Our North Sulawesi road trip went from National Geographic to Fear Factor real quick! Started off totally wholesome: epic views of Bunaken from Maketete Hills, casually hanging out on the Mahawu volcanic rim, chasing the hidden Kali waterfall, and saying hi to the gigantic Jesus statue in Manado.

Then… we hit the Tomohon traditional market. Let’s just say the “local delicacies” included bats, snakes, and dogs. I’d post the photos, but I’d like to keep my account from getting banned. Consider your eyes spared! ...

Lembeh Strait has a global reputation for being the “muck diving capital of the world”, so we had to give it a shot. Muck diving is basically diving in the “mucky” volcanic seabed looking for rare, small, and camouflaged marine life.

We ended up doing 7 dives including a night dive which was Jessy’s first. Apart from almost being bitten by a black-finned snake eel, we saw lots of amazing creatures, like the tiny pygmy seahorse, thorny seahorse, small cuttlefish, mandarinfish, many nudibranchs, sexy shrimp, snowflake moray, juvenile ribbon eel, blue spotted ray etc etc. That’s us done with muck diving for a while 😉 ...

Day 42 away from civilization: The sailors have discovered the resorts in Bitung. They have adapted by initiating a ‘pool crawl’ and can be seen violently feasting on non-boat food in its natural restaurant habitat. The creatures’ hard-earned waistlines are not expected to survive long. Send help!!! ...

Ventured into the wilds of Tangkoko National Park in North Sulawesi. Since the island sits right on the Wallace Line, acting as a biological border control between Australian and Southeast Asian nature, the wildlife here is quite unique.
Spent the day rubbing elbows with critically endangered Celebes crested macaques. While the adults tried to act like responsible parents, the kids were busy auditioning for Cirque du Soleil 😉
Once dusk hit, we went on a mission to find the spectral tarsier, a tiny primate composed of 90% eyeball. We also ticked off six bear cuscus lounging in the treetops, some kingfishers, golden orb-weavers, and two tarantulas hanging out right at eye level, just to make sure our heart rates stayed elevated! ...

It’s the crack of dawn on April 2nd. We’re motoring toward our anchorage near Ternate, the sea is as flat as a pancake, and suddenly, slosh, wobble. A mystery set of waves bumps the hull. We naturally grumbled about the inconsiderate wake of some phantom boat, considering there wasn’t a single vessel in sight. Our little nautical whodunit was quickly solved when our screens blew up with global news alerts. Ah, yes, just a 7.4 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami warning happening a mere 100km from our position. Mystery solved. Thankfully we were in deep water and not close to shore!

Fast forward three days. The winds finally decided to cooperate, but our route to Bitung in Sulawesi required us to sail directly over the literal epicenter of the quake. Luckily we didn’t feel anything but there were still aftershocks every few minutes in the 3-4 scale range! Now we can cross off that “sailed right over an active earthquake epicenter” item on our bucket list 😉
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#breakingnews #earthquake #tsunami #indonesia #sailing ...

Loving the shallow anchorages in turquoise water here in the Bacan islands. We anchored in 4 metres, haven’t done that in a while, in Raja Ampat it was always 25-30 metres! Water visibility was also amazing! ...