14 Jan 2020
After 50+ hours of travel and layovers, we finally arrived in Sorong, where we were met by the crew of the Amira, our boat and home for the next week and a half. They coordinated our taxis from the airport to the harbor, then shuttled us over to the boat in dinghies.
The crew was great at keeping us and our bags dry for the trip across the harbor…
…and it wasn’t long before we caught our first glimpse of the Amira:
The Amira is a 52m, traditionally built, wooden Pinisi ship. She does have sails, but the engines are faster 🙂 She holds up to 19 divers, but there were only 15 of us on this trip, so I was able to score my own room, on the top deck! (that’s my room on the right- corner room with lots of windows!)
Being on the top deck, my my room swayed a bit, but some meclizine did the trick and I only felt seasick once, on the last night, when we crossed some open seas during a storm.
I had my own ensuite bathroom as well!
Right off the dive deck (which I apparently did not take a picture of) was a dedicated camera room/charging station:
Lunch and snacks were served here every day, breakfast was made to order, and dinner was sit-down/served. There was always a great variety of Indonesian and Western dishes- I recruited one of my fellow divers to taste-test everything first and let me know which dishes were spicy, but I never had a bad meal and I never went hungry 🙂
While breakfast was sometimes eaten indoors, we ate most meals out here under the shade sails:
Those chairs on the deck were great for lounging in the shade, and the deck up top was a wonderful place to see the stars!
We started our trip south and were rewarded with this, the first of many gorgeous sunsets at sea:
