Free Diving – Pulau Pramuka meaning (Scout Island) – Indonesia

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It’s been 2 long months since I have been in the ocean again to swim let alone do any diving and it has been a long wait.

Finally I had a chance to visit one of the islands of “Pulau Seribu” or “Thousand Islands” as its called in english. Its a collection of islands in Indonesia right of the coast of Jakarta and is still considered part of Jakarta even though it stretches a vast amount of water which would take about 2 – 4 hour boat rides if you travelled the islands on a standard ferry. My good mate, seasoned traveller and fellow bum Mark from Hong Kong joined up in Jakarta and we both headed to Pulau Pramuka to get a dose of sun, wind and water.

So how did the trip to the island go ?

We caught a taxi to Muara Angke where the ferries are docked. Muara Angke is where fisherman offload their catch and have it cleaned, cut and shipped throughout jakarta, possibly even other parts of Indonesia. This place absolutely reeks. The taxi driver had to open the window to ask questions and the smell that came rushing made me feel sick, so I just *held my breathe* … I had people tell me before my trip, why not go from pluit and use the long (billionaire style) speed boat, BUT Me being a bum and knowing Mark to be the same thought WTF, NA , we would rather use a $5 ferry. Anyway it was an experience worth remembering partly because of that smell 😛

After we finally got to the docks we boarded the ferry, which in its self was another experience, Boarding the ferry required us to jump between other ferries to get to the one we were scheduled for. This isn’t so bad but let me tell you … if any of your stuff fell into the water it would probably melt and disintegrate because the water right on the docks of Muara angke was so polluted that the water was literally brown in Color and had rubbish everywhere. Sad knowing that this dock could be so much cleaner and possibly even a tourist site like circular quay in sydney.

Then this was followed the boat trip to the islands, which was totally awesome. Mark and I sat on the roof of the ferry like boat people trying to get from Indonesia to the coast of Australia 🙂 But because of this we were able to see the ocean, and from a distance spot and see flying fish jump out of the water and experience dolphins swimming by the boat, such a beautiful site.

The boat stopped of at Pulau Pari (Pari which in Indonesian means manta ray) and picked up a few additional passengers along with also dropping of a few passengers before our final stop to Pulau Pramuka. Pulau Pari is apparently known for some good diving spots too so it will be something I will checkout later if I get some time 🙂

What happened on Day 1 ?

Accommodation was pretty basic, room, bed on the floor, aircon and kinda running (hot water) LOL. It’s good enough though, we aren’t there to enjoy the room, we are there to enjoy the island, the great out doors, the sun and the water above and below. The first activity was to go snorkelling so we went with the rest of the group out on the boat and went to the snorkelling site.

The reefs and coral at this particular site were pretty much grey and dead but they had interesting shapes and there was some depth, the water would go from 1.X meters to 15-20 meters pretty quickly. In many of my dives i followed the ridge down and before I knew it when I looked up the snorkellers would be points in the distance, nerve racking but awesome at the same time simply because as you follow the ridge down you just don’t realise how much deeper your going where if you follow a line down you know your going deeper and be conscious of this fact.

After the snorkelling area we went to a place called samak daun which sounds like “Smack Down” as one of the fellow Indonesian travellers told us 🙂 Samak Daun is a really small island with beautiful shallow waters, nice coral and relaxed waters. No diving here really, just put on our vibrams and walked around and enjoyed the water and coral. The water color was turquoise and just something I hadn’t seen in a while, it was really beautiful to see and the sun was perfect, not hot but just right.

After Samak Daun we went to a shark/large fish cage, nothing to see, pretty boring actually and I think a time waster, we walked around, saw how much a beer was Rp 35,000 (which is about 3.50) complete rip off knowing that a beer usually costs $1 AUD so went back to the boat and just waited to head back.

What happened on Day 2 ?

I had asked the tour organisers what was going to happen on day two and they told us we would be visiting some fish parks and a few other DEAD boring things so I asked if we could replace it with another snorkelling session. They said we could but we had to add Rp125,000 which is about ($12.50), $12.50 Aud ? For a boat of our own so we can go to all the reefs and coral that the island had to offer ?! No worries mate ! Lets dooooo iiiittt.

