January 11, 2026
Tahuata Chief and Viv ( one of our New Zealand Residents) discussing language similarities, after his greeting with horn.
I missed the cultural greeting the locals on Tahuata gave a bunch of our residents. Which was impressive because they just got notice about an hour before we arrived. We had to sail by Hiva Oa because the swells in the harbor were too high for our ship to safely tender us into their port. The next day the same weather made tendering into Fatu Hiva too dicey, so we went back to Nuku Hiva's sheltered cove. Regardless, we still got to see so much of these gorgeous islands! Highly recommend the trip here.
Below are 2 teens who were doing a fun TikTok dance and they invited me to join them when we were hanging out in port. So sweet!
Day 1 @ Eco Cove Resort we met this lovely young couple, Camille and Timothe from France. At the 6:30 pm nightly briefing, we found out we were randomly paired with them for the next day's excursion to the famed Melissa's Garden in the Fam Islands, which is about a 35 minutes boat ride from resort. We sat with them at dinner and instantly connected.
Getting to Cove Eco Resort on Yeben Island in Raja Ampat , Indonesia took us three plane rides, a ferry and finally a private boat ride to the resort. We left Perth, Australia on Easter Sunday Morning and we arrived at Cove Eco Resort at sunset on Tuesday night. It is a beautiful spot, but like alot of places in Raja Ampat remote and your biggest cost is fuel / transport to get there and back. We got hit especially hard for having to change our flights on Easter due to the weather we hit in Australia, delaying our departure by a day. But all is good and we are excited to be here!
Monday April 6th is another travel day for us on our destination to remote Raja Ampat . We started the day at 5am to make our 7am flight from Denpasar, Bali to Sultan Hasanuddin Airport in South Sulawesi for our brief layover to connect with our flight onto Sorong, Indonesia.