YO-HANCHA
UKDIVING
Come on , Pilgrim !
On holiday in Indonesia , Yo-Han Cha contemplates the long journeys we make in search of great diving , overseas and here in the UK
It was a long flight . Just over 12 hours from Heathrow to Singapore . I only had 90 minutes to make the transfer , so I was praying for a flight that was on time , or early if possible ! I was worried that I would miss the second flight or that my hold luggage would . But it turned out that ’ s not where it almost all went wrong .
Apparently , Mares Cruise Roller bags are popular among divers travelling to Indonesia , as some fellow enthusiast accidentally claimed mine before I had got to the carousel . Thankfully a particularly fleet-of-foot member of airport staff ran to the exit and found the fellow diver who had mistakenly picked up my bag . He was very apologetic , but all ’ s well that ends well , at the end of the day , it was just an honest mistake .
The rest of the journey was very relaxing . With the knowledge we had all our luggage , we were picked up from Manado airport , where we were driven an hour to Bitung to meet our boat to our resort in Lembeh . Which is where I ’ m writing this column now . It ’ s a hard life sometimes ! Thankfully , not all journeys to go diving take this long , but if they do , they better be worth it ... so far , Lembeh has been awesome !
There are some epic journeys in the UK too . None of them involve transfers , but all of them have the potential for things to go wrong . I remember a certain Clare Kingsbury ( Manchester University SAC ) locking her keys in her car at a service station on her way to Mull . I remember car sharing with Jan Moore ( Trafford SAC ) for a trip to Coll , where she realised at Tebay services that she ’ d left her handbag in Manchester . As for me , I ’ ve been 30 minutes down the M56 to Anglesey before realising that my drysuit was still in my living room .
Thankfully , most journeys for dive trips are , on the whole , successful ; if you ’ re like me and you don ’ t live next to a dive site , you ’ ll always have to make one to go diving . They ’ re not all epic journeys . The most epic pure road journey I ’ ve made is to Kinlochbervie in the far north west of Scotland , which I made when living in Reading . It was well worth it – the diving
“ When the diving ’ s great then the difficulty and length of the journey don ’ t seem to matter ”
there is amazing . Trips to the Scillies and Scapa Flow have been equally epic ; I ’ ve not yet been to Shetland , but I ’ d love to at some point in the future .
Having friends who live en-route is a massive help . A special shout-out to Sue Mitchell of Reading BSAC for letting me crash at her house and park my car there for this latest trip . Thanks also to Nick and Caroline Robertson- Brown of Frogfish Photography , who let me crash at their place in Manchester when I ’ m heading north for some Scottish diving .
Talking of Scottish diving , when the diving ’ s great then the difficulty and length of the journey don ’ t seem to matter . Which goes to explain why I ’ m heading from Bristol to Mull the weekend immediately after I get back from Lembeh . Mull ’ s great . Even in March . Yes , I know it ’ ll be a long drive , and it might be a wee bit colder than Lembeh , but it ’ ll be great . �
Welcome sight : Yo-Han ’ s arrival at NAD Resort , Lembeh
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