Saturday 18th October, the wind is rising. The sea is full of white caps. The boat is pitching.

We lost sight of the dhow during the night. But where is it? We are floating around on the water, looking for it. Finally, here it is! And off we go.

At 10:45 am the engine suddenly stops. The generator won’t start up again. An hour passes, still nothing. At noon the engine starts up again. At 12:30 pm off we go again.

Trip map: from Sorong to Kaimana.

At 6 pm a pod of spinner dolphins decides to swim alongside the boat. Everybody rushes to the prow to admire them.

At 9 pm we finally arrive in Kaimana. We have travelled almost 360 miles in less than 48 hours. Everybody is happy!

The Airaha 2’s deck – Copyright : S. Quérouil / IRD

(translated by Damien Blasquez, Mathieu Bourgarel, Sarah El Alaoui, and Manon Malestroit, L2 SVC–Life & Earth Sciences–UM2, France)