Donna McGrew
In 2018, my brother, his wife and I started talking about going to Indonesia. In 2019, we booked for November 2020, almost a full month was planned. As you might have heard, 2020 killed most trips even in the US. Well, we rebooked for fall of 2021 and then May of 2022, but no luck as 10 days of isolation on each island was not feasible. Finally, the areas we wanted to visit in Indonesia opened late summer of 2022 with no restrictions except for vaccinations.
In October of 2022, we made the trek to Orlando via car and then flew to Dubai, then to Jakarta, and on to Manado, North Sulawasi. We stopped for a seven-day dive trip to a place called Lembeh Straits. This is a well-known spot for what is referred to as muck diving. It is so much better than it sounds. We followed this by a day trip the Tangkoko Batuangus Nature Reserve and a week of diving on a liveaboard near Sarong in a place called Raja Ampat.
Every day was a new adventure: finding the creatures in