| 20
February 2007: Collecting Wild Birthday Orchids |
| by
Marit Wechsler
Two
important items of business before I get to the meat and bones of
my latest trip to Batbitim. First of all, I'm overhauling the website,
getting ready for ADEX in April. Soon you'll be able to browse parts
of our photo archive and click through the construction progress
from the start last summer up to the present - check back in about
a week. In order to make the site more low-bandwith friendly, I've
archived the older to their own pages, linked below. I've also added
a guestbook.
We'd love to hear your feedback. Nothing would make us happier than
if all you conservationists and dive enthusiasts use it to connect
with one other...
The
second important piece of business is that we are now actively seeking
skilled carpenters. If you (or anyone you know) are willing to trade
your skills and time for all the diving you can handle and a once-in-a-lifetime
experience, please drop us a
line post haste. Minimum engagement is one month. Terms are
negotiable if you prove yourself to be indispensable. We will fetch
you from Sorong. Please be hardworking, easygoing, and very fond
of rice and fish. |
 |
| I
arrived in Sorong on the 21st of January. Two hours later Andrew and
I boarded Helena, Wick Alliston's wooden sailboat along with two visitors,
Tom and Andre. As the sun was setting and the sky exploding slowly
into orange, we wended our way through a mangrove-edged river and
out into the harbour, keeping a sharp eye out for crocodiles. The
boat rocked me into deep dreamless sleep and I woke up as the sun
was rising with just enough time to drink a cup of tea before we arrived.
Somewhere in the blackness between Sorong and Batbitim, all the trappings
of this other life slipped away - it was as if traffic jams, deadlines,
smog warnings, computer gremlins, and commuter trains never existed.
I woke up feeling completely new. |
Batbitim
looks so different from when I last visited in September, at the
end of the dry season. The grassy hills are now a soft, lush green,
and many of the trees which were bare in September are covered
in new leaves.
The
ground is covered with new shoots and the trees in the valley
are blanketed in climbing vines. The papaya trees are flowering,
as are the frangipani trees Andrew and I planted on my last visit.
And they smell fantastic.
|
frangipani
tree we planted in September |
| The
workforce is now approaching 30 people. New staff living quarters
have been built, the kitchen has tripled in size, and there are now
three composting toilets. There's a shed for the generator, as well
as a cement mixer, a workshop, and this ingenious lever-device for
lifting and moving the heavy concrete foundations over to the dive
centre and walkway. |
| 
giant
driftwood lever |
(it
floats when the tide comes in) |
There's
also a new boat. Work on the dive shop had been outpacing the wood
supply, so we've hired a captain and his boat to cruise around the
area and haul giant fallen trees out of the nearby beaches and back
to our sawmill.
The
captain, who is quite plausibly rumoured to be 'The Fastest Man
in Papua,' is from one of the two families who own the traditional
rights to Batbitim and the surrounding islands. The boat he drives
is called a ka-pom-pom, after the sound its engine makes.
This is to be differentiated from boats with smaller engines, or
ka-ting-tings. I'm still not sure if this was Indonesian,
the local Misool language, or just a goofy joke. . . . |
the
KaPomPom and cement foundations |
Thorben working on the support for the walkway |
Thorben,
Jorg, and the guys have been making fantastic progress on the construction.
The Dive Centre's roof-rafters were added this week. They've started
work on the sundeck around the dive shop, and I can confirm that the
post-dive views will be spectacular, only to been improved by a nice
cold beer. |
The
walkway from the North Beach to the Dive Centre is also finished.
Thorben and Jorg engineered a brilliant bridge from a piece of driftwood.
Atau, the resident master of all things chainsaw, cut a massive
log in half lengthwise, then cut the notches at the proper places
to fit the foundations.