So on day two all we did was go diving/snorkelling all day on our own boat, this was the best decision to make and we saw some great locations, awesome dive sites and just really enjoyed the day. We were out in the water for about 5hrs and got to see the some of the best the island had to offer.

Next time I visit any of the islands of the “Thousand Islands” I will definitely be customising my trip and not just going with the standard packages 🙂

We had a great time, took some great videos and some great pictures displayed right here in this post. I will definitely be back to visit some of the other islands here, sum suggestions are

Pulau Matahari
Pulau Sepa
Pulau Macan
Pulau Tidung

Don’t know which one to visit next …. lets wait and see ….

Freediving – Bandung Freediving @ UPI

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It’s been a while but finally I have a new video and I think from this day onward there is going to be a flood of videos as I am planning two trips over the next few weekends to two different islands in this beautiful country we call Indonesia ! This video however is somewhat different to the rest of my videos as its in the pool and not in the ocean. Just to add, I also want to say thanks to the Bandung Freedivers for letting me join their group for training over the weekend.

Bandung is my hometown in Indonesia and its way up in the mountains far away from the beach. Whenever I go to a new area I always like to find out if there is a pool or a beach that I can continue training in and upon research I found that Bandung has a freediving club. Up in the mountains of indonesia freediving still exists ! Yay … how awesome is that !

So I contacted them via twitter and facebook to get details of when they train as a group and their usual schedule is from 9am in the morning to when the pool closes ! Pretty awesome .. its pretty much over 9 hours in the pool 😛

So for the day I went over some techniques like kicking/finning, how to breathe before a dive, and just some tips on how I hold my breathe longer and relax. I also learnt about some of the good diving spots around Indonesia and have a dive organised with the group on the 20th of september. Indonesia is so awesome, a whole weekend of diving can cost as much $40 – $60 dollars, this includes boat, food accommodation … too awesome.

It’s going to be an exciting trip as I have never gone with so many people to a diving site in one go, its going to be cool to see so many people in the water at once and I can’t wait to take this shot from the bottom of the ocean, im getting excited just thinking about it ! So I want to say thanks to the group at Bandung Freediving and look forward to meeting up on the 20th for our dive near Krakatau (sangiang island).

It’s gonna be dam cool. 🙂

Such a time waster …

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So I got sick ! Pretty badly too, had this crazy virus combo that took me out for 3 days straight but now it looks like I am back ! I think a combination of to much work, not enough sleep, crazy weather conditions (getting cold then hot then air con), sleeping in the car, working in the car, not eating right and the odd mosquito took its toll on what i thought was my invincible body 😛

I felt really tired 3 days ago, went to the doctors for a checkup only to find out i had the double whammy, dengue fever & typhoid fever both at the same time hahaha ! Typhoid from overwork, not enough rest and not eating right and dengue from some dumbass mosquito. When doctor told me I was like *madddd* …. this cant be good, wonder how im gonna feel in a few days when this nasty combo really kicks in, but to be honest the worst thing about getting sick like this is being bored out of my wits. Sitting in bed, with the drip, SUCH A PAIN IN THE ASS.

Anyway 3 days later and I think im ok now, doctors say it takes on average about 10 days but seems like I have recovered and things are already good now, they better let me go home tomorrow otherwise i’m gonna call my friends and cousins into my hospital room and have a party in here, make lots of noise in my room till they kick my ass out LOL.

Got some work and some diving to do man , cant be sitting in bed wasting time like this 😛

GoPro Silver Edition … My Comparisons

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I have been using it for a while but haven’t done a proper post on what I think about it along with my experiences … so here it is.

When I started diving I was using this really cheap (price wise not necessarily the brand because they do have some good cameras on the higher end) intova camera for the last couple of months and it has done pretty well. It’s tough (dropped it many times) and takes some nice shots underwater, it comes with an LCD screen and has all the features that you would need from an underwater camera without needing to purchase addons or anything else. It does the job 🙂 Oh and the connectors are all standard ones so its easy to find really cheap mounts too …

The one major difference that I noticed between the GoPro silver that I bought and the old intova camera is the 170 wide view (as opposed to 140) and that fact that even in murky waters the GoPro still takes really nice pictures. Features aside, cost aside, even in water that is hard to see through the mask, the results from the GoPro are actually really good even I thought I wouldn’t be able to see anything.

