P.S: Click on the images for better view.
Images were done in power point show. Taken by my buddy hubby and myself.
I promised to include as many pictures as I can, but I have to stop at one point before my head blew up from the excess amount of editing and compiling almost every night, and it's just impossible to include everything. Don't get tired of scrolling down.
Enjoy. Thanks. :)
How would I describe the trip? Probably the suitable word is nothing ordinary.
For the start, it’s the first long diving trip after our Manado trip two years ago. We had been settling down for shorter trips because of time and costing, 2008 had been a dry year and we expect coming drier year. This trip actually stretched two times longer than the ‘long’ one week trip. Since it’s so hard and tedious to reach the destination, we prolonged it to make it more worthwhile.
We have been part of two big histories there. The place that we stayed hadn’t been changed since 20 years ago. Half of the wooden deck upgrading was done during our stay there, including the front part of our room. It was messy, a bit noisy, and we got to be careful when sitting on the bridge because of sharp new unchamfered edges, but it was fun. We chatted around with Icuk and Osland and Bapak Solo, the owner of the place who did the upgrading by himself with Icuk’s help.
Icuk is our boat captain, he is in charge with the diving, the boat and dive center next to us, he is probably one of the amazing craziest guy around. He can fish wet BCD and tank out of the water easily from a height with one hand, right hand, and he is left-handed. (you try that!) He is strong swimmer and can climb coconut tree when we blink our eyes, drives the boat without using much of the hand and can find the location in the middle of the sea eventough the buoy disappeared under the wave. He used to earn a living by free diving to forty meter (!), breathing from tyre compressor when one faithful day, the hose was snapped up by the fan, and he shooted to the surface so fast that half of his body pooped above the water when he surfaced. Tyre diving has become one of the issue to solve for Indonesian divers who care, too many fishermen had died or paralysed doing that, unknown to the danger and because lack of facilities. Fortunately, Icuk was alright and he changed his line pretty soon, he is now the boat captain and the compressor mechanic, very diligent and helpful around everyone.
For the start, it’s the first long diving trip after our Manado trip two years ago. We had been settling down for shorter trips because of time and costing, 2008 had been a dry year and we expect coming drier year. This trip actually stretched two times longer than the ‘long’ one week trip. Since it’s so hard and tedious to reach the destination, we prolonged it to make it more worthwhile.
We have been part of two big histories there. The place that we stayed hadn’t been changed since 20 years ago. Half of the wooden deck upgrading was done during our stay there, including the front part of our room. It was messy, a bit noisy, and we got to be careful when sitting on the bridge because of sharp new unchamfered edges, but it was fun. We chatted around with Icuk and Osland and Bapak Solo, the owner of the place who did the upgrading by himself with Icuk’s help.
Icuk is our boat captain, he is in charge with the diving, the boat and dive center next to us, he is probably one of the amazing craziest guy around. He can fish wet BCD and tank out of the water easily from a height with one hand, right hand, and he is left-handed. (you try that!) He is strong swimmer and can climb coconut tree when we blink our eyes, drives the boat without using much of the hand and can find the location in the middle of the sea eventough the buoy disappeared under the wave. He used to earn a living by free diving to forty meter (!), breathing from tyre compressor when one faithful day, the hose was snapped up by the fan, and he shooted to the surface so fast that half of his body pooped above the water when he surfaced. Tyre diving has become one of the issue to solve for Indonesian divers who care, too many fishermen had died or paralysed doing that, unknown to the danger and because lack of facilities. Fortunately, Icuk was alright and he changed his line pretty soon, he is now the boat captain and the compressor mechanic, very diligent and helpful around everyone.
Osland is our dive master and he is good in finding blue ring octopus and other macro stuffs. He would come at night too to take us to look for wild turtle laying eggs on the sand, too bad, it happened very late of the night, around midnight, and we already knocked off around 8, latest 9 (!!), yes, we led a very good life, imho.
The other big history, when we were there, the tiny Derawan Village had shocking incident, the appearing of a ghost. Indonesia has a lot of version of ghosts, so I should explain here. It’s categorized as Pocong. You can google it and find out what it is, but I wouldn’t want to look for the images and post it here. Hell no. According to what I know, Pocong is jumping ghost wrapped in white linen, something like corpse, it was probably believed that it’s buried corpse comes to live. I don’t even want to google to confirm the definition! Anyway, our Dive Master described it with red eyes too. (shudder). It had created a big havoc in the village as there had been multiple witnesses. Whoever expressed doubt or disbelief, saw it eventually. Osland and Icuk did some efforts to nab it, but it never appeared when they waited for it.
