To be fair, we met a lot of wonderful Angmoh divers and luckily, this bunch of seven Germans are probably the best angmoh companion we had ever been.
When we found out that there are seven of them, two of us, and only one dive master, we were prepared to experience the worst. First dive, I was pleasantly surprised, they were grazing gracefully underwater without much effort and certainly had good diving practice. I had never seen buddy practice as diligent as their group. They stayed together, never separated from their buddy regardless many scenario they could have been separated when we were there. Lost buddy, strong current, deco warning, no. They stayed put and taking care of each other very well.
They were also pleasant and friendly to be with. Upon the first handshake, when the smiles broke, we were welcomed to their group. What I like most from them, they were not chatty group in the boat. Eventhough divers are easiest to bond, we have many things to talk about due same hobby, but sometimes it’s exhausting when someone held you captive and talked too much in one way conversation about their glorious divings. Unless it’s two ways mutual conversation where you can ‘click’. Here, we all loved to enjoy the surrounding, we scattered around, sat on the deck, side, read books or lounging on the roof top in the afternoon. So it’s kind of silent pleasant companions for us. If I thought I couldn’t wait for them to go home before I met them, I was then thinking I would miss their companions on last diving days when they had already gone back.
The diver that impressed me the most was Piers. He told us he had less than 40 dives on his belt but he was diving like a very experienced divers. Calm and collected, very good buddy practice, great buoyancy, graceful skill of saving Andreas’s mask and very enthusiastic diver, he never ever missed a dive. Normally almost everyone would sit out on the third dive, except us, some only dived on alternate day. But not him, he never sat out of a dive, not even when all his buddies stayed on the boat. And they were already there one and a half week before we joined them! That is probably the enthusiastic that only me can appreciate. I understand the passion and had only sat out few dives. One in Bali, a night dive on the same spot after we experienced crazy down current in the day. I regretted it the most. I admire the friend who still dived when we all sat out, she was very happy with her pictures as the reward. The Sunday dive in Pulau Dayang after we did five dives in Saturday which I don’t regret because it was so crowded you see more divers than fish and we had nice relaxing time drying our gear on the land. I think that was the last weekend dive we went. It’s far too commercialized for our liking now. And the day in Tioman where I was stung badly on the neck by something I didn’t know, it created horrible rash and pain and the scars lasted for probably more than a month.
Anyway, all of them had good diving practice and knew their own limitation and preference.
Tom the crazy one went with the local villagers to climb a volcano after he skipped a day of diving. Speaking barely few words of Indonesian, didn’t know what to expect, after Thomas told him there was a possibility of him meeting cannibal tribe (Thomas never bluff, I believe him) he was gone for three days and went back safely. When we asked him how was his trip, his eyes lit up and he told us he had perfect and wonderful experience, the local brought him up the volcano and stayed a night, then he went to remote beach that has the remain of 40 meter whale skeleton that was beached long time ago, he said he had the most amazing time. I asked him if he had been to Rinjani since he loves trekking. He said yes, he went there few years ago and he had great climb. Wow, Rinjani is such a far destination for him, means his passion for trekking was really really huge. If foreigners can appreciate the beauty of Indonesia that much, why won’t we? Of course not everyone would fancy Rinjani but we had so much other things to offer. I think it’s much cooler for me when someone is going Roti, or Waingapu for holiday instead of Europe or America. And we are not that far. And we speak their language. And we understand the money. And we are used to the food. Aroooooo?!
Anyway, when Tom was not back on the second day, the rest only joked that he was probably had made into soup by locals. For adventure s spirit, I have to give it to Angmoh. I don’t think I’m that comfortable to go to foreign country and wandering alone, especially those that doesn’t have very good safe reputation and just immersed themselves with the locals and get lost somewhere they don’t even know. Fascinating. Anyway, Tom is probably the smiliest person we had ever met. We never, for a second, see the smile left his face. He smiled when he was stung by something. He smiled when his camera was almost drown. He smiled when he helped picking everyone fins when he didn’t dive. Hubby said he looks like Chandler Bing, with more smiles and happy face. I want to always be that happy too.
