Pulau Derawan...(Derawan Island, pt. 2 of 2)

As noted in my previous post...my comrade Isaac Rogers took some nice pictures of our time in Derawan as well and he's allowed me to share some of them here.  Above, he snapped a quick shot of some of us getting ready to get in the water.  Derawan island was so fun.  We literally walked one minute from our "hotel" room and we were in the water.  The lodging available on the island was very simple, but we weren't there for the accommodations; we were there to see what was under the water!

Again, I had never been snorkeling.  But I'm hooked now.  I can't wait to go again and see what else might be lurking.

Of all of the clown fish that we saw near their anemones, they were all very aggressive and defensive of their space.  Those little guys were brave!

As I'm trying to photograph the clown fish, Isaac was able to capture the clown fish "charging" me and trying to scare me away.

I have no idea what kind of fish this is.  Notice it's false eye at its rear.  What intricate design and colors!

Thankfully, Isaac loaned me his extra gardening gloves.  Coral is super rough and sharp.  Without a set of gloves, there is no way I could have held onto the coral while underwater.

This is one of the many eels we saw while searching nooks and crannies in the coral reef.  Such creepy creatures.  The biggest one we saw had to have been 8+ feet long!

Another lion fish on patrol.  When these fish put all of their fins out, it was quite a display of awesomeness.  They seemed to know that no body messes around with them.

One afternoon, we took a quick boat trip to another nearby island called Kakaban.  It was a totally different type of reef compared to Derawan.  It even had a drop off  that went down a LOOOOONG way just like in the movie "Finding Nemo."  Seeing larger fish, feeling super heated currents due to underlying magma, as well as visiting the isolated lake in the middle of the island filled with thousands of stinger-less jellyfish, was a great privilege.

The array of colors that we saw while snorkeling was unbelievable.  Trying to photograph an environment that is constantly moving is really hard too!  Many times, you see something you want to photograph, and by the time you're ready to take the shot...the fish is gone!

I have no idea what this is.  But we gently removed it and released it into the sea only to see all of its arms begin to beautifully swim as it tried to find another place to anchor itself.  Inside of this bizarre creature were a pair of VERY colorful lobster type crustaceans, about as long as half of a pencil.  Everything it seemed, was living in a symbiotic way under the sea.

One of the highlights of Derwawan, were the numerous green sea turtles we saw.  Each of them had a personality, and many of them would allow us to approach them, while others would swim away, wanting nothing to do with us.

The one in the above picture was patient with us and almost seemed to like having his shell rubbed.  It was awesome to see these turtles swim so gracefully and quickly when needed.  We even got to see a female lay her eggs one night right in front of our hotel room.  Such a privilege!

Happy New Year everyone!

Pulau Derawan...(Derawan Island, pt. 1 of 2)

This past October, the pilots from our PalangkaRaya base had to travel to another MAF base called Tarakan for a meeting.  Some of our Tarakan teammates were organizing a trip to the island of Derawan while we were there, so we went along.  It was AMAZING!  I had never been snorkeling before and I can't wait to go again.  My brain is still trying to absorb all of the amazing things I saw under water.  God's creation is so inexplicably amazing!

This is where I saw my teammate Isaac almost the whole time; somewhere under the surface taking photos.  In my next post, I'll share with you some of Isaac's pictures.  In my opinion, his photos turned out better than mine so I asked his permission to share some of them on the blog.  Underwater photography is challenging.

We had numerous visual encounters with the species above, the lion fish.  From afar, they are beautiful, but you don't want to touch their fins.  They are extremely poisonous.

I could have never dreamed all of the different shapes, sizes and colors of the fish and coral life.  Everywhere I looked I saw something I had never seen before.  What a privilege!

Even the stuff growing on the pillars was cool.  Big sponges, large leafy branch things, most of what I saw I have no idea what it is called!

The view above the water was great too.  We were treated to pretty good weather, and walking around the very tiny island of Derawan was a real pleasure.

I'm a country boy from Colorado.  So, I was, and still am, very much in awe of the Ocean.  What an amazing environment.

We saw lots of different types of sea anemones.  And, just like the movie "Finding Nemo" they all had clown fish in them.  So cool!

This anemone had little baby clown fish in it.  These little guys were about as big as your pinky finger.

Right under this large anemone with the little clown fish, was this eel, just sitting there staring at me.  Eels are so creepy!  We saw a HUGE one on one of our night snorkels.  So much to see at nighttime.  It's a whole different environment all together!

I couldn't believe the size and color patterns of all of the clams.  The yellow and brown one above is about as big as a turkey.  The blue one at the bottom of the picture was about as big as a dinner plate.  There was another one that I could never take a good picture of or capture it's scale; but it was as big as an ATV!!!  So awesome!

From the Logbook...Field Trip, Merauke, Papua (4 of 4)

When we showed back up in the village with cement and fuel, the locals all pitched in to help unload the very heavy cargo.

By placing the concrete sacks on their backs, they then carried them almost a mile to the nearby village.  That is very hard work!

