The Flying Helminskis are taking flight...

For anyone who either didn't see it via Facebook or over email from us, we made a little announcement recently. The Flying Helminskis next destination will be....?

Germans! Diving! Turtles! (Lion)fish!

As I said at the end of our last post, after our time with the dragons, Gloria had to go back to Jakarta to make that sugar momma money, while Sven, Miriam, and I continued on to Bunaken Island in North Sulawesi for some diving. Bunaken is a small island in the Northern part of Indonesia. Fun fact: it's actually in the Northern Hemisphere, while most of the rest of Indonesia is in the Southern Hemisphere. So yeah, we equator hopped. No big deal.

Expertly rendered map of Indonesia. I'm a pro.

Before I continue, a little background on Bunaken: it is a small island on the Northern tip of Sulawesi. It only measures about 890 sq. km. in area, so it's quite small. It's mostly known for diving and is recognized as one of the top dive destinations in the world. Bunaken is most famous for its steep coral walls, which drop several hundred feet deep into the ocean. They are spectacularly beautiful, as you'll see (teaser!).

So, as you can guess we were here to do some diving. We were staying at Living Colours Dive Resort, which I can't recommend highly enough. The place is awesome. Upon arrival in Manado, we were taken via boat to the resort. As we approached it, all we could see were mangroves and beautiful, clear water.

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A quick turn into the resort and it opens up to be everything you'd imagine.

The first thing you see: the bar

The dive shop

Steps leading up to the rooms and dining area

Communal dining area

My room, hammock included! Also included: lots of Geckos on the walls at night. Bonus!

The resort is beautiful. It's built into a hillside overlooking the ocean, and it's a very communal place, with daily buffet style meals where everyone eats together and mingles. Good stuff.

But let's face it. You want to hear about the diving, right? Right. Ok off we go!

Our chariot. Also known as a dive boat.

Diving here is ridiculous. It's like being in an aquarium. 

Yes, this is real. I took this picture. Hard to believe.

There is so much beautiful coral and millions of fish. It's insane. Plus the water here is so clear. I've never seen anything like it. We did a couple dives every day for a few days, plus some snorkeling. It was sick.

See all those things around us? Yeah, those are fish.

All of the dives were along the coral walls, which are amazing. Basically as you go out in the ocean, the coral extends out a few hundred ft., down to a depth of about 15 ft.. Then, the coral walls drop off and go several hundred feet down. It's crazy.

Just to give you an idea of the scale of the walls. Incredibly big. And yes, the water really is that blue.

I'm diving!

See that in the middle of the sun? That's Miriam snorkeling at the surface while we were diving. Crazy visibility.

After our first dive. Faces of pure happiness.

On day 2 we did a really cool dive. We first jumped in like normal and swam along the top of the coral. But then we came upon a hole in the coral and swooped over the top of it and down the hole (which was essentially just the edge of the wall). In hindsight it doesn't sound all the exciting, but at the time it felt cool.

The "hole" in the coral"

We also did a bunch of snorkeling and saw all kinds of cool stuff. But, it's hard to do the experience justice in words and photos, so I also made a video to try to show you what it was like. Check it out!

Ultimately, this was the best diving I've ever seen, and it was a fantastic way to cap off the trip with Sven & Miriam. I feel so fortunate to have such great friends with whom to share these experiences. My only wish was to have Gloria join us as well. That was the only thing that would have made it better. I'm a very lucky man to have a wife who supports me while I galavant off doing these crazy things. What can I say? Life is great, and my wife is even better. 

There's dragons in them hills

After our adventures with the forest people, we headed off for a couple days of trekking with some dragons.

Hmm, not quite.

Umm, sort of....

I'm talking about these dragons:

Yep, we were going out to check out Komodo Dragons. Off we went!

Despite the small plane, this was the smoothest flight we had the entire trip

We flew into Labuan Bajo and since the best time to view the dragons is in the morning, we went straight to Flores harbor and out to Rinca island.

Captain Gloria leading the way!

Wait, Rinca? What about Komodo island? Allow me to explain:

Rinca is a small (ish) island near Komodo island and is very similar to it in that it is most known for the presence of Komodo Dragons. But it is different in a very important way: it is less known and less visited than Komodo island, which makes it an excellent place to see the dragons in the wild. Plus, from Flores it's a much shorter trip to to Rinca than it is to Komodo.