When
high tide came, all hands were on deck to help hoist the two logs
onto the foundation. From the whoops and hoots, it was clear that
everyone was very pleased with what they had made - not only is
it beautiful and elegant and clever, but it means that you don't
have to get wet every time you need to fetch a fistful of nails
from the other side of the channel! |
new
rafters on the dive shop |
Atau
cutting a log in half to make the base of the bridge |
the
two halves standing on end |
Thorben
was very very happy that the 2 sides are level |
next
step was to connect the walkway |
viola! |
Meanwhile,
another team is busy with the concrete and beach stone stairs. They're
progressing faster than anyone could have guessed - Laono, Ajiman,
and Aswan have proven themselves to be masonry all-stars.
They
completed the first segment of the stairs from the North Beach to
the summit towards the end of January, and they have now started
working from the Conservation Beach on the south side back up the
hill to meet the first branch of the path. |
Ajiman
and Aswan making the stairs |
planting
groundcover on the steep slope |
Andrew
and I busied ourselves with planting either side of the path with
fragrant and shady trees that Andrew had brought from a nursery
in Sorong. We planted some breadfruit trees, rambutans, mangos,
pomelos, frangipani, and cinnamon trees.
We
collected some good fast-spreading groundcover and transplanted
them to some of the steeper bare slopes with the hopes of securing
the soil and preventing erosion. They seem to be hanging on pretty
well and rewarded us with a burst of tiny yellow flowers about a
week after planting. |
Andrew
and I spent the morning of my birthday diving Fiabacet. It was our
first dive together in over a year and a half (not including the
'dive' we did at the Singapore Aquarium last year after ADEX!).
We've been so busy with life on land that I had forgotten just how
mind bogglingly beautiful and serene life underwater can be. I was
hoping this would be the day my gills finally revealed themselves,
but it was not to be.
We
had many more fantastic dives during my visit, checking out new
dive sites as well as getting to know all the nooks and crannies
of the house reef. I have concluded that night diving is in the
top 5 of my favourite things to do. |
| 
makeshift
dive shop |
electric
clam on the house reef |
milky
turquoise lagoon |
The
birthday afternoon was spent in terrestrial adventure mode. We took
the dinghy around the north side of Kaleg, the biggish island just
NW of Batbitim. We spotted a pair of hornbills high up in a tree,
and decided to investigate. We managed to haul ourselves out of
the sea and up some razor-sharp vertical karst outcroppings, without
shredding our skins to strips. We picked our way up and over a little
hill, with loose rocks clattering down into the sea below.
The
'ground' is so strange there - there is no soil to be seen, just
these sharp rocks piled on bigger sharp rocks, which give way under
your feet. Even stranger, there's still plenty of plants there.
|
We
proceeded down the other side of the little hill, and discovered
there a placid milky turquoise lagoon. It was about 10 meters in
diameter, with brackish water and mangroves growing on the far side,
but no visible outlet to the sea. The trees that had fallen into
the pool disappeared quickly into the murk.
The
shallows were full of bright red shrimp who took absolutely no notice
of us. It was one of those times in which you speak in whispers
so as not to shatter what is too incredible to be real. We completely
forgot about the hornbills.
|
red
shrimp in the lagoon |
| 
a
dinghy full of wild orchids |
We
continued our exploration westwards, stopping at a gorgeous lagoon
with just a wee opening to the sea. We eased the boat in between
two craggy points, and once inside all was quiet and still. And
now it was my nose's turn to be overwhelmed - the lagoon was filled
with a delicious and strong smell, sweet and slightly citrusy. A
closer look revealed that the edges of the lagoon were blanketed
in wild orchids!
Andrew
scrambled up one of the rocky faces and came back moments later
with a giant grin on his face. He presented me with a massive orchid
with a flower stalk nearly as tall as me (notice the flower stalk
that I'm holding in the photo to the left - it connects to an plant
whose roots are in the very bottom left of the photo!) The flowers
were bright yellowish-green with magenta spots. I've been given
flowers before on my birthday, but this really was something special.
