I used to want to be a marine biologist but I realized in college that I had more of a knack for languages than lab reports. Still, I have always loved the ocean and I have always loved swimming. The diving I have done these past two years in Indonesia has reignited my love affair with the ocean and has shown me that even though I am not a professional marine biologist, I can can still be passionate about the ocean in other ways. I have done 168 dives to date, I am a certified PADI Rescue Diver and I have also fallen in love with underwater photography. At this point in my life, if you asked me what my absolute dream job would be I would say a freelance travel writer and underwater photographer since this job would combine my loves of writing, traveling, diving and photography. Therefore, it's perhaps no surprise that I consider the publication of my first dive article and underwater photos to be the unofficial highlight of my two-year fellowship in Indonesia.
Rantje first asked me to write an article for 'What's Happening?', the free North Sulawesi tourism magazine, more than a year ago near the end of my first fellowship year in Gorontalo and now it's finally been published in the Spring 2011 edition of the magazine. And he really surprised me by submitting two of my own photographs with the article! I knew there would be the photo of me with the Salavador Dali sponge because we did a special underwater photo shoot for that last year but I had no idea my own photos would be published! I was thrilled when Rantje sent me the hard copies in the mail last week. However, my photos were extremely dark because the publisher got the printing saturation wrong on the first run. Fortunately, this mistake was corrected in subsequent printings and in the online version of my article that you can read here on page 18.
Although I've been fortunate to dive in some pretty spectacular places like Komodo, Nusa Lembongan, Bunaken, Lembeh, and the Togean Islands, Gorontalo will always be my absolute favorite diving destination in Indonesia for all of the reasons that I listed in my article. Since leaving Gorontalo, I've been back twice to dive - once in December with my sister and Mark and once again in March with Megan and Christina. I love diving there, I love diving with Rantje and the gang and I love introducing Gorontalo to other divers. That's why I was thrilled once again when Rantje unveiled Miguel's Diving's new t-shirt design:
Miguel's Diving t-shirt
The diver with the wavy blond hair admiring a Salvador Dali sponge while a whale shark passes overhead? That's me!!
My diving days in Gorontalo have come to an end (for now) but I find it beyond fitting that my departure from Indonesia is marked by the publication of my article about diving in Gorontalo and the introduction of the new Gorontalo t-shirts with my likeness!
I hear there will be a new ELF in Gorontalo next year. I really hope that person is a diver too so he or she can enjoy Gorontalo's hidden paradise!
Here are some images from my most recent trip to Gorontalo. In all likelihood, it was probably my last trip there for a very long time but that's kinda hard to think about. So, I'll just call it my most recent trip.
With my newly certified dive buddy at my side, we set out overland for Gorontalo, where we met up with my ELF friend Mark for four days of excellent diving with Rantje. It was fun to show my sister where I used live and work and even more fun to show her my old diving haunts! And, after 60+ dives in Gorontalo last year without a camera, I was thrilled to finally be able to take pictures at some of my favorite dive sites. Although Colleen didn't get to see any of the whale sharks that occasionally cruise by overhead, she did see many other interesting things that make diving in Gorontalo so special such as the enormous intricately carved Salvador Dali sponges, the hundreds and hundreds of types of corals, the mysterious Jinn Caves dive site, and the local fishing village of Olele.
Surface interval @ Hidden Beach
(Rantje later used this photo in the new German language edition of the Miguel's Diving brochure!)
White-eyed moray eel
Beautiful Gorontalo corals!
Big ol' clam
Gorgonian crab @ Jinn Caves
Blue-spotted fantail stingray @ Jinn Caves
Unidentifed frogfish
Surface interval @ Olele Village
Another great Gorontalo dive comes to an end
Colleen left Indonesia with 18 dives under her belt! And she's a born natural too, although that's no surprise since she's a great swimmer. I can't wait for us to have more diving adventures together, wherever in the world that may be!
After our trip to Saronde Island last week, Amad, Vana and Vany asked me if there was anything else in Gorontalo that I wanted to do before I left. And actually there was. I wanted to go to the fish market. And not only that, I wanted to go there by bendi, a type of horse-drawn carriage that was the traditional means of transportation around town until bentors arrived on the scene about ten years ago. And so, at 6 am on a Wednesday morning, I met my students at the language lab on campus and we headed off to the morning fish market by bendi.
Off to the market by bendi
With Vany and Vana on the bendi
The fish market is held at a place called Tangga Dua Ribu or Two Thousand Steps that’s right at the mouth of the Bone river. We would pass it every morning on the dive boat as we headed off to our dive sites and it always intrigued me because it seemed to be a bustling, happening place. The fishing boats pull right up to the shore and hordes of people are always swarming about, buying their daily fish. Miguel’s Diving also happens to be located on the same street that leads to the fish market, so every day when we drove up to the dock to get on the boat, we would see fish sellers whizz by on their bikes, fish tails sticking out of the baskets besides them, as they hurried off to sell their fish in town. I was also particularly pleased whenever I saw bentors laden with large yellowfin tuna. I became convinced that seeing one was a good omen that a great day of diving was in store.