The red path on the map shows approximately the path we took. As you can see Komodo Island is much further. After a lovely boat ride (the ocean was glassy & calm), we started our dragon trek.

We weren't exactly sure what to expect, but we were hoping to see some dragons. All I really knew was that the dragons can get quite big, and can be deadly. That and I know James Bond threw a bad guy to a dragon in Macau. SKYYYYFAAAALLLLLLLL!!!

All joking aside, the dragons are very impressive. They are the largest living species of lizard, and can grow to a length of 3 meters (~10 ft.) and a weight of up to 150 lbs. Plus (and most interestingly in my opinion), they have toxic saliva. They have 2 glands in their lower jaw that secrete several different toxic proteins that are known to cause the following: inhibition of blood clotting, lowering of blood pressure, muscle paralysis, and induction of hypothermia. Basically, if  Komodo bites you, it's going to ruin your weekend. But it's not always lethal. Our guide told us he has actually been bitten more than once and was still alive to talk about it. So, while they are extremely dangerous creatures, apparently you can survive a bite if you're able to get treatment immediately. We weren't planning on putting that theory to test.

Speaking of our guide, a quick note. You'd think the guides would be armed with some kind of dragon repellent or something to protect against any aggressive dragons. You'd be wrong. The guides have a stick. Seriously.

This is my dragon stick and I'm not afraid to use it!

I can see how it might be useful to fend off a dragon for a bit, but even the guide said that it would be basically useless if the dragon did decide to attack. Armed with this confidence-bolstering knowledge, we started our trek.

For the first hour or so, we saw lots of beautiful scenery that both Gloria and I thought looked a lot like Southern California, but no dragons.

We did come across a few spots where some buffalo had rooted around in a mud pit, and we saw a deer. Even at the nesting area we didn't see anything. But, as we approached the end of our trek, we saw something.

Boom! Dragon!

We found a dragon friend! This one was just hanging out about 10 ft. off the side of the path. It wasn't moving around much and was pretty much just laying around (which is pretty typical in the afternoon heat).

It's a dragon!

Another 10 minutes down the path and we came back into camp, and.... wow!

These were laying all around one particular building in camp. Turns out that's the kitchen, and the dragons can smell the food cooking. This was so crazy to me. Take a look at this.

If you look closely you can see 4 dragons on the right, and another 2 under the building on the left, which happens to be right where the stairs are. It seems so nuts to me. People walk in and out of the kitchen all day, just a few feet away from a whole mess of dragons. But, that's just part of daily life here.

We made it out without any dragon attacks and hopped on the boat to our hotel. We were in for a treat. The skies had the perfect blend of clouds and clear sky to give us another spectacular sunset.

Our hotel was also really cool. It's built into the hillside and is only accessible by boat. We actually had to hop out of the boat a bit offshore due to low tide.

We had great views of the ocean from our balcony.

The light at sunset was this really cool blueish-purple

I also shot another (very brief) time lapse. Still don't have the settings quite figured out. Too dark at the end and had to adjust everything up, which made the beginning too bright. Ah well, slowly but surely I'm getting better at it.

Gloria also made friends with the hotel owners' baby. Pardon the blurry pic, but it shows the joy in the moment. 

On day 2, we headed back to Rinca again. This time we left at 6 AM so we could be there in the morning when the dragons are generally more active. Unfortunately my leg injury wasn't appreciating all the walking we had been doing, and I wasn't able to go on the trek. So I stayed on the boat while Gloria, Miriam, and Sven hiked the island again, and our efforts to get up early were rewarded. There were more dragons in the wild, and they were much more active. 

This one was by a maintenance shed

At the dragon nest

They also came across a big buffalo, who was not thrilled to see them.

This is my mud hole!

But the real thrill came a few minutes later. They came upon a boulder, and on top of the boulder was this:

It's so cute & cuddly!

That is a huge dragon. It was one of the 3 meter, yes it will eat you, higher on the food chain than us varieties of dragon. Crazy. This thing is huge, and the guide was in front of it getting a good picture. Insane.

After the dragon trek, it was time for some snorkeling.

This region is known for great snorkeling, and it didn't disappoint. Beautiful sunlight, tons of coral, and thousands of fish.

