Bunaken

So, after yesterday’s last-minute texting and arranging, we managed to meet our taxi driver on time at 06:45 AM. Driving to the airport that early was a breeze, and after a lot of typing and chattering in Indonesian, the Lion Air attendant managed to get us on that earlier flight promised yesterday. We arrived on time in Denpasar, Bali, where we took the opportunity to devour a typically way too expensive lunch at one of the restaurants in the domestic terminal. Fortunately, our second flight to Manado left and arrived on time in Manado. A friendly driver, with his daughter, picked us up to bring us to our hotel, Istakanu, in Manado’s city centre. A pleasant although basic hotel, it’s good enough for a one-night stay. There’s also an Istakanu 2 right across the street, so it seems to be popular enough. On the way from the airport, we noticed a PHD, aka Pizza Hut Delivery. Since we didn’t notice anything else invitingly in the direct vicinity of the hotel, we decided to treat ourselves to an easy take-away pizza, devoured on the top floor of our hotel, with a big cold bottle of beer.

The next day we took a basic hotel breakfast and afterwards a Grab car towards the passenger “ferry” terminal, which was in fact only two piers jutting out in the foul-smelling inner harbour, where small local boats moored to pick up or discharge both people and goods to the various islands dotted along the north-eastern Sulawesi coast. The speedboat of the dive resort was waiting and swiftly brought us to the island of Bunaken. We offloaded our gear and walked the short 100 metres in the blaring sun from the pier to the resort. After a short briefing by the deputy manager, we went to our spacious room with patio, unloaded our bags (we’d stay here for four nights after all) and took advantage of the buffet lunch offered at the resort’s restaurant. In the afternoon we relaxed in the bean bags. A buffet dinner and beer later, we checked our diving schedule for the next day and retired to our room.

On Monday morning, our dive boat left the resort’s beach at 8 AM for two dives close-by the resort itself. The island and resort are surrounded by a sheer-vertical wall reef, which makes it a beautiful and, compared to the currents in Komodo, easy dive location. And holy cow, what an abundance of underwater live: turtles, sharks (no, not the biggies), sea horses (the very teeny tiny little ones) and so much more. It was a pleasure to meet all those creatures underwater! In the late afternoon, after enjoying a delicious buffet brunch, we went out with our dive guide and the boat crew for a night dive. Exactly what the word means: diving into the pitch-black ocean, with no more illumination than what your own underwater torch provides. A whole lot of other nocturnal creatures are active then, making those types of dives certainly worthwhile. We saw lots of water snakes, crabs and shrimps.

On Tuesday we had planned our last dives, so we could enjoy the beach on Wednesday before heading out to Vietnam. Same as on Monday, we went out with the boat in the morning, towards another small island off Sulawesi’s coast. After a dive similar to the ones yesterday, we enjoyed some pancakes, fruits and cookies on the boat while we were waiting for sufficient surface interval time to pass. A second dive brought us back to the wall reef in front of the resort and was a diverse and beautiful as yesterday. Bunaken is certainly recommendable, proof also all the Belgian and Dutch dive clubs present during our stay. After our two dives, we decided to take a nap in our room to chill out. But around 3 PM Véro awoke, complaining of heavy pain in her stomach. It showed also a bit red, and since she hadn’t felt anything like that before, we decided to check it out with the resort manager. The preliminary verdict came fast, based on the manager’s experience: decompression sickness. It manifests when one stays too long too deep (higher pressure) and comes up too fast (lower air pressure): while breathing compressed air in a higher-pressure environment, nitrogen bubbles form in the blood stream.

During all our dives, Véro was buddied with me and diving under guidance of my dive watch. We did not go too deep, nor too long. We did our safety stop. But it still happened. Luckily the symptoms can be easily suppressed by inhaling pure oxygen. Not good on too long term (48 to 60 hrs max), it still helps to reduce the pain. So, with the help of the manager Mike, we spoke with DAN, the dive-specific insurance company. Mike arranged a boat back to Manado, where luckily 2 decompression (or hyperbaric) chambers are located. We first went to the state-owned one, since Mike had the best contacts there. All the personnel were present when we arrived, but DAN issued a veto because that centre did not have an agreement with DAN and would only accept cash payments. We had to go to the international hospital. And were forced to wait 2 days because of bureaucratic bullsh*t (excuse me my French). When we arrived, it was already around 8 PM, so personnel were already at home. The day after, the chamber was already fully booked, and payment and treatment authorisation came too late through to still allow treatment that day. The hospital had planned the treatment on Thursday 31st at 2 PM, but that was also almost jeopardized again because DAN requested a new examination to determine the treatment, because they were still under the assumption that treatment was already done day before on Wednesday. After some phone calls and e-mails, all was arranged just in time and Véro went into the hyperbaric chamber. Ice cold, but after three hours, she came back to her hospital room. Yes, I was waiting there, sleeping and being anxious on the way-too-small couch slash sleeper bed. Luckily there was a good coffee shop in the hospital’s lobby and a Dunkin Doughnuts shop across the street where we could get our shots of sugar, caffeine and breakfast… We thought Véro would be discharged still that afternoon, but that was not possible according to the hospital. After another night (now without oxygen or intravenous fluids supply) as observation, we still had to wait till noontime on Friday to receive finally the all-clear to leave the hospital.

ince after treatment in the hyperbaric chamber there is a 72 hrs no-fly prohibition, we decided to go back to the dive resort. Our bags were still there, and Mike had managed to hold our room so we could spend 2 more nights in the relaxed atmosphere of the resort. We enjoyed some pool time, lots of naps and on Sunday a boat brought us back to Manado. Due to the accident, our original plan of arriving to Ha Noi, Vietnam, on November 1st, was of course discarded. That was, however, another unpleasant side-effect and surprise from DAN: their insurance does not cover any costs for relatives due to dive-accidents. Luckily, we also both have a travel insurance with Allianz, the World Royal Protection, and we had contacted them too. Allianz agreed quickly to cover additional costs for flights and hotel. So, Allianz had booked us new flights to leave Manado on Sunday, just after the no-fly period ended and to arrive in Ha Noi on Monday afternoon, a bit later than the group from Belgium. Not nearly the best connection in the world, we had a 3 hrs sleep in an airport hotel at Jakarta airport. On Monday we flew to Singapore, where we had a 4 hours layover before our flight to Ha Noi. We tried, but failed, to visit the highest indoor waterfall in the world, since it’s located behind immigration in Singapore. We did, however, visit the butterfly garden in terminal 3. Véro took lots of pictures and was delighted to see so much small beauty fluttering around. She was even more delighted to say, even with only seeing the airport she likes Singapore already.  As the topping on the cake, our flight from Singapore to Ha Noi was in Vietnam Airlines’ business class. So, after the butterflies and the shopping we settled ourselves in terminal’s 4 business lounge and enjoyed a good cup of coffee and salads. We boarded our flight and left on time with a glass of champagne, celebrating life (Véro’s still alive and kicking), the continuance of our journey and the smaller and bigger things… On to the next part of our world trip adventure!