April 7, 2026
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.
This cat was the most interesting artwork in Sultan Hasanuddin Airport but they did play a rather loud impossing Indonesian Raya at 10 am where everything stopped and people stood. The anthem is to foster nationalism, patriotism and unity, encouraging citizens to pause their activities to honor the nation's history and values.
We arrived in Sorong around 6:30 pm, checked into Aston hotel, got some dinner on their rooftop and had an early night. We had some time to walk the neighborhood this morning before leaving for the Ferry. This is the land of motor scooters! The kids were out in abundance headed to school and all want to pose for photos with big smiles and hi's!!
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.
Greetings from FREMANTLE or FREO as the locals call it! Getting here took a long week at Sea, as we hid out and dodged wave surges from two cyclone systems. Our departure from Adelaide was timed to carefully avoid the path of Cyclone Narelle and we hugged the southern coastline of Australia, in the shallow waters of the Great Australian Bight . Later in the week we sheltered near Point Culver, before taking the turn and heading North along the western coastline.