Well, I would like to think that it could be human work. But from all of the places that I’ve stayed, including my spooky university, my hometown, on the same island Kalimantan/Borneo, is the most mythical place where I often heard about this genre of stories. Not only hearing, my parents and close relatives had their own encounters. Anyway, the story affected me. I had restless night on the day I heard it, it didn’t help that the creature I hate the most, house lizard, kept making sound that woke me up whenever I almost slept. Ck..ck..ck..this is one creepy creature itself.
Another not so pleasant thing, we were supposed to visit four islands. Derawan, where we stayed, then trip to Sangalaki, Kakaban and Maratua in distance order. They have their own uniqueness for underwater life. Derawan is known for the macro life, Sangalaki is famous for the manta ray, Kakaban for its second largest jellyfish freshwater lake in the world and for its cave, while Maratua is known for its channel and big fish action. We went to Sangalaki and Kakaban, we put Maratua on the last list because we wanted to see Manta and jellyfish lake first. Going Maratua is also more expensive and another reason was that we were waiting for high tide when Maratua is in the best. One day before the scheduled day to go there, there was a group from Jakarta who paid the island a visit, they came back with shocking news, Maratua’s Channel had been bombed again by illegal fisherman. They got all Barracudas, even reef shark were found dead floating on the surface, and it is a legitimate dive site, the best highlight there. It was shocking and sad news. Why on earth, I don’t know. It was the first time I encountered bombing fishing in Indonesia, after San Miquel in Philippine. The feeling was crappy. This is one of the best pelagic action dive sites in Indonesia. Crap. Crap. Crap.
Bombing used to decorated Derawan also. According to Osland, some of its dive sites should be much better than what it is now if not for bombing. When we were in Kakaban, we heard similar sound like bombing, Osland said its either fisherman bombing somewhere, or the movement sound of very big fish. I pray for the second.
The good thing that lifted up our hope is, villagers and residents of Derawan were getting much more aware about conserving the nature. Saving the turtle and the sea has been the main objective of some, like Bapak Solo, Paul, Isabel and Ginette, three French who spend from two weeks to half a year staying there annually.
So, we didn’t visit Maratua, it was quite regretful, especially Otong, the other dive master, after seeing our Thresher shark T-shirt, told us that he encountered Thesher Sharks often in Maratua, he was one of the firsts, and he has the knowledge about the point, the depth and the time of when to expect the magnificent rare shark. Argh…
Anyway, we missed Maratua, but we explored another two islands, Samama and Pulau Panjang, nobody dive there currently, we went there trying to look for new dive sites. We found a dive site with beautiful coral, there could be a lot to explore, although the visibility was not very clear because the bottom was a bit muddy. Another dive site in Pulau Panjang was excellent for crab-eyed goby. We found so many of them just minutes into the dive. In Derawan, a dive site with it as highlight, we only found two pair. If all goes well, he he..they would name the dive site after my suggestion. I hope I get an update on that.
Overall, this trip is a budget and ala carte trip that we only ever done once in Kota Kinabalu, our first serious overseas diving. Something very special that I always wondering, until now, is the flexibility of payment. Indonesian money is complicated. The biggest note we have is one hundred thousand rupiahs, it’s equivalent with around fifteen dollar Sing. It’s bulky to carry around. We don’t have the convenient of credit card or Indonesian atm, so the operator actually suggested that we can transfer the payment later, after we got back from the trip. All he has is my handphone number and email address, even the accommodation is operated by another party, if we failed to pay, he would have to fork out money for us. So it was amazing how he trust us, I certainly hope that he never trust the wrong person.
To get to the destination, we had to do a bit detour to save money on the air transport. This had been our unreached dream destination because it was always too costly to go and to dive there, so we were very happy that this time we could find very reasonable way.
We stayed in Derawan island, half of the island is occupied by the owner of another Dive Resort, half of it is the village we stayed. There are several other motels on stilts. TV is rarity there, we actually didn’t see any, the electricity in Derawan runs from 6 pm to 6am, the village people treasure their peaceful day time without the need to have electricity. Children flocking the sea shore and the ‘street’ to play, which creates much healthier and complete childhood compared to those who are glued to computer or television. Eventhough it’s seaside, Derawan kampong road made of sand, is so compact that we thought it was made from concrete. The island has water sources, which is very critical for village life and one of the reason of why this island is more developed. Coconut plantation, some fruit and vegetable grow here, for the rest there is twice a week supply from Berau. Majority of the people live from the sea, directly or indirectly. Derawan people also active in Turtle conservation. It’s island of turtle, although it has seen less turtles coming from the beach because of illegal poaching and civilization.
