Staying at Pokipoki at Batudaka in the Togean Islands, my nearest/only dive option was Bomba Divers at Araya Resort.
Pokipoki took me, along with Marco and Barbara, around 0800 to the dive shop after breakfast. After paperwork and fitting our gear, we were taken to nearby Pulau Taupan where we did both our dives.
The first dive was at Taupan Barat and the second at Magaya.
Both were good with nice clear waters and stunning coral on the walls. We saw cuttlefish twice (possibly my first encounters), puffer fish, needle fish and many reef fish. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera with me, being limited to 7kg of cabin luggage including laptop.
The divemaster was good, keeping an eye on the two others who had only a few dives under their belt (but were did well with buoyancy and air consumption).
The diveshop’s boatman delivered us back to Pokipoki for a slightly delayed lunch that had been kept for the three of us.
Apart from diving, we had nice conversations. I learnt that Marco’s grandparents lived in Gorontalo. They were German traders. Being German, they were imprisoned by the Dutch when Germany lost the war and sent back to Germany. They managed to find their home in Gorontalo with the help of old photos and locals.