Day 0: Boarding the Pindito

Setting up gear

We got picked up at our hotel around 9 (by one of the divemasters – Hendro), and were driven to the harbor, where we got on one of the inflatables (that’s used as a dive tender) to ride out to the big boat.  It was hot and sunny and a nice, short boat ride.  We were waiting for one more couple that was arriving at the boat around noon, so we used the time to unpack, find our way around the boat, and meet the others on the trip.  It turned out that half of the trip was sold as a snorkeling trip (though two of that half were diving part time and snorkeling part time), so there were a bunch of every-weekend-snorkelers from Australia on the boat with us.  When we finally left, we headed slowly (it’s a slow boat) down the channel between West Papua and Salawati. It was calm in that channel and got a touch sporty once we exited the channel.  Oh and it rained for part of the afternoon :(

Heading down the channel

Mostly just a transit day—getting settled, figuring out where things are on the boat, familiarizing ourselves with the cocktail capabilities of the boat and not doing much else.