Category Archives: indonesia

On the Ternate Star 1991

September 6, 2024 – 1:33 pm

Nothing like it standing a Stern As awake spreads The ferry struggling through the swells Between tenant day and day nothing like it at all Define Gray haze of dusk Of scaring the volcanoes Leaving behind the bright Pearls of the coastal lights Of a village on tonight___ Out of the channel Any onto the […]

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March 7 1991 – Palu – Journal

September 6, 2024 – 1:21 pm

Listening to the BBC this morning I heard General Schwartzkopf say, “Saddam promised us the mother of all battles. What he got was the mother of all defeats.” The Muslims called The Prayer woke me this morning. The roosters helped open my eyes. The overhead fan called the room slightly and I pulled back to […]

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March 6 1991 – Palu, Sulawesi – Journal

September 5, 2024 – 2:25 pm

After a week’s diving on Bunaken I was lucky enough to catch the KM Karuna from Bitung, the port for Manado, at the top of Sulawesi. The liner cruised the jungled shore heading east to Borneo. The German-built ship is spacious and only one other Mistah is aboard. A Dutchman. Even after fourhundred years of […]

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THE MIRAGE OF TIME by Peter Nolan Smith

August 13, 2023 – 10:27 pm

The Gulf War had scared away the tourists from Bunaken Island and I had the coral cliffs all to my self. I was the only traveler at the dining room. After a week of desolate free diving with sea turtles I returned to Manado to catch a Pelni liner rounding the Northern Arm of Sulawesi. […]

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NOTHING LIKE IT AT ALL – FEBRUARY 28, 1991 – TERNATE – JOURNAL ENTRY

July 8, 2023 – 11:17 am

Nothing like it Standing at the stern of a ferry The wake fanning out a ‘Selamat Tingaal’ To Ternate and Tidore The Spice Islands. We are crossing the Moluku Sea Nothing like it As the evening mist rises from the gentle waves And electric light illuminate a shore village The twin volcanos rising from the […]

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