And with that, our dragon hunting adventures came to close. That makes 2 animals on this trip that only exist in the places we saw them. So damn cool!

After Komodo, Gloria unfortunately had to go back to Jakarta and go back to work. Meanwhile, Sven, Miriam, and I headed up to Bunaken Island in North Sulawesi for some world class diving. Those details coming up in part 3...

Hanging with the forest people

As we move through life, often we don't appreciate things as they happen, and it's only later that we look back to remember and appreciate them for what they were. But every now and then, if we are fortunate, we experience something that moves us in the moment it happens. A few weeks ago we had exactly that happen to us, so hopefully this post conveys that feeling.

My best friend Sven and his wife Miriam came out from Germany to visit us for an epic Indonesian journey. We would spend 4 days living on a boat and visiting Orangutan sanctuaries in the jungle in Kalimantan, Borneo, then head over to Komodo Island for 3 days to see some dragons, and then go up North to Sulawesi (Northern Indonesia) for 5 days of scuba diving. There's too much to cover in one post, so I'm splitting it up. Part 1: Orangutans in Borneo

Sven and Miriam arrived on a Sunday, and the next day we flew to Kalimantan to find our floating home for the next 4 days. The boat was a Klotok, which is a traditional Indonesian river boat. Per Wikipedia: "The boat's name refers to the noise it makes, "klok tok tok tok." Ours was about 12 meters long, and was named One Piece.

One Piece Boat! (which is much better than 2 or 3 piece boat - it floats better)

It may not look like much, but the boat was awesome. On the upper deck we had a table & chairs, a couple lounge chairs on the front deck, and at night they put out mattresses and mosquito nets for us. On the lower deck was a bathroom with a shower (bonus!), the kitchen, and the crew's quarters.

Gloria & Miriam enjoying a cup of tea

The kitchen, where they managed to cook AMAZING meals

Through that door is the crew's quarters

One of our awesome crew members

Before I continue I want to take a minute to acknowledge our guide and crew. I booked through a guy named Fardi who was fantastic. He hooked us up with our guide Amil, the captain, and 2 staff members who were simply amazing. I can't recommend them highly enough, so if anyone is ever considering this trip, I will get you his contact information.

As I was saying, after boarding the boat we headed out, full of hope and excitement.

Just after leaving the harbor. 

Notice the lack of sweat or swampiness. That will change.

After a few minutes on the rather large Kumai river, we turned into the much smaller Sekonyer River. This would be our home for the next few days. To give you a sense of exactly where we were, here's a little video I put together.


It's hard to express the beauty and seclusion of this place. It seriously looks like a scene from a movie. Flat, serene water surrounded by 10-20 ft. tall jungle plants, with the sounds of the jungle all around us.

We came across locals fishing,

the occasional navigational aid,

Safety first. Yes, there really were turn signs in a few places along the river. Too funny.

and we passed by a local village.

As we continued up river toward the first Orangutan area, we kept a lookout for wildlife along the river. We weren't disappointed. Within the first hour we started seeing something up in the trees and bushes along the river. When we got a bit closer we saw it was a bunch of Long Nosed Proboscis Monkeys.

Yo. What you lookin at?

These guys would become a daily sight for us, and they never disappointed. First of all, they're endemic to Borneo, so this the only place in the world where you can see them in the wild. How cool is that? Plus (and way more entertainingly), they are crazy. They are seriously good climbers (we saw they up in trees over a 100 ft. tall every day), and they can leap like crazy. We'd see them jumping from tree to tree, a hundred or more feet in the air. Here's a little taste of what I mean.



This monkey was WAY high up in a tree. And seriously, look at how he lets go with one hand as he's flying around to get a better grip. Daredevils! So much fun to watch.

After the fun with the big nosed guys, it was off to our first Orangutan feeding. But before that, a little info from our good friend Wikipedia again: Orangutans are the two exclusively Asian species of great apes, and are native to Indonesia and Malaysia. In fact, they are currently only found in the rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra (how unreal is it that we got to see so many animals that are only found in these parts of the world?!). Their name comes from the Indonesian and Malay words Orang and Utan, meaning person and forest respectively. So the name Orangutan means person of the forest. Pretty cool huh? Orangutans are also extremely smart, but they can be mischievous (more on that later). They are really interesting creatures.

