish, we asked Daniel to take us part of the way to our next destination on his longboat. The boat had two horizontal poles stretched out on ether side that rocked back and forth and balanced the boat when it was in the water. We stopped halfway and kayaked the rest. We started by crossing a bay, and then went though a magnificent small winding passage between that and another bay. Along the way, we were lucky enough to see a turtle. We had to fight the current (which sent us turning in circles) to make it through the passage. As we emerged, stunning rock islands came into view.The next homestay was similar, although better developed. Also perched over the water, it was closer to land, with an actual toilet, a shower (an outdoor faucet that poured cold fresh spring water on your head), and a dining room. The owner, a middle-aged man who was managing the homestay by himself, seem to put a lot of effort into making the place nice. In our rooms, there was a sign where he had written English words (some misspelled) and their Indonesian meanings. We had to drink boiled water, which didn’t taste very good.

That evening after dinner, we sat out on the dock and watched the gorgeous colors over the water at sunset and talked about all the interesting places there were to live and visit in the world.

-Isaiah