Clickety-clack, clickety-clack - we trotted along the early morning streets of Gorontalo in our horse-drawn carriage at a surprisingly brisk pace, passing the morning street cleaners busily sweeping the streets. In a country known for its littering problem, Gorontalo is unique in that its streets are swept clean every morning. We also passed fruits sellers and a shoe repairman who seemed to have taken up shop in the middle of the main street. Then we went by the Governor’s mansion and a string of colonial era houses. Along the way, Vana taught me an Indonesian children’s song about a young child going to the Sunday market with his father by bendi and sitting up front next to the kusir or driver. Children’s songs about going to market in a horse drawn carriage seem to belong to an earlier, simpler time, yet, in Gorontalo, this time still exists.
As could be expected, my arrival at the Gorontalo fish market did not go unnoticed. Shouts of “bule, bule!” filled the air as men dangled their fish in front of me and barked out the prices. “Mrs.! Di sini!” Come over here, Mrs.! The fish sellers beckoned and called to me while I manovered my way around the tables of shipjack tuna, tarps of trevally and buckets of small silvery fish. I did not find their shouts obnoxious at all. Instead, I reveled in the moment and enjoyed being the center of attention. I enjoyed exchanging a few words with the men in Indonesian, taking pictures and just generally soaking up the atmosphere of the early morning market. Vana bought some fish to take home to her aunt and I treated my students to a delicious pastry from Bandung called buroncong that we ate on the steps overlooking the ocean after our market visit.
Fish for sale!
I got to take the wheel of this bentor full of yellowfin tuna!
Once again I felt a pang of sadness that I’m leaving Gorontalo just when I’m finally starting to figure it out and really appreciate it. Thank you Vana, Vany and Amad for showing me another one of Gorontalo’s hidden treasures.
I had heard tales about Saronde Island since I first moved to Gorontalo. Many of my writing students last semester wrote about it when I asked them to tell me about interesting places to visit in Gorontalo. This past Sunday, with less than two weeks of my fellowship left to go, I finally went to Saronde with about a dozen students from one of my speaking classes. It was one of the best days I’ve had in Gorontalo and now I kinda wish I didn’t have to leave.
We met on campus early Sunday morning and squeezed ourselves into an angkot or minibus for the hour long ride to Kwandang, a village on the north coast of Gorontalo province. We stopped at Vana’s house, where, much to my surprise, her family had prepared some food for us to take to the island including palm sugar cakes, a huge tub of delicious melon juice, and dabu dabu iris! I had made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because I thought the plan was for everyone to bring their own lunch, but apparently, the new plan was to grill fish on the beach! YES!
Squeezed into the angkot
Stocked up with provisions, we drove a few more minutes to the harbor. Here, a quaint little boat called ‘Taxi Saronde’ was waiting to shuttle us across to the island, about half an hour away. En route we stopped at another island to buy some fresh fish at what turned out to be Vana’s boyfriend’s home village. While the boys went ashore to buy the fish, Ucha asked me what Indonesian songs I liked. I told them I liked ‘Assalamualaikum’ and started singing a few bars of the refrain. They squealed in delight and soon we were all singing it together. I also told them I liked ‘Jika Cinta Dia’ and we sang along to that one too. It was great fun.
Heading to our destination in the 'Taxi Saronde'
Soon we pulled ashore at Saronde Island. Without a doubt, it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The entire island is ringed with about1 km of beautiful white sand beach. The water was every possible shade of blue imaginable and the beach was strewn with shells and coconut husks. In the middle there was small collection of huts and two cottages. I walked around in a daze and kept repeating how beautiful it was. Finally, Novah had to beg me to stop staying ‘beautiful’ so much. So then I rattled off a list of other adjectives: stunning, gorgeous, breathtaking, sublime, heavenly, magnificent and on and on. This is no exaggeration.
I love Saronde Island!
We all love Saronde Island!
Look at this white sand beach!!
We set ourselves up at one of the little huts near the water. It was midday so several students disappeared to go grill the fish over the coconut husks they brought with them and I stayed behind to play cards with Ucha, Novah, and Deysi, while several others looked on. We were in the middle of Rummy 500 when the others came back with the freshly grilled fish, elaborately served up on a palm leaf! We put the cards away and dug into the dabu dabu and packets of rice that someone had brought along. The dabu dabu was particularly spicy and my hiccups came out in full force, much to the amusement of some of the students!
My students posing with fresh grilled fish and dabu dabu salsa!
After lunch, Amad and I went for a walk around the entire island. Since it was so small this only took about 20 minutes, including the time we stopped to take pictures. Have I mentioned how beautiful this island is? As we finished our walk, we noticed that many of the others were already playing on the beach and in the water. So we joined them and thus began several hours of hilarity. One thing I love about Indonesians is that they can be very lebay. This is a slang word that means doing things in an overexaggerated fashion, especially posing for pictures. Since Amad is a pretty decent photographer, I gave him my cameras for the day and he took most of the pictures. Here are some of my favorite photos of the day:
These are our swimming clothes!
Indonesians are experts at instantly posing for group photos
Vany looked very photogenic in her pink jilbab!