There were times when I was taking shots underwater and thinking to myself, “Crap, this is going to be a really bad set of shots” only to be pleasantly surprised to see shots that seem to show everything that even I had difficulty seeing when in the water. The problem with the GoPro is there is no LCD screen so you can’t really check then and there how the pictures have turned out or how the angles are so you just take shots and hope that the camera still works through the murky waters.

When I took the shots in Gordon’s Bay and Tulamben the water was pretty murky, no more then 8m visibility yet the video results were not to bad. I took some shots of a Wobbegong shark in the same visibility from only a few meters away using my Intova camera and you can hardly see the shark, just the slight outline. If I had my GoPro at this time the shot would have been much clearer I would say.

So in terms of quality of picture you can really tell the difference. The one thing that really annoys me is I can not preview my shots ! This should be a pretty basic feature of every camera … I think, even in the old days there was a lens that you could see through to ensure you had the camera pointed in the right direction 😛 The GoPro doesn’t even have that and if you need this feature it is an additional cost, yeah you can use the iPhone/Android App but what about if your underwater ? (I don’t think there are water proof cases for iPhones that go more then 3 or 4 meters)

This is one of the reasons why I still carry the Intova camera with me. I noticed that the Intova camera takes really really nice still pictures on land and since I can preview my pictures before I take them I still use the Intova camera to take pictures on land. However underwater its gotta be the GoPro all the way 🙂 (even if I have to guess that I am pointing the camera at the correct angle and in the right direction)

As for the connectors and the cost for the addons, the only thing I can see my self purchasing would be an additional battery because the battery life sucks on this thing, but I guess with the quality of the images it is taking thats not surprising. All the mounts, I will just try to make myself 😛

Its a great device and definitely a requirement for the avid extreme sports weekend warrior ! Whats also great is their advertisement video, sometimes I play it to get my day started since its so exhilarating and gets me fired up 😛

Check it out above. BTW just noticed the first comment “Almost forgot to watch this today” HAHAHAHA …. LEGEND ….. guess im not the only one that uses this video to get their day started 🙂

Indonesia’s Beautiful Scenery …

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So on this trip to Indonesia I plan to manage my time between making sure all my work gets completed (on time and on budget) and also to enjoy parts of Indonesia I haven’t had a chance to see. Most of the time, when I have visited Indonesia the only places I visit are Bandung, Bali (Kuta, Ubud, Seminyak and Sanur) and Jakarta’s most common locations.

So far, on this trip I have visited Tulamben, Amed and will be visiting various islands from Pulau Seribu just of the coast of Ancol Jakarta. I have also gone to Majalengka which is a small city between Bandung and Cirebon where most of my original family from my dads side has come from.

Looking out through the window I can’t help but think how beautiful and amazing the landscape is. The rice paddies, the mountain ranges, the sunsets and the cool dewy air when we start to travel further and further up away from Jakarta or when your closer to the top of the mountains anywhere.

Stopping by for a coconut muda (young coconut) or having some mie by the road and just chatting to all the local guys is something I really enjoy. Sometimes you have to slap on the mosquito repellant (because for whatever reason I think these little pests love the taste of foreign fed blood) but other then that you sit under a home made kiosk that is put together from bamboo’s by the river and just relax and chill.

There are lots of really awesome fruits that you can get for really cheap in comparison and its really hard to stop eating them. The only thing preventing me from eating a whole bunch of mangosteen on my own (in the car after buying them) is I don’t know where to put all the rubbish from the skin and seeds and it gets annoying when your hands get all sticky and red and there is no water close by 😛

I sound like a complete tourist when I write like this don’t I ?! 🙂 But the truth of the matter is, I have always loved coming to Indonesia since I can remember . As a young kid 8-13 I loved it because I could get access to the craziest firecrackers known to man and light them up with my cousins or buy pellet guns that looked like real guns and pretend to be a gangsta after watching (dangerous minds) 😛 Now it just feels more and more like home and I just enjoy the atmosphere of certain places that I just can’t get back in Oz.

There might not always be hot water, it might be boiling hot in some places, the toilets may not always be up to scratch, air conditioning may screw up with your sinuses and the traffic, gaawwwd the traffic, sometimes certain things that people do may get on your nerves, but who cares, its my other home and feels good to be here with friends and family.

During this trip im going to try and visit some more islands from Pulau seribu and possibly do some diving if the pulau permits.

