From late September to the end of October we were on tour through Indonesia, again of board of the dive boat "Empress".

This time, we entered the boat at Lembeh Strait, east of Manado. The people on board were the same as on previous trips and it was pretty much coming home. Everybody was most excited because the route we had planned was going to lead us into new territorry that has been visited by few divers ever before. The trip took us east across the little atoll of Tifore, across to the mysterious islands of the Moluccas (Maluku), namely the south of Halmahera and the western tip of Irian Jaya. After some days of most successful search for shells, wonderful dives and untouched islands and reefs, we headed south across Misool, Ceram and the Banda Islands which have played an important role in the spice trade. At some stage, the Banda Islands were so economically important to the Dutch that they traded a small island in for Manhattan Island... Today, the Banda islands are a sleepy outpost of civilization, pretty close to the middle of nowhere.

From Banda we headed back west, and stopped at an active volcano called Gunung Api. On our arrival we were greeted by hundreds of inquisitive, friendly seasnakes. The trip ended at Makassar (Ujung Pandang), which is one of those places on the planet that I certainly do not recommend for a holiday.

The diving and collecting team of COWRIES.info consisted of Jana, Dietmar Amon (who was diving with us also last year), and myself. After the trip Jana, Dietmar and me went up north again to spend another week at Lembeh Strait, joining with Andy, another keen diver from Germany. At the Divers Lodge Lembeh we had a very enjoyable time.

Once again we wish to thank Vidar, Alice, Gatot and Noek, the crew of the MV Empress, for keeping ourselves on the road, the shell divers Hugh, Simone and Brian for the fruitful cooperation and pleasant competition, and all the others for being great fellow divers. The gallery will show you a small selection from more than 4000 photos taken by Jana, Dietmar and myself.

Finally, many thanks to Randy Bridges for programming the wonderful gallery-script that allows you to view the pictures at good resolution and highest speed the internet possibly allows. All pictures are copyrighted to me, but if you wish to use them for a non-commercial purpose please feel free to contact me for a higher resolution image and terms of use.