The area to which we were headed is the Tanjung Puting National Park. It is a huge conservation area (over 4,000 sq. km.) and is home to Camp Leakey, which is one of the most famous Orangutan sanctuaries and rehabilitation centers in the world. Since 1971 over 200 Orangutans have been returned to the wild through the efforts of those at Camp Leakey. They're really doing some great work there.

But, before Camp Leakey, we stopped off at another feeding site first.

The feeding area is about a 10-15 minute walk back into the jungle, and since we were in the rainforest, it started raining on us. Luckily our guide brought umbrellas, which kept us dry. But they also provided a nice shelter from the rain for the mosquitos. Oh the mosquitos. I've been in muggy, bug infested areas in the middle of the woods before, but it was nothing like this. Jungle rainforest mosquitos are extra strength, bite you through 2 or 3 layers of clothing bugs. Nasty little suckers. But, we had our malaria meds so we continued on. We had apes to see. And apes we did see!

The Orangutans are no dummies and they know when feeding time is. As we were walking toward the feeding area, we saw a few of them just hanging out up in the trees.

Bring me my food!

I see you down there

Heeeeeeeyyy!!

Enjoying the view?

Notice the big cheek pads on these guys? Those are a result of testosterone. Apparently as they male Orangutans age and testosterone increases, the cheek pads grow bigger. Generally the dominant males have very large cheek pads.

The Orangutans have a fairly organized structure in that there is one dominant male who gets to eat first. If that one dominant male isn't present though, the larger males in the area will generally go first. We saw two large males here, but not the dominant one. As such, they were very cautious and took their time to survey the area to make sure the dominant male wasn't around. Here we see one of the large males about to head for the bananas.

Let's take a closer look.



Notice how the big guy comes in by himself? And how the other Orangutan comes up, but is very careful and only gets on the very edge of the platform? It's an interesting dynamic. Did you also notice at the end that the second Orangutan really stuffed her face? This was a common theme and we loved it.

Say chubby bunny

We hung out and watched them feed for a good hour or so. It was incredible to see them in the wild. So amazing.

Then we headed back to the boat and chugged up river for another hour or so.

Captain Gloria says no icebergs here

Spectacularly beautiful. The sunset is nice too. Hiyo!

Then our expert crew docked us for the night (which consisted of tying the boat off to some of the HUGE plants along side the river), and we settled in.

Day 2 begins and we head further up the Sekonyer river and then branched off on a smaller river toward Camp Leakey.

Boating is soooo hard

One thing we noticed is that the water changed from a murky brown color to a dark black water. Our guide told us that the murky brown is actually really polluted due to upstream mining, and the dark black is very clean. Sad really, but it's a fact of life here.

Also, it was around this time that we started introducing Sven & Miriam to the term "swamp ass". Living in the jungle is extremely hot & sweaty, and after going a full day in it with no shower we were all feeling a little extra funky. Good times! But,  as tempting as it was to jump in the clean river to cool off, we didn't for one very important reason. Alligators. This river is known to the locals as Alligator River, so yeah, no swimming.

After an hour or so we arrived at Camp Leakey, and were greeted at the dock by Sisui.

Give me some candy!

Sisui is one of the older Orangutans living at Camp Leakey, and she's also one of the more mischievous. Apparently she had attacked someone the previous day, but it's not as bad as it sounds. Basically, she tried to take someone's bag, and they tried to keep it from her. Being an animal, she responded as animals do, and bit the person. Not a great situation, but you have to remember you're on their turf. After an uneventful passage by Sui Sui, we made our way into camp.

The camp is up in the distance along the path

Just before camp, we met Gita and her Mom Gara.

This was just a taste of what we were in for. A couple minutes later we made our way into camp and met Thor and his mom Tut Tut.

This is Thor. Looks ferocious.

Thor was playing around in the trees while Mom hung out a few feet away.

Incoming!!!!

Are you taking my picture?

This is when the branch he was hanging onto broke and he smacked his butt on the ground. Doh! 

Thor was not feeling all the pictures and decided he needed to get our cameras from us. Here he is trying to grab Sven's camera.

I said no pictures!

Just a couple apes playing around. 

We arrived at camp in the morning and feeding wasn't until afternoon, so we took a walk through the jungle.

At one point what appeared to be a stream of water seemed to come pouring out of the tree right next to us. We looked up and saw this:

That is a Gibbon staring down (and peeing) at us. Cool to see it in the wild; not cool that he almost peed on us. C'est la vie in the jungle...

