Author archive
6 August 2010
We did two dives today with Aitutaki Scuba (Neil Mitchell). The first dive was at Rapae Wall was alright. We saw a turtle float past … then another one which had been resting amongst the rock got up and took off. We also went down 28m into a canyon but there wasn’t much to see. My dive […]
5 August 2010
Shortlived Despair The noise outside in the early morning was either rustling of the coconut fronds or rain … we couldn’t tell. It was windy and gloomy with patches of blue. Then came a loud knock on our front door followed by advice that our lagoon cruise with Kia Orana had been cancelled. We lay […]
4 August 2010
We had to wake up at 0630 for the 0800 departure from Rarotonga to Aitutaki. We hadn’t thought of the “2 hour” time difference (but a day behind) when we planned to catch the early morning flight. Yawn! We got to the airport at 0715 and the place was dead. Things opened up shortly after […]
4 August 2010
We departed from Auckland at 0900 bound for Rarotonga. But it was an early set-off from the house at 0630 to avoid the Auckland traffic. But before that, I had to spend about 15 minutes on the computer as AirAsia had a sale for their new flights from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul … so I […]
3 August 2010
Above: Cook Island domain names end in “co.ck”. Due to crossing of the International Dateline we were back to Tuesday the 3rd of August! One day before we left New Zealand … We walked across the road from the small airport terminal for our overnight stay at Aquarius Rarotonga hotel. It was a tidy place […]
29 July 2010
From Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne, I managed to get 3 seats because some passengers moved. So each seat cost me about NZD10 only! For 8 hours!! I’ve always noticed that the Airbus A330 (which operated the flight) is eerily quiet, especially if you sit near the engine (ironical). Many a time I have hopped off […]
28 July 2010
I departed Banda Aceh for Kuala Lumpur at 1245. On the way to Banda Aceh airport I noticed a woman with a very short skirt on her motorbike. I queried the taxi driver if she would get in trouble … he replied to the negative, as she was Chinese and not a Muslim. While the extreme […]
27 July 2010
The Tsunami of 26 December 2004 This morning I took the ferry from Pulau Weh to the mainland and checked into a hotel for the night. I chose to take in some of the reminders of the tsunami which killed 170000 people in Aceh but, not the mass graves which are available for visits. The tsunami […]
26 July 2010
My Two Dives I did two dives today with Lumba Lumba Dive Resort, as planned … but not quite. The manager suggested that I do a refresher dive as I wasn’t highly experienced (15 dives) and it had been about 9 months since my last dive. Of course I suspected this was at an extra cost […]
26 July 2010
My Two Dives I did two dives today with Lumba Lumba Dive Resort, as planned … but not quite. The manager suggested that I do a refresher dive as I wasn’t highly experienced (15 dives) and it had been about 9 months since my last dive. Of course I suspected this was at an extra cost […]