We
spent the rest of the afternoon collecting a whole range of different
orchids as well as some pitcher plants. Only three or four different
types of orchids were flowering, so we're all very curious to see
what the rest look like when they flower. I can't wait to turn 30
again. |
| 
this
orchid, including the flower stalk, was nearly as tall as me |
delicate
yellow flowers with brown and red spots |
The
next few days were largely taken up with finding homes for all the
new plants. Bebi, the cook some of you may remember from Shakti,
has installed herself on the island and taken charge of the kitchen
as well as the gardening. She instructed us on the best ways to
make the orchids feel at home. We first soaked the roots in water
that had been used to wash the rice. Then we attached some to a
special sort of porous bark and then wedged the bark in holes in
the rocks or attached them to other trees. Others we planted directly
in the ground.
We
also made some new vegetable patches - we had quite a pile of watermelon
and honeydew seeds to dispose of! They sprouted within a few days
of being the ground. |
Bebi
giving us gardening lessons |
wild
pitcher plants |
The
baby black tip reef sharks are still quite at home in the bay. I
think it would be stretching the truth a bit to say they had grown
since I was gone, but it did seem that way. .. I had one especially
wonderful encounter on a night around the full moon. I woke up in
our bungalow on the south beach thinking it was morning, and once
I found my glasses, I realized it was still night - just an incredibly
bright moon. It seemed as good a time as any for a long walk on
an empty beach.
I
was walking along in ankle deep water, watching the moonlight glint
off the coconut palms in infinite variations of blue and grey. And
swimming just a meter or two from my feet was a baby black tip.
We carried on with our parallel gait for ages, until I flushed a
sleeping stingray and the two disappeared into deeper waters. It
was then that I noticed the length of the beach was dotted with
sleeping rays, one every 15-20 meters. It was like seeing an airport
from above - all the rays parked in the sand with their noses pointing
in towards the beach.
|
| There's
also a new baby bird who's made his home on Batbitim. Ayuba, one of
the workers, rescued it from a beach nearby. It hadn't yet mastered
the art of flying, and looked as though it must have fallen out of
a nest on the cliff above. It snacks on little bits of watermelon
and papaya. He practices flying between the roof of the kitchen and
some nearby trees, but seems equally happy perched on an arm or a
shoulder. |
Tom,
Bapak, and the little bird |
Andrew
on Helena |
And
then it was time to leave. We jumped on Helena again, heading SW
for Ceram. One of the workers knows some experts in alang-alang
roof construction and had offered to introduce us and show us around.
The idea was to arrive at dawn and then spend a few days chasing
up contacts, then make our way to Ambon and fly from there to Bali.
After
a night of Helena rocking to and fro, we woke up the following morning
to a familiar view - the captain had turned the boat around in the
middle of the night, thinking the waves were too big, and we were
back at the island again. It was very disappointing, though I was
very happy for a bonus day on Batbitim. Andrew and I took advantage
of our 'luck' and enjoyed one last spectacular night dive on the
house reef before setting off again the following evening, this
time north towards Sorong.
|
We
spent a few days trapped again in the Sorong-Oblong (see September
entry for more about this phenomenon), thanks to public holidays
and canceled flights. And then we were finally on our way to Bali.
Andrew and I spent days going from one shop to another, gathering
our ideas on doorknobs, showerheads, reading lamps, rattan chaise
lounges, bed frames, dining room tables, stainless steel kitchen
sinks.. . We were positively spoiled for choice in Bali! We're still
some months away from making any final decisions about the interior
details, but I think we gathered enough information to start forming
a cohesive design.
I
left Andrew as he was making his way towards Surabaya to buy rolls
and rolls of PE plumbing pipe, then to try his luck again in Ceram
looking for roofing experts. As for me, I'm back in the land of
traffic jams and deadlines...sniff...
-Marit
|
petrol
station in Bali. Or is it a bar?
|
| 
Team
Bati. |
Thorben
and Aswan
|
