So to re-cap the happenings of the time spent in the mangroves: In the morning following our sleepless overnight in Stan’s house (due to giant rats running around the rafters, sadistic crowing-all-night-outside-your-door roosters, and neighbors horking and spitting every ten minutes loud and juicy enough to make the bile rise to the back of your throat… among other things)
We woke (from not sleeping) early and made our way to the harbor where we piled into a longboat with Budi (founder of local NGO YK-RASI) who we were helping to conduct this Irrawaddy Dolphin survey. He explained how two people always had to be looking from the front of the boat, one with binoculors and one without, and a third person recording the data (speed, weather, GPS location, Depth etc). Another two people must search from the back of the boat.
We were hoping to see some of these rare dolphins, but in all the time we searched, we did not have a sighting. We did see a Dugong (sea cow- very cool… eats lots of sea grasses and is very threatened) as it came up for a breath of air before returning to grazing.
We boated from the dolphin survey further up the Mahakam River to the field research station owned by Stan Lhota, a primate and Mangrove specialist doing amazing work in this threatened area. We were able to go with Stan at dusk and observe some wild Proboscis Monkeys,
as they settled for the night in mangrove branches at the water’s edge. During this sighting we experienced the most intense downpour- it came out of nowhere and was everywhere instantly. We were not anticipating the skies to open up while we observed the monkeys, because it was sunny and beautiful when we left. As it was, I don’t think we could have been soaked faster than if the winning football team dumped their Gatorade water dispenser over our heads. Our reaction was pretty funny… we at first were so shocked that we couldn’t say anything, followed by some of the biggest smiles and then panicked expressions as we hurried to get our cameras under something plastic. 
Unfortunately my camera definitely got wet during this downpour, and had some internal condensation which I had to be very careful about. I therefore do not really have many pictures that worked out of this incredible experience, but thankfully my camera seems to be working just fine after I let it live in a bag of dry rice and desiccant packages overnight.
We also saw some Longtailed Macac’s that evening and the following morning, another very cool primate to see in the wild.
We were most excited also when an extremely rare hornbill flew right over our heads while we sat quietly in the boat observing the monkeys. Stan was a wealth of knowledge, and taught us many things about the area. We spent the night like I said, in his small research station on the mangrove-lined bank of the river. Mangrove-lined and killer-mosquito-infested. The ‘research station’ is actually a wooden platform with a thatched roof and no walls, on stilts. I slept smeared in serious bug repellent, fully clothed, under a mosquito net, and still carefully counted 48 bug bites in the morning. All of these things together added up to make this experience all the more real and exciting. 
The following day on the return trip I was proud to be the one to spot an Irrawaddy Dolphin in the distance- a very special thing as I have mentioned. We killed the engines and floated around while it came up for air a couple more times before it left the area and we continued back to Balikpapan.
It was an incredible couple of days, and our first blogs and video-logs were due the following day, which many of you have already seen or read on the Ethical Expeditions page. The next leg promises to be exciting and awesome, as we are headed to Samboja Lestari- where there will be re-grown rainforest, rescued orangutans, and sun-bears.
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