Oliver is a big guy and he was actually very funny and always cracking jokes when we happened to have dinner on their last day in the town. They invited us to join them in suckling pig party, arranged by Thomas. We were the only outsiders invited, after spending two weeks with them, even with very limited conversation, we grew comfortable with each other. So we finally got to joke and talk with everyone in dinner setting, eating the delicious but too much too many suckling pig. Oliver likes to dive in current apparently, but Carlyn his wife hates it. Oliver like pelagic diving, Carlyn prefer macro diving. So we scratched our head about where we could recommend the good dive destination for them. Maybe Sipadan? He also commented that he was impressed with my diving; staying very close to the reef without touching it, maneuver every single moment correctly. Shameless to type it in, but it was a compliment that I appreciate a lot. He he he he he he he he he
They also commented that before they knew about macro, they were confused about why we always grazing on the seabed or corals instead of like them, looking for big fish in the blue. Now they knew. No wonder we didn’t really look impressed when one of them bothered to show us crocodile fish. : )
Oliver's comment about local alcohol (tuak, I think it was Thomas who brought it in mineral water bottle for them) cracked us up. He said it looked just like Hausriff water. (Hausriff is house reef, it's on of the dive site where the water was murky as it's near the pier and there were a lot of rubbish on the surface. Muck-diving style).
We bonded with Ramona, who is newlywed, wife of Piers, because apparently she is new to their group and she couldn’t communicate well with them. She is from France, while they were all from Germany. They could speak English but not too well while Ramona doesn’t understand German well. She asked us suggestions about where they could go next, being interested with Menado. We told them what we knew with recommendation of other diving places we had been. There was one dive when three of us happened to sit together, side by side, and Thomas had forgotten that there were three non-Germans there. He called out his one, two, three, go in German when we were supposed to do back roll. We knew what he was doing, but not certain when he started counting. So on what seemed like a count of three, everyone was out of the boat, three of us looked at each other for a split seconds and quickly joined them. It was quite funny. No? Huh..
Ully was also a happy person, we didn’t have much chance to talk to him compared to the rest. But we knew he lost his underwear on the boat. On their last day on boat he was prancing around like confused spider looking for something. So we asked Andreas who was helping him what he was missing, maybe we could help too. Andreas shook his head, grinned, sighed and said ‘underwear’.
Some of these angmohs actually bother to change into their swimsuit before diving and changed back after every dives. For us, we didn’t even bother to take off the wetsuit.
Andreas was another macro enthusiast and he really did a good job arranging the trip for all of them. Been there and I know it’s not always fun arranging trips, even for friends especially ungrateful ones. He actually had quite impressive diving experiences, having been to Lembeh, some part of Philippine etc. Remember, Lembeh and Alor for them are probably some other ulu European villages for us. It’s damn far.
Everyday, all of us except Ramona who always sat in front, were cramped in the back of the open pick-up, just like a group of animals going to slaughter house. I don’t say it was comfortable, but it was fun. The five minute rides to and from hotel was no way smooth, the roads were irregular and Tom put it best when he adviced us not to sit at the edge of the lorry.”Thomas is not very sensible driver.”
So half of the angmohs would stand up, holding on to the lorry’s front, the rest would squat around trying not to fall down. The standing ones would need to duck their heads one in a while to avoid hitting tree branches along the way. As the result, we, who also squatted or sat in the back area, were treated to row of backside’s scenery during the ride. Every time we passed by the terminal and market, the kids would shout,”Hey mister! Hey mister!” upon seeing the Germans.
Nice companions.
Oliver told us, in German, they believe that they would meet someone at least twice in their life. So we wish each other well and probably we would meet someday, in good place, good time, hopefully another great diving trips. Nice meeting you. Same here.
Ramona and Piers even said we will be welcomed in their house should we visit Europe one day. They have beautiful old house near the boundary of Germany and France. It’s really really very nice of them. We exchanged contact and we’ll be glad to connect them to any dive operator we know if anytime they want to come back to Indonesia for diving, which they plan to do for at least few years to come.
So long great companions. Wish you all great life and great dives. And I hope the German’s belief is true.
