Set sail for Raja Ampat

Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic Google translation from a post originally written in French. My apologies for the weird sentences and the funny mistakes that could have been generated during the process. If you can read French, the original and correct version can be found here:

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  Indonesia: Banda + Raja Ampat - October 2015

High up! I take you back to Raja Ampat, on the most beautiful cruising-diving boats, all sails out. The WaowThere is no need to say, he is aptly named ...

Updated 2018. The Waow, this magnificent dive-cruise boat aboard which I had the chance to embark on in 2015, no longer exists ... 😢 He unfortunately burned and sank, in Cenderawasih Bay, Indonesia, at night January 31 to February 1, 2018. I refer you to the message posted on their Facebook page and on their site.

To hoist the sails to Raja Ampat

November 5, 2015. I am on board of Waow for a week. After the Banda Sea, we are now sailing between the Raja Ampat islands. Luxury, calm and voluptuousness…

→ Read also: Practical information to organize your trip to Raja Ampat

In November, it's not Christmas yet, but for me, it's just like ... That afternoon, after the dives of the day, I went from one end to the other of the magnificent three -Masters, my camera in hand, with a child's excitement at the foot of the tree. Because today we hoist the sails! ! !

Finally, "we" ... It's the guys on the crew who stick to it. First, they start by climbing everywhere, on the rigging elements, the bowsprit, the yards ... I do not want to lose a crumb of the maneuver. The head thrown back I watch their progress at the top of the masts. It's high, anyway ... The summit is over 40m!

It slams!

This time, that's it. The engine is off. The three-master is again a real sailboat! The wind slams the canvas, the noise is impressive. These vertiginous sails unfurl and swell, elegantly, above our heads.

Can not fit in the frame of the viewfinder of the camera. But how beautiful, how beautiful! ! ! I feel like a pirate princess, great explorer of the oceans - me who loves being on or under the water, but who knows nothing or nothing much about sailing or sailing ...: lol: (Note that I'm part of feignas who, under the pretext of taking pictures, are content to admire the efforts of the crew.)

The Waow on parade

We do not advance very quickly, with just the force of the wind to propel this immense three-masted 60m. We sail peacefully, until the sun bends its course on the horizon ...

But it's soon the highlight of the show. We board the annexes to admire the boat from the outside. That he looks, with his sails, "my" princess boat!

We loose ourselves with the cameras. Finally me, especially ... Profile port, starboard profile. We turn around the ship to photograph it from every angle, in the changing light of twilight.

A distant gray cloud suddenly turns yellow. Nature spoils us. An impromptu rainbow rises above the three-master and soon a sumptuous sunset adorns the veils of fifty shades of gold ... Beautiful! ! !

Set sail, really, there is nothing more exhilarating in the world! In the literal sense as in the figurative sense. The image of a sailboat on the horizon is enough to give desires elsewhere.

At the time I publish this post, I returned to Brittany since long weeks already. And at the beginning of the year 2016, I feel again torn by the desire to leave again, to set sail again ... It seems to me that I will never be satiated with seas and distant horizons.

I was the guest of Waow from October 27 to November 8, 2015, for this diving cruise called "Secrets of Seram". All opinions expressed here remain 100% mine. 

  Indonesia: Banda + Raja Ampat - October 2015