Enjoy the video above of the car trip between Amed and Sanur on the way home with the picturesque rice paddies, setting sun and Gunung Agung dominating the center of the scenery.

Mac Book Recovery ….

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After 4 days of sitting idle and not being used, the macbook has recovered. I don’t know why. I tried it two days later, it didn’t work so I thought it was definitely dead. Then I took it to the apple repair shop and bam ! The geniuses plugged my laptop into the power point, the adapter came on bright (something it hadn’t done for ages) and at that moment, I knew for a split second I was going to look like the biggest dimwit to ever walk into the apple store and complain that their laptop was not booting up 😛 These guys really are geniuses !

Well I didn’t care, dimwit or not, the laptop boots up and I can now get my environment of it and let this work horse lay to rest once and for all (Look at it, its melted, its dead, it needs to rest). So happy. I walked out and asked the apple genius what could have happened and he gave me some spiel about the fact that the power point might hot have had a constant current and the surge protection prevented the power from coming on properly and booting up my laptop.

Yeah … maybe … we are in Indonesia and these things can happen. I also read things online about a state the laptop can get into which is some discharge state where it lays dead for a few hours if you let the battery completely drain but from what I had read it would not do this for a period of days only hours. Could have been anything really and If i was less busy I would try to get to the bottom of this but not right now …

Anyhoo, all is well and now much of the stress that I had is lifted. Code might not work, there might be things failing and all sorts of problems happening but if you can’t fix it cause your tools are not working thats the real time to stress, what do you do when the thing you built is not working, twiddle your thumbs ?! *STRESS*, Other then that though, everything else and any other problem is fine … she’ll be right as we say in OZ 🙂 It’ll get fixed 😛

Have a good one guys, and jobsy, if your spirit came down to save my laptop i appreciate it … really, after being force to spend so much money just so I can develop on your amazing platform I really really appreciate it 🙂

Kota Bandung …

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Love this city, bandung tempat orang tua. Udaranya lumayan, tempat makannya hebat (ada the peak, the valley) dan banyak yang lain2.

Yang paling favourit aku tapi adalah jagung empat rasa di jalan dago. Dari dulu aku sama sepupu selalu nongkrong di situ untuk makan jagung dan relax. Jagungnya di bakar dan di kasih saus. Enak banget dan dari aku masih umur 13 tahun masih sama aja yang di situ.

Ini postnya pendek aja, foto di atas sodara lagi makan di empat rasa di jalan dago 🙂

Asikk Macetnya :P

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Kayaknya tiap tahun Jakarta lebih macet terus ! Aku sempet kerja di sini tahun 2005 sampe 2007 dan menurut saya masih lumayan. Sekarang waduh, sedikit ke lewatan, kalo kita mesti puter lagi bisa satu jam. Tapi yang penting kita terima ini Indonesia sementara ini dan kita tenang aja (Bisa pake Yoga dan relaxation technique yang kita suka lakukan sebelom kita free dive, untuk tenangin diri sendiri :))

Kemarin laptop saya yang macbook tua rusak, ngak bisa nyala lagi. Jadi aku ke Senayan city untuk ke apple store situ untuk tanya kalo bisa di benerin. Ternyatanya dia ngak bisa jadi saya mesti ke Ratu Plaza untuk benerinnya. Ok no problem.

Setauh saya Ratu plaza adalah di jalan sudirman tapi inget lupa jadi takut salah kalo coba2 jalan kaki. Jadinya aku pangil taxi dari senayan city. Ternyatanya aku benar ! Di Jalan sudirman ratu plazanya dan untuk ukuran saya ngak jauh buat jalan dari senayan city, tapi karena pake taxi puter balikannya lammmmmmmaaaaa baget, gila, stelah puter balik dan sampe lagi di sudirman cuman berapa ratus meter sudah sampe ke ratu plaza. Tapi puter balikannya yang hampir 40 menit 😛

Anyway, ini situasinya sekarang di Jakarta dan sebetulnya banyak hal lain yang i wish was better tapi, its home dan semoga di masa depan yang deket banyak improvement di kota ini.

Di atas adalah, photo patung sudirman.

Arriving home on Garuda !

