Bandaneira

We woke early to make our appointment with Pac Mann, the English teacher at one of the local public schools; we had promised to tell his class about ourselves.  He’s an enthusiastic teacher who lacked the funds to complete his university degree in Ambon; the current tuition is about 1M Rp/semester, or about $128.  The local university, which attracts itinerant teachers from Ambon, charges 350,000 Rp/semester – about $30.  As a teacher, he is paid a monthly salary of 1,200,000 Rp/month, or about $154/month.  He is well-off, comparatively, in this tiny village of Banda Neira, on the island Pulau Neira.  Four centuries ago, the Dutch, in a misguided effort to retain a monopoly on the lucrative nutmeg trade of the time, massacred the entire population of the island – an event that Pak Mann (Pak is a Bahasan title of respect, like Mister) was quick to recount on our 20 minute walk from our boat to his school.  Families have long memories on these islands.

We had a delightful time with his students.  Both Jennifer and I spent a few minutes describing our trip, and then Pak Mann turned the floor over to his class of 25 or so 11-13 year old girls.  A number of them introduced themselves in formal, accented English, and then asked questions:  Why did you come to Banda?  How old are you?  Do you have brothers and sisters?  After a time, attention spans began to wane, and Pak Mann dismissed the class, allowing us to get back to the boat for a promised appointment with Hamdi, who runs the local collective dive shop business.  He’s been in business for just two years, with the help of a start-up grant of equipment from the Indonesian government.

Not many tourists come to these islands, so business is slow.   There’s only one flight a week to and from here, maintenance conditions permitting.  The price is 350,000 Rp.  The barely more regular ferry service costs about 500,000 Rp to the same destination.  I expressed a bit of surprise at the apparently upside-down pricing scheme, but was calmly reassured that the ferry, after all, did take eight hours, while the plane just took one hour.

Pearl Farm.  Volcano Api in the back ground.

The Black Lava Flow continues under water

We dove two sites, traveling to and from the sites in a wood-planked, roughly-hewn fishing boat powered by a recalcitrant 15HP Yamaha engine.   

We had to stop at the Japanese pearl farm on the adjoining island to get our tanks filled; Hamdi’s compressor was on the fritz, and was in Jakarta for repairs.  The diving was terrific – remarkable visibility (>100 feet), with spectacular coral gardens and associated reef fish.  Our second dive, off the new lava falls from the volcano’s 1988 eruption was especially amazing, with table corals extending out 10 square meters into the “thin blue” water.   

Imagine a one-eighth inch thick lattice work of finely meshed coral, each polyp reaching horizontally to spawn another, impossibly-precarious neighbor—in effect, a wafer-thin, table-sized coral waffle, perforated rather than indented --  and, in toto, creating a vast “table top” of coral suspended across the water.  These were everywhere, and must be especially fast-growing to have reached these dimensions in just 23 years.  Their delicacy left us breathless, and called to mind the science fiction fascinations with the engineering possibilities of weightless environments.

China service!

Returning, we spent some time with Eddie, one of our dive masters, who showed us how the bark of a cinnamon tree is stripped and then rolled to create the spice.  Returning to the boat, we hosted some our new local friends, Eddie, and Irwin,  who had helped us to anchor – and then to re-situate ourselves – along with Pak Mann for afternoon tea on the ile de Grace.

Another day in Banda, where time passes, if at all, at a snail’s pace.  We rest tomorrow.