Our cargo load also consisted of a fuel drum.  We had to cut a small tree down in order to roll the drum down into the river.  Because fuel is lighter than water, the drum just floated in the river once it got down there.

Living in interior locations is nothing short of hard.  Everything you do is coupled with sweat, mud, biting insects, and tropical heat.  But, there are still amazing people that endure those things so that others might find Hope and understand a deeper meaning of Love.  It is very inspiring and and it was an honor to be able to serve those saints living in the jungle that day.

Several people lined up to float the fuel drum down the river.  You could tell it was a lot of fun.  The fuel was going to be used to run generators, chain saws and other machinery.  It's logistical things like this that are so easy to take for granted when we can just pull up to a fuel station and get what we need.  I was only in Papua for about 4 days and my trip was extremely valuable and eye opening.  I'm grateful to have been able to make that trip, and I can't wait to see how it will pay off in the near future when we also begin operating a similar aircraft.

From the Logbook...Field Trip, Merauke, Papua (3 of 4)

One of the highlights of my trip, was taking the BIG Caravan float plane to a very small interior river to pick up a missionary family, and then take them to the Central Papua highlands to the town of Wamena.

Our flight through the mountains was gorgeous.  It's hard to believe, but there are literally airstrips EVERYWHERE scattered throughout the mountains.  If you look closely in the middle of the plateau above, you will see a small airstrip carved from the surrounding forest.

Upon landing in Wamena at over 5000 feet above sea level, I opened the door of the airplane and for the first time in my Indonesian experience, cool, crisp air entered the cockpit; not hot, sticky, and humid air.  The weather in Wamena was wonderful.  However, from a pilots perspective, it can also be VERY challenging to fly safely there.  You can see how large the amphibian Caravan looks compared to its stable mates, the Caravan on wheels and a Quest Kodiak.

From the highlands of Wamena, after dropping off our passengers, we returned to the lowlands of the Papua South coast with a load of fuel and cement.  More on that in another post...

From the Logbook...Field Trip, Merauke, Papua (2 of 4)

During my time in Papua, I was able to see a variety of environments and operational situations that I can't even consider with our current piston aircraft.  I'm really excited for a turbine aircraft to arrive in PalangkaRaya in the future.

Tom, the pilot, always flies with a "swamper," or helper.  The man in the solid blue shirt is named Bobi and he was an amazing assistant to a very competent pilot.

This is a scene I just don't see at the places I serve in Borneo.  It was interesting not only to see different people, but also how they live along the river banks compared to their Indonesian brothers in Borneo.  They take two very different approaches to house construction, fishing styles, and even canoe construction.

One thing that seems always present in an MAF pilot's day, are the kids that turn up to see the airplane.  Lots of cute kids came out to see all of the action in the south coast of Papua, just like they do in Central Borneo, and Southern Mexico, and the Amazon of Ecuador where we have also served with MAF.

From the Logbook...Field Trip, Merauke, Papua (1 of 4)

Earlier this month, I had a wonderful opportunity to travel from Central Borneo to Merauke, Papua in order to observe our other MAF base that operates a float plane there.  We are hoping to have a new, turbine aircraft at our location some time at the end of 2014, so I went to see what I could learn from our colleagues in Papua about how they operate their turbine float plane.  I came back with a TON of great information!

Papua is a beautiful place!  Some of the places we went looked just like the places I visit with the float plane in Borneo.  Other places were very different indeed.

The culture and people groups in Papua are wildly different from who I'm accustomed to seeing in Borneo.  It was hard to believe I was still in Indonesia at times.

The Cessna Caravan that I was flying in was a great airplane!  It's basically like the BIG brother of the smaller Cessna 185 that I've been flying for the past few years.

Tom, one of the pilots at the Merauke base shared a lot of valuable information with me.  It was great to learn from someone with more experience than me.

From the Logbook...Jujang Parit

In early December, one of our pilots and I went to a village called Jujang Parit.  Our purpose was two fold.  I wanted to check Isaac out into this village and then he would go to a few surrounding villages to gather some pastors and bring them back for a large pastors conference.  Above, Isaac is making his first solo takeoff after making a few landings and takeoffs with me.  Can you say little airplane, big jungle?!

The surrounding area of Jujang Parit is beautiful.  The surrounding mountains coupled with the beautiful jungle provide for a memorable scene.

While Isaac went and gathered up the other pastors from the area, I stayed behind for a few hours in the village.  I am still completely astonished by how hard life is for them there and how different it is from mine.

Because we were so far from home in PalangkaRaya, we had to bring some extra AvGas with us to help us get home.  Thankfully, the local kids were a great help transporting the jerry cans from one dock to another.

About 2 hours after departing, Isaac returned with a load of pastors and their families.  Although our airplane is small, it sometimes amazes me how many people we can safely get into it.  Without the airplane that day, the pastors would have never been able to get together that day for their week long conference.  They all live on separate river systems, separated by unforgiving terrain and jungle.  It was a pleasure to be able to partner with them that day.