The next morning, we started another day of kayaking. In the middle of the day, we saw a dolphin in the distance. For a break, we chose a rocky indentation to stop at. Mommy, Daddy and I went snorkeling, while Natalia stayed behind with the kayaks. Toward the end of the day, we watched dolphins playing in the distance—they somehow managed to continually stay ahead of us.
We headed to a homestay a mile off of Gam. When we neared shore, there were buildings, but no one was there. We had seen a village not far from where we were, so we decided to get back in our kayaks and check it out. When we reached it, a boy of about six ran up the docks to greet us and helped us pull our boat onto the beach. We talked to the villagers, and with some language difficulty were able to find out that the owner of the homestay had gone on a trip to the market and would be arriving shortly. So we got back on our kayaks and paddled back to the homestay.
The boy, Rio, was there before we were. Again he helped us, stopping every once and a while to catch a ghost crab. While we waited for the owner of the homestay to arrive, Rio franticly chased away two nearby dogs. When the owner got back, the family (who Rio, as it turned out, was part of) immediately started getting our rooms ready and cooking dinner. We watched an amazing sunset and then went to sleep.
We didn’t kayak the next day. Instead we went snorkeling and saw the most colorful coral that we’d seen in Raja Ampat. Later in the day, we took a visit to the village store. It was small but packed with packaged goods, mostly food. We brought some very good cookies, and then went on to explore the village. A dog started following us (this was not the first, nor the last, time this happened). We were circling back around to the homestay when we came upon some puppies. Natalia played with them for a couple minutes and then we went back to our rooms. For dinner we had green pancakes and a debate on why they were green.
The next day, Mommy and Daddy went to visit the local church, while Natalia and I stayed home. There were about 40-50 people in church that day, with a lot of children, and the service involved quiet hymns and a lot of speaking by a pastor, an older man in a suit. After about 45 minutes the pastor came down from the lectern in front of the church, and motioned to the man who had walked my parents into the church to escort them out, while everyone else stayed in their seats.
In the meantime, it started pouring and so we had to delay kayaking. When it finally stopped raining, we went though a crossing and then tried to take a passage though mangroves. However, it was extremely shallow because of the new moon. After navigating though coral that was sticking out of the water (we got stuck a few times) we realized that we couldn’t get though when the current started pushing us back. However, you could see the exquisite coral very closely though the crystal clear water. We turned around and headed along the coastline, just above the coral.
When we finally finished our journey around Gam Island, the French man who we had met a week earlier on Kri Island and another French man greeted us. After a good night’s sleep, and cake for breakfast, we headed out on our kayaks. Unfortunately, it started raining, so we had to go back to shore and wait for a couple of hours. Finally, after a long day of kayaking, we arrived back where we had started. We took the same route out of one of the most remote places in the world.
Here is some information that will let you learn more about Raja Ampat in West Papua, Indonesia. To view some of the incredible coral and sealife we saw while snorkeling, check out The Raja Ampat Through the Lens Of:, a gorgeous book about underwater life. We were so impressed by local efforts to preserve the coral reef. You can learn more about conservation efforts by watching Guardians of Raja Ampat, a beautiful hour-long video. One of the things that attracted us to Raja Ampat is the effort by NGOs to create locally controlled sustainable tourism based on accommodations with long-time residents rather than large corporate resorts. There is more information about this project of developing locally run homestays at www.stayrajampat.com. You can view a PowerPoint Isaiah made of some of the words we’ve been learning in the Indonesian language.
-Isaiah