My trip to Indo...

[cobergas]

Let me start off by saying I am super excited to be able to do this. It has been over a year in the making and planning and I cannot wait to get on the plane and fly that long long long flight to land in Jakarta and start working. AND by working I mean picking some amazing corals to bring back to the United States.

A little but about who I am and what I am actually doing.

My wife and I are what I like to call travel vendors. Like most vendors that come to your local frag swap we travel on the weekends and really that is our business model. With the amount of travels we did last year going from show to show we really never had time to develop an eCommerce platform and find it best to sell something to someone who actually can see the beauty and awesomeness in person. 38 different frag swaps from Florida to New York and we live in Texas. Like many other vendors we started off as a hobbyists and turned something we love into a small business. Currently we have about a 1,600 square foot shop that houses over 1k gallon grow out system that houses all the corals we grow and bring to shows.

NOW on to the fun part....

Last year we got invited off the cuff to go to Indonesia to handpick and select corals. I thought the invitation was a joke of some sorts and I did not think anything about it at the time. The invite was apparently real so after a few more conversations with the person telling us to come I set the plan in motion to go over there for a couple of weeks meet suppliers and divers and eventually bring back a large shipment of unique corals and things we can bring to shows.

Fast forward to today.. As I sit here typing this our bags are packed and flight is due to head out tonight or Friday morning at 1AM.

I hope you guys want to tag along as I am as excited to be traveling abroad to see our passion in the wild. I will be posting pictures here as often as internet allows me to and getting this whole experience down in a form everyone can see.

Oh one more thing... This is my wife's and I belated honeymoon. :) We are calling it a businessmoon.

 

[cobergas]

First step down....

 

[Ezeke1]

This is very cool and I'm looking forward to the updates. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[cobergas]

On the way

 

[FL_Reefer]

So cool, not only as a business owner but a die hard hobbiest! Who would take this opportunity. Gonna be following this journey.

 

[cobergas]

So we started off with a bang!!! 5 Farms down. Tons more to go. We hopped a flight to a nearby island to see some collection points. What people do not see is on this end of the business these farms are not in the most affluent of areas. What I did not realize is how much some of these areas in the country depend on this income to support families. This hobby supports a whole economic sector in these countries. Now, on to the pictures of some places.

I Can post more from my phone once I get to more reliable internet. I will have to say that I am truly impressed with the selection that is offered here. Some things that I have YET to see imported into the states be it for no permits, no one orders it or many many other reasons.

 

[120reefkeeper]

Sweet! Dream trip for me! I'm following....[emoji16]

 

[joseserrano]

so awesome.

 

[cobergas]

So this morning the internet finally started working. We went out to eat last night at a restaurant that you picked your fish to eat.

It was pretty neat. The food was great and spicy just like i like it. I can handle some of the spicier of foods out there.

After the fish experience we wandered on the streets for a while to see what trouble we could get in to.

Thus is true street corn... Butter, condensed milk, spices, cheese, and wait for it.......
CHOCOLATE! Yes, chocolate!


After that we turned in for the night. Still a little lagged from the 23 hour flight over here. More coral starts right now.


Today will be the busiest day yet. On the schedule is 5 "farms".

Kind of like this.

These farms dot the area we are in. If you lived here you could walk by it daily and not even know.

 

[Baby Ray]

I am following!!!!!
Now I have one more place on my "must visit" list :)

 

[cobergas]

So today was hot as all get out. Americans i must say are fairly spoiled with air conditioning. Here, it is not common for to many places to be climate controlled. It is 80+ year round with the humidity sitting at 100%. We all were sweating in the tanks by 9am and just now stopped until we get a phone call from a new shipment arriving here to be passed on.

Yes that is a ship and notice how low we are compared to it. Just over that wall was a sewage canal. I have no idea why the ship was there. But it surprised us all.

Walking down these side paths was an interesting thing. Everyone refers to me as "mister mister". You just walk along these houses and boom a house filled with corals.

The money here i cannot wrap my mind around.

 

[raultsu]

Amazing

 

[eg8r210]

What a cool trip!

 

[1mbrews8]

very neat! Would love to do this!

 

[Davesgt]

Ahh cant wait to see these at your booth. You always have great stuff though.

 

[cobergas]

Ahh cant wait to see these at your both. You always have great stuff thought.

Thanks Davesgt! I appreciate those kind words. We try really hard to do that. This just means we are stepping our game up even more.

 

[gig 'em]

Nice! I had a friend who was offered to go on a trip similar to this (could be the same one) and couldn't make it. I would love to do this one day as a form of tourism and way to bring back my own stuff to help improve survival by skipping many of the "middle man" tanks. Looking forward to more pictures and stories!

 

[cobergas]

Having "middle man" tanks is not always a bad thing.. You can bring something back but shipping is fairly stressful on the corals from here to the states. No matter what precautions are taken sometimes it might not make it. My wife and I have felt that disappointment when we started in this passion of ours long ago. I always thought going direct was the answer to the problems but that is not so. Making the transition from wild to captive kept is the biggest challenge for any coral IMHO. If you find a good source that has helped the specific corals through that process then you are on the right track.

The biggest challenge to bringing coral into the states is all the paperwork. I cannot even begin to talk about how much paperwork has been done to do this and that is just on this end. Not EVEN on the States side of things. We have allotted permits for the corals we are selecting so we want to make sure we are picking the top tier of things to bring back. If we waste a permit on something that everyone already grows in their home tanks what good was that then?

Right now it is 1723 or 5:23pm CST in our home state while here it is 6:23Am. I have been up since 4 trying to get the schedule down for the day and planning to sweat like no tomorrow.

Today is Acantho day is what I am going to call it. We leave the island after selecting some acanthos and move on to pick zoas, mushrooms, more SPS, and MAYBE some fish.

 

[gig 'em]

Yeah, I can imagine if its not a direct flight back to Texas and you're spending 24 hours in transit a stop over for fresh water is necessary. I'm not saying wholesaler warehouses are bad, but it does offer an opportunity for disease transfer and infection. If you could substitute the holding tanks for a nice new batch of new water, that would be wonderful!

I've looked into the paper work and CITES restrictions for exporting/importing corals and it's enough to give me a headache. If you understand it you may need to school because that's something I would love to attempt at some point in my life!

What other anemones have you found? Or is it just red haddonis?

 

[cobergas]

We have a semi direct flight. Nothing flies direct nonstop from Houston where we are to jakarta but Eva airlines goes through Taiwan to here with a two hour layover. That was our flight here. Same on the way back.

We found a pretty nice pizza nem that we are bringing back and some bubble tips. The main supply for btas is on another island that we are going to on a few days.

They have some gigantas, and milk nems as they call them. Will be taking much more pictures today as we have a big line up and I am super excited to get into the tanks!