Dugongs, Whales and Rays – East Timor 13th October 2007

We have had an influx of visa runner backpackers recently, word must have got out it’s safe to come to East Timor again. If you want to get another visa for Indonesia, you must leave the country and East Timor is one of the cheapest options as it doesn’t mean paying for an international flight if you come over the border at Kupang. So many Backpackers come here and wait a week (5 working days) for their new 2 month Indonesian visa. Meanwhile they enjoy the delights of East Timor which at the moment is a superb time to visit, the water is fantastic, some of the best diving of the year as its whale season, the city is calm and becoming vibrant again, and there is the occasional low flying Blackhawk to add to the quirkiness of the place. Backpackers love it, they go out to the districts and get greeted by smiling faces, fantastic scenery and hundreds of kids shouting ‘Malai, Malai’ as they pass, coupled with 41 different nationalities of UN Police with guns patrolling the roads.

But why is it that all the backpackers look like Jesus? Wispy goatee beards, long hair, and clothes that they look like they have slept in for a week. The Timorese can’t understand how these Malai can afford to come here on an aeroplane yet cannot afford clothes! There are other cultural issues where I wish some of these ‘travellers’ would do their homework, for example bikinis are a no-no here, to a Timorese you are running around in your underwear! And public affection is also a no-no, snogging in the street is equivalent to full on sex, it’s just not done. Still, they are bringing fresh dollars into the local economy, especially the little Timorese restaurants and fruit and vegetable stalls because these guys eat cheap. I don’t suppose I was any different when I was backpacking (no goatee beard though!)

We all have been doing so much diving recently and it’s been superb. At K41, we have had a dugong for over a week and I’ve dived with it twice. One day, on the surface we had dugong, humpback whales and dolphins, the day before Wayne had seen orcas in the bay. I took a couple of Spanish tourist there who only had one day to dive. The first dive we had a huge Maori Wrasse swim right in front of us, then the second dive we had barracuda, banded pipefish, loads of unusual nudibranch, an anglerfish and then the dugong came into play twice! They were very happy divers.

K57 is also superb at the moment; this dive site can only be dived in the dry season as the Manatutu River is nearby. It’s a long way and very hot, but well worth the effort as it is a stunning wall dive. One day we saw a humpback come up three times in the bay and today, apart from nudibranch sex everywhere, we had a mobular ray, which looks like a small manta ray. I keep mentioning nudibranch, for the uninitiated these are very colourful sea slugs which divers, especially marine biologists go crazy for. At the moment this reefs are teeming with them, we are seeing unusual types and many of them are having sex. Pornography under water!

At Bob’s Rock I saw a nice big reef shark, some new nudibranch that I haven’t seen before, two leaf scorpion fish of different colours posing on a barrel sponge and a ribbon eel. Photographer’s paradise! Yesterday at this same site, in addition to the leaf scorpion fish, there was a barracuda and large black anglerfish. Then on the way home on the boat we were surrounded by a pod of dolphins that played at the bow of the boat, then started a jumping display. This delighted our clients, all of which had never seen dolphins up close in their natural habitat before.

Work is keeping me so busy that I haven’t really had time to muse over life in Dili, everything seems to be calm, the streets are busy and apart from a temporary milk and cement shortage, life is pretty normal. The only unusual thing was watching the Kiwi cops practicing the Hakka. The Kiwi contingent of the UN Police are on rotation. After six months, the old ones leave and a new batch come in, so in keeping with tradition they perform the Haka to each other on the tarmac of the airport, we watched the practice run at the Hotel Esplanada which was very entertaining.