Note: this trip was made at Christmas 1995. In the time since then I'm sure much has changed so it may not be a great idea to treat this as a guide. Treat it as a memoir, which - give or take some editing - is exactly what it is.In order we were woken by the entire dog population of Port Barton in a Hell's Dawn Chorus of barking and howling, the roaring of a motorbike gunning its badly tuned engine, a tinny radio playing Elvis Presley's Wooden Heart and finally a belated cockerel announcing the daybreak which of course started the dogs off again.
The water was off in the shower but working at the standpipe outside which is where I washed before going to breakfast. A few people were going off for a walk to a waterfall in the jungle but mostly we planned to drift around Port Barton doing nothing for the morning. I wandered along the main street, buying bars of chocolate at a tiny but packed general store that sold everything from Paint to T-shirts. Then I cut back to the beach and carried on round. At the point where I needed to cut slightly back inland to a bridge over the river a group of children were playing, climbing on the low branches of a tree that overhung the water.
The water was off in the shower but working at the standpipe outside which is where I washed before going to breakfast. A few people were going off for a walk to a waterfall in the jungle but mostly we planned to drift around Port Barton doing nothing for the morning. I wandered along the main street, buying bars of chocolate at a tiny but packed general store that sold everything from Paint to T-shirts. Then I cut back to the beach and carried on round. At the point where I needed to cut slightly back inland to a bridge over the river a group of children were playing, climbing on the low branches of a tree that overhung the water.
Across the river the bridge turned into a series of narrow planks on raised platforms. Five feet below it on the smooth sand near invisible crabs scurried to and fro, only visible at all by virtue of their motion and then as flickering ghost like images on the retina rather than something properly seen.
The shoreline became rockier and rockier and among the rocks, washed up by the tide were thousands of sea shells ranging from tiny delicate spirals to massive solid conches weighing several kilos each. In half an hour of beach combing I amassed a pretty good collection. Some of the others were also there, similarly engaged, gathering any odd bit of flotsam that caught their eyes.
The shoreline became rockier and rockier and among the rocks, washed up by the tide were thousands of sea shells ranging from tiny delicate spirals to massive solid conches weighing several kilos each. In half an hour of beach combing I amassed a pretty good collection. Some of the others were also there, similarly engaged, gathering any odd bit of flotsam that caught their eyes.
In the afternoon we had all booked bangkas to take us island hopping. We sailed past any number of islands, some of them stark and barren rocks standing out from the water, others lush forested hills with trees that swept right down to the water's edge. There were islands where a narrow white ribbon of sand formed the demarcation between azure water and emerald forest and others where the whole island was a single beach. There was a repeated optical illusion where we would sail towards an island convincing us that we were going to land only to find as we approached that it suddenly resolved itself into two separate islands with a narrow channel between them through which we sailed.
Finally we moored at an island where the water was shallow and an idyllic beach threaded along about fifty yards of it. The bottom was smooth and sandy and only became rocky a long way out. Out in the rocks someone saw a sea-snake and as they are poisonous after that we stuck mostly to the shallows. About a hundred yards across the strait there was another similar island. I swam across towards it but the water was so shallow that I could, had I have chosen, have waded the whole way. When I got to it I found it almost identical to the one we had landed on, a little rockier perhaps, a bit less green maybe but more or less the same. I swam back.
Soon we were off to Manta Ray Reef. This is a coral reef off Manta Ray Island. We moored above the reef and those of us who wanted to dived in. The water was not much rougher than at the shore and only about fifteen to twenty feet deep. I duck-dived to look at the coral.
Manta Ray Reef is impressive for the size and scale of the coral but all of it is dead, probably from widespread dynamite fishing. The result is that although there is a lot of it, it all has a flat and dull greenish grey colouring unlike the coral we had seen at Snake Island. All the same there were a great many varieties. The most common were large flat fan like structures about four feet across but there were also volcano shaped formations and brain coral and weird branching growths like frozen lightning bolts.
We swam for about half an hour before struggling back onto the boats and sailing off to German Island where we spent another hour. By the time we returned to Port Barton the sun was beginning to dip towards the horizon but there was time for more swimming and lazing on the beach before dinner.
For the first time I started to feel as if the holiday was all over. All that remained was the travelling home.
Finally we moored at an island where the water was shallow and an idyllic beach threaded along about fifty yards of it. The bottom was smooth and sandy and only became rocky a long way out. Out in the rocks someone saw a sea-snake and as they are poisonous after that we stuck mostly to the shallows. About a hundred yards across the strait there was another similar island. I swam across towards it but the water was so shallow that I could, had I have chosen, have waded the whole way. When I got to it I found it almost identical to the one we had landed on, a little rockier perhaps, a bit less green maybe but more or less the same. I swam back.
Soon we were off to Manta Ray Reef. This is a coral reef off Manta Ray Island. We moored above the reef and those of us who wanted to dived in. The water was not much rougher than at the shore and only about fifteen to twenty feet deep. I duck-dived to look at the coral.
Manta Ray Reef is impressive for the size and scale of the coral but all of it is dead, probably from widespread dynamite fishing. The result is that although there is a lot of it, it all has a flat and dull greenish grey colouring unlike the coral we had seen at Snake Island. All the same there were a great many varieties. The most common were large flat fan like structures about four feet across but there were also volcano shaped formations and brain coral and weird branching growths like frozen lightning bolts.
We swam for about half an hour before struggling back onto the boats and sailing off to German Island where we spent another hour. By the time we returned to Port Barton the sun was beginning to dip towards the horizon but there was time for more swimming and lazing on the beach before dinner.
For the first time I started to feel as if the holiday was all over. All that remained was the travelling home.
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