December 16, 2025
After Mass on Sunday, I traveled across the island with friends to enjoy the Return to Paradise Resort. The ride took about an hour and unfortunately, it was pouring rain the whole time. So our day pass vision of relaxing pool and beach side, got replaced with day drinking yummy cocktails and playing Phase10 cards in a beachside palapa. They filmed a movie here in 1953 and this remains one of the nicest resorts on the islands of Samoa.
We did get a break in the weather around 5 pm so we quick jumped in for a dip and then cleaned up and went to our dinner reservation at 6 pm and the driver came back for us at 7pm to get us back to the ship around 8pm. A fun day despite the rain!
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.
Easter turned out to be a travel day for Bosco and I as we were extremely limited in when we could be seen by the Australian Border Control to disembark from the Ship, for a scuba diving adventure in Raja Ampat that I have had reserved, for over 18 months! We flew from Perth to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia on Easter afternoon.
I have been really excited to get to Fremantle / Perth for my first time. I have had a few friends live here over the years and I have a second cousin, James Murphy, who I have only ever spoken too briefly, over the last 35 years and that I would love to meet in person. Jim is the older brother of Paul who I met up with in Melbourne a few weeks ago.