After our hike we headed back to the boat for lunch, and things got interesting. First, we came across Sisui along the path. Amil had warned us that she would come up to us and try to steal things from us, so he positioned himself between her and us. Sure enough, she took his camera bag. She even unzipped the bag and took the camera out.

Selfie!!

She started to climb up a tree, but Amil managed to keep her from climbing up while some other guides came running, at which point she dropped the camera. It was crazy for a couple minutes there, and she did manage to snap one picture while she had the camera. Naughty ape!

Unfortunately our adventures weren't over and things were about to take a turn for the worse for me. Being the ever-so-graceful person that I am, I managed to fall getting back into the boat. We had to step on a couple 4x4 boards and then into the boat, and somehow my foot slipped between the boards. All my weight came down on my left knee, which was wedged between the boards. Not fun, especially on day 2 of the trip. But, I limped my way through. That's what I get for being such a klutz.

After lunch, it was time for the Camp Leakey feeding. This time, there didn't seem to be any large males around, so it was more of a free for all, which was awesome to see.

Hey! Where's my bananas?

Kinda crazy seeing them stand up straight like this

Momma and baby coming in for some lunch

These big hogs are actually dangerous to young orangutans. Jerks.

Do you like sea food? See food! Bwahahahaha!

Gloria found a butterfly friend!

Then it was back to the boat for another night on the river. One fun thing that happened was the crew did some fishing and they caught a big Snake Head Fish.

Also, thankfully we could shower now that we were in clean water, and let me tell you a cold water shower never felt so good. On to day 3!

Much like Day 2, we started with a ride up the river. We were back in the polluted river now, headed to Pondok Tanggui sanctuary.

Good morning sunshine!

The entrance to Pondok Tanggui sanctuary

Feeding here was awesome. First of all, we saw more of the ritualistic stuffing of the face with bananas.

Then this big guy came along. He seemed to be running the show and none of the other Orangutans approached the feeding platform. 

Squirrels are exempt from the feeding rules.

Then this momma and her baby came up, and the big male let them in to eat.

Smells like baby 

Ahhh babying is so hard!

A much needed rest for mom

We were told this baby was probably less than a week old (they weren't sure since it was born in the wild), and that it was quite rare to see this. It has been over 2 years since they've had a baby this young here. Quite a treat.

Then this momma and her little guy came up.

This young guy was quite playful. He kept playing around and doing more as we laughed.

Oh I fell over

After leaving the feeding we headed back out to boat, and along our way we heard a rustling in the trees above us. Then all of a sudden, several Proboscis monkeys went flying by. 

Crazy jumpers

At this point, our guide took us to the village where he grew up. It's always cool to get a taste of local life.

This is the hospital. Notice the rooster on the left?

Our guide, Amil and his house

These two kids were great. They were playing in the water, paddling along in their boat.

Go faster!!

There seems to be a bit of a problem.

Then we can upon these guys who were hand carving statues. Since we already have a giraffe from our South Africa trip, we naturally had to get an Orangutan from this trip. Here is one of the craftsmen carving his name in the base.

Gloria & Miriam with our new friends

After our visit to the village, we went back to Camp Leakey for one last feeding. This time it was a bit different. The big males were there again.

Got lucky with this shot. Looks like he's zooming towards us.

You like my bananas?

Oh, I didn't see you there!

 There was more banana gluttony.

I can fit 20 bananas in my mouth!

This guy was eating on the ground, about 5 ft. off the trail. Crazy how close we could get.

The real "treat" for us here was the big male. He was hanging out peacefully with all the other apes, when suddenly he decided he just had to have one of the females. So he grabbed her and had his way with her right in front of us on the bananas. Seriously. Straight up ape sex, right on the table. Nature!

He climbed up above us when he was done and (you guess it), peed. He's a gentleman!

My last shot of the Orangutans. 

So despite the inauspicious ending to our time with the Orangutans, they still left us with a real sense of wonder and awe. They are incredible creatures and it was a real treat to see them in their natural habitat. We consider ourselves to be amazingly fortunately to have had this experience, and we'll always remember it. 

So long Kalimantan. Such an absolutely incredible place that we'll never forget. 

Next stop, Komodo Dragons!