Alsguth Travel Blog

Hi, let's jump right in ... How do you describe being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of fish? A picture is worth 1,000 words but a picture is really not going to convey the mayhem of being hooked onto a reef in a strong current while millions of fish school and swarm all around you.... I'm afraid it just cannot be described. The last half of our time on La Galigo was filled with great dives, beautiful sunsets and a couple of small hikes. This iconic view in Indonesia, called the Raja Ampat Islands, is actually depicted on their 100,000 bill (about $6). On our last dive the dive leader told us, in the pre-dive briefing, that there was a clam as big as he ...  100% guarantee.  Ok Ambat, whatever. We get down to the clam, which looked similar to this one below, and it was five feet long and about two feet across!  It was so big Carsten could not see it - LOL! He was looking for something small - couldn't see the forest for the trees... the visibility was not terrific at...

Hello from the middle of the Indian Ocean, specifically the Philippines Sea.  We started out in this boat after one day in Sorong, Indonesia.  There is not much to see in Sorong, mostly just divers traveling thru to get on a boat. We did take a couple of mini-buses to get to a shop.  The first had a friendly driver with 100s of fish-eye mirrors across his windshield. This bus just stops whenever folks stick their hand out and you just tell him when you want out.  It was a bit beat up and rusted. We boarded LaGaligo on Saturday morning. A couple pics from the boat. Our room is about 12x12 plus a bathroom that is about the size of our shower at home. But it is enough! Sunset is always a treat! We have seen so much diving Raja Ampat. The coral is super vibrant and healthy and the fish life is overwhelming. The schools of fish are like a cloud there are so many fish. At times you can get completely surrounded.  Turtle Shark Lionfish  Crocodile Fish. It's camouf...

Hello from Sorong, Indonesia! Flight 5 & 6 out of 18 completed this morning in stressful fashion! Ugh, Our connecting flight was cancelled, they rebooked us on a flight that boarded about the time we would land, we had to retrieve and recheck our bags and make the flight in Makassar.  It was nuts!  In the end, a guy took our bags confirming "Sorong", no bag tags - nada and we literally RAN to the gate.  I was calmly optimistic - Carsten was a hot mess.  I figured we had a 60% chance the bags would make it .... and I could do nothing about it so ....   We were super happy to see those bags! Hooray! Ok then, back to Bali for a moment. On Tuesday we had a casual day of pool time. Nothing big to report but it was relaxing! Yesterday Alex again picked us up and we were off to go Cave Tubing. This was not white-water by any stretch of the imagination but it was historically interesting for sure!  The "canal" we tubed in, with many caves - some so low we ...

Hello from Bali! We are having a short rest here before we resume diving next week. We had a long journey to get here - who knew Bali was so far from the East coast of Australia!  Oh well, we are here now! The Airbnb we rented is in Nusa Dua on the southeast coast of Bali.  It came with airport transfers so we met Alex upon arrival. We decided to take it easy and explore the hotel/apartment on Friday and Saturday. Friday evening there was a short performance for Chinese New Year. On Saturday we went to the beach.  It was super nice and quiet. Sunday afternoon Alex picked us up so that we could go to the Kekac Fire Dance.  It was on the west coast of Southern Bali.  The ampitheater was on the grounds of a temple. We ended the day with dinner on the beach at New Moon Cafe.  Yesterday Alex picked us up for a full day of sightseeing, starting with a stop at a jewelry store, we were able to watch the artisans at work. Next was a batik store, this is a type of cl...