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Menurut saya salah satu hal yang termasuk baik kalo lagi travelling adalah saat kita lagi terbang. Kadang emang bisa lama, dan bisa boring ato ngak cukup kerjaan, badang pegel tapi menurut saya ngak begitu. Mungkin karena saya sudah biasa tiap hari duduk berjam2 di komputer dan kerjaain seswatu jadi duduk di kapal ngak terlalu beda dari kehidupan saya yang sehari2.

Biasanya kalo saya lagi travelling aku bawah film yang banyak, bawah kerjaan dan bawah buku di amazon kindle ku. Jadi pas saya sudah duduk kalo lagi rasanya cape ato pusing karena ngak cukup tidur (biasanya sih kayak gini karena suka rush terus sebelom travelling) mungkin aku baca buku, nonton film yang di bawa ato nonton yang di sediahin airlines. Banyak film yang bagus2 sekarang di databasenya garuda. BTW waktu aku ke sini kemarin aku nonton Habibie & Ainun filimnya. Hebat banget filmnya !

Kalo emang banyak kerjaan dan ngak terlalu cape mungkin aku akan kerjaain itu untuk berberapa jam. Stelah kelarnya cukup, langsung relax nonton film ato kalo sudah cape banget tidur ! Asik kan, dan dari Australi terbang cuman 6 sampe 7 jam paling lama.

Aku juga sudah coba kapal terbang yang beda2 dan menurut yang paling favorit untuk saya masih kalo pake garuda indonesia. Orangnya baik dan sopan, kapalnya enak (yang airbus baru ya) dan makanannya bisa pilih indonesian ato barat biasanya. Makanan kapal is not the best tapi lumayan.

Anyway ini post pertama di section ini … sejak aku sampe …

Hopefully bahasa Indonesianya bisa di mengertikan 😛

Free Diving – “Mashup” – Youtube Channel Intro Video

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I didn’t go diving in the last week at all because right now I am in bandung, a place in Indonesia where we are quite far away from the coast and where much of the natural water that we have come in the form of hot springs, not exactly ideal for diving 😛 As far as I know, here in bandung the only place where free diving is done is at the pools at UPI (A university here in Bandung).

I was meaning to go there with my cousin (as he goes to university there) but I didn’t get a chance because I left my diving gear in the other car. Kind of blows as I wanted to meet the guys from the Bandung Free Divers club. If im still in bandung this coming sunday I will definitely try to make it there and say hi to the divers and do some training with them. The problem is we are heading into Ramadan and I am not exactly sure as to whether or not the Bandung Free Divers will continue with their training during Ramadan. I guess I will just message them and see.

Since I didn’t do any actual diving I had some time to look through some of my videos and create a youtube Intro video for my channel. I thought why not, I have a bit of time on my hands and I was keen to play around with iMovie and garageband so I had a bit of a play and the video above is what I came up with. It’s a combination of the scenery and the diving videos that I have taken. It’s got some scenery that include beautiful sunrises in sydney, the coast of Tulamben Bali and a selection of new and old dive clips that I have collected.

To add to the clip, I was looking for a track that gave the impression of flying, gliding but at the same time is action packed with a strong beat, however with that tinge of peace and serenity to the sound. The track that I found that I believe matches this video can be found by “Searching Youtube for DEMEX – Summer (Beach Mix) Trance “. I think the track represents what free diving is, its an extreme sport where you push your body but at the same time feel at peace with your surroundings. The track has that powerful beat but at the same time has the mellow pipes in the background. If you are into trance this is a great representation of free diving in music !

I think I have the hang of using these editing tools and would like to create some better edited videos as I get more diving done throughout the year. I thought it would suck to sit and edit videos but its quite relaxing and fun to see the final result, kind of like building apps and developing software I guess.

Also since I got a new macbook it doesn’t take me 3hrs to render a 1080p video so I can edit and create video’s faster and learn from any editing mistakes faster as I don’t have to wait ages for the file to generate ! This was extremely annoying on my old macbook 🙁

One of the things with youtube is that when you use music from their library or you use any copyrighted music you have restrictions on where the video can be viewed along with some other really annoying limitations. As a result I think I am going to have to learn how to create my own music using some tools like Fruity Loops or similar, that way I won’t have any copyright issues and I would also be able to create tracks that match the clips better. I know its not going to be easy but it should be fun, making/building anything is always fun 🙂

Anyway I hope you enjoy the new video …