There was an afternoon shower but then there was also this beautiful rainbow!
Amad's underwater self-portrait. Love the reflection in the goggles!
Probably the most lebay moment of all came when we decide to make a video of ourselves dancing to a song we made up that consists of three words, “Can you swim?” On the boat ride over to the island, I had asked Vany, who was sitting next to me, if she could swim. However, in my American accent, this question came out as one word - “Canyuhswim?” and Vany did not understand me at all. Once I explained that I was asking “Can you swim?” everyone thought this was hysterical and we took turns asking each other, “Canyuhswim?”. If you say it kind of fast and repetitively it turns into a sorta catchy tune. And thus our dance was born. I'll try to upload the video when I have a faster internet connection.
Surprisingly, many Indonesians cannot swim. There’s no such thing as swimming lessons as part of gym class here, so only people who grow up near the water ever learn. I would have thought that in a beach town such as Gorontalo, many people would know how to swim. What I learned this year is that people only learn if they’re literally within walking distance to a swimmable body of water (like the people of Torosiaje who live right on top of the ocean). So, even Vana, who grew up in the village of Kwandang, can’t really swim. I gave her a lesson though – we practiced blowing bubbles, breathing to the side and kicking. I also lent her my goggles for most of the afternoon. She had never seen underwater before and was transfixed. She’s really good at holding her breath and she would go under and report back all of the cool things she saw – blue starfish and ‘Nemo’ being at the top of her list! The next day I got a text from her, “By ur goggles I aware seaworld is beautiful… I see thng tht never I see b4. Thanks a lot.” While my English lessons may or may not stay with her once this year is over, I think I have left her with something else that will last forever – an appreciation of the underwater world! I’m so proud.
We stayed on the island until sunset and then reluctantly got back on the boat to head back to Kwandang and our waiting angkot. I could barely keep my eyes open for the ride back to town though. After a day spent swimming, running around the beach, turning cartwheels, giving swimming lessons, singing loudly and talking non-stop, I was utterly exhausted. But I loved it. My students are really a lot of fun to be with. It’s sort of ironic. All year long I have been keeping them at a distance – refusing to add them on Facebook, telling them it’s not appropriate to turn up unannounced at my door in the evening, and explicitly stating second semester in my syllabi that they are not to text me randomly at 10 pm to say ‘Miss what r u doing now?’ I kept them at bay because I thought, as their teacher, I was supposed to keep a professional distance. The thing is, my concept of ‘professional distance’ seems to be an American one. My fellow lecturers at UNG are friends with their students on FB, they encourage students to drop by their homes to ask questions and talk freely in what they see as a more comfortable environment and they text each other day and night. I’m afraid the only effect my ‘professional distance’ attitude served this year was to isolate me from a community of fun-loving, curious and friendly people. But I hope it’s not too late. I hope my students will add me as their friend on FB now and I hope we can stay in touch.
My friend Abbie, the ELF in Jakarta, came to visit me in Gorontalo recently. I picked her up at the airport and then we set off on a sightseeing tour of the town. Over the span of three days Abbie got to see a lot of what makes Gorontalo such an original place to visit.
Our first stop was at the Exotic Café where we had lunch by the ocean and watched cows and goats stroll lazily up and down the beach.
Then we went up to the old Portuguese fortress in Limboto that is made from the shells of bird eggs, among other things.
We also passed by Gorontalo’s newest tourist attraction – The T-Shit Store! I seriously don’t know if they just forgot the ‘r’ or if the store is intentionally named that. In any event, I also pointed out this store to my students and told them that it should be a lesson to them on the importance of spelling!
Then we went on a road trip and passed through the little village of Pulubalu, which is known for its roadside stands of steaming towers of corn. Back home on Long Island there’s also a lot of fresh corn for sale at roadside vegetable stands, but it’s all raw. I think it’s pure genius to sell already cooked corn – it’s the perfect snack. America could actually learn a thing or two from the Gorontalese here.
We stopped at Bolihutuo Beach for a quick swim and a delicious lunch of ikan bakar and dabu dabu iris. I’m pleased to report that Abbie is now a big fan of fresh grilled fish with Gorontalo’s own tomato/onion/chili salsa. At the rumah makan we happened to meet some members of a Gorontalo motorcycle club called the Gorontalo Tigers. We duly posed for photos with one of the guys and his bike - and then some other guy jumped in the picture too.
Finally we reached our destination – the 100 year old Bajo stilt village called Torosiaje. Life in Torosiaje revolves around the water.
We met this man who showed us how he repairs nylon fishing nets by hand. The nets seem so fragile! I imagine he spends a lot of his time knotting them back together.
We also met this little girl who was excited to show off her swimming skills. I was particularly intrigued by her traditional goggles fashioned out of wood and glass.
Then we went snorkeling off a tiny island near Torosiaje. We both found some cool stuff to take pictures of underwater. Abbie (who borrowed my modern plastic goggles) really liked the blue starfish and I was thrilled to find some cute blue belly blennies, which are endemic to Tomini Bay.
Gorontalo is definitely one of a kind! I'm glad I could share the experience with Abbie.