Overall, we logged 43 dives, we did majority of them in Derawan.
Derawan
Derawan has decent macro diving with the specialty of jawfish. Jawfish is abundant there and Sangalaki also. In one terrain, if we happened to see one, we could just station there and see many many heads poking out to peek at us. We saw some carrying eggs in the mounths. We have another secret for another visit. I hardly saw jawfish anywhere else, let alone in this number, their sour and unfriendly face were entertaining to watch, some even dared to poke my head, according to hubby, I didn’t even know because I was watching another one. Derawan also has a lot of nudibranches, cuttlefish and octopus.
Heaven for various species of goby, we found some we had never seen before. I like the purple fire goby we found in the 25 meter depth in Derawan wall and the funny crab-eyed goby. Some sea slugs were so bizarre that I didn’t believe it’s a nudibranch until I bought a nudibranch encyclopedia and found the name inside.
(I haven't re-updated the identifications in the photo because it's about time for this journal to be posted already...!)
Some of the best dive site located just outside the sea in front of us, I remember fondly that we have a pair of pygmy sea horse in Turtle Bay at 23 meters. One was pregnant the first time we saw them, and the last time it has come back from maternity leave. I’m wondering how to spot baby pygmy seahorse? How pygmy it would be?
The other big history, when we were there, the tiny Derawan Village had shocking incident, the appearing of a ghost. Indonesia has a lot of version of ghosts, so I should explain here. It’s categorized as Pocong. You can google it and find out what it is, but I wouldn’t want to look for the images and post it here. Hell no. According to what I know, Pocong is jumping ghost wrapped in white linen, something like corpse, it was probably believed that it’s buried corpse comes to live. I don’t even want to google to confirm the definition! Anyway, our Dive Master described it with red eyes too. (shudder). It had created a big havoc in the village as there had been multiple witnesses. Whoever expressed doubt or disbelief, saw it eventually. Osland and Icuk did some efforts to nab it, but it never appeared when they waited for it.
Well, I would like to think that it could be human work. But from all of the places that I’ve stayed, including my spooky university, my hometown, on the same island Kalimantan/Borneo, is the most mythical place where I often heard about this genre of stories. Not only hearing, my parents and close relatives had their own encounters. Anyway, the story affected me. I had restless night on the day I heard it, it didn’t help that the creature I hate the most, house lizard, kept making sound that woke me up whenever I almost slept. Ck..ck..ck..this is one creepy creature itself.
Another not so pleasant thing, we were supposed to visit four islands. Derawan, where we stayed, then trip to Sangalaki, Kakaban and Maratua in distance order. They have their own uniqueness for underwater life. Derawan is known for the macro life, Sangalaki is famous for the manta ray, Kakaban for its second largest jellyfish freshwater lake in the world and for its cave, while Maratua is known for its channel and big fish action. We went to Sangalaki and Kakaban, we put Maratua on the last list because we wanted to see Manta and jellyfish lake first. Going Maratua is also more expensive and another reason was that we were waiting for high tide when Maratua is in the best. One day before the scheduled day to go there, there was a group from Jakarta who paid the island a visit, they came back with shocking news, Maratua’s Channel had been bombed again by illegal fisherman. They got all Barracudas, even reef shark were found dead floating on the surface, and it is a legitimate dive site, the best highlight there. It was shocking and sad news. Why on earth, I don’t know. It was the first time I encountered bombing fishing in Indonesia, after San Miquel in Philippine. The feeling was crappy. This is one of the best pelagic action dive sites in Indonesia. Crap. Crap. Crap.
Bombing used to decorated Derawan also. According to Osland, some of its dive sites should be much better than what it is now if not for bombing. When we were in Kakaban, we heard similar sound like bombing, Osland said its either fisherman bombing somewhere, or the movement sound of very big fish. I pray for the second.
The good thing that lifted up our hope is, villagers and residents of Derawan were getting much more aware about conserving the nature. Saving the turtle and the sea has been the main objective of some, like Bapak Solo, Paul, Isabel and Ginette, three French who spend from two weeks to half a year staying there annually.
So, we didn’t visit Maratua, it was quite regretful, especially Otong, the other dive master, after seeing our Thresher shark T-shirt, told us that he encountered Thesher Sharks often in Maratua, he was one of the firsts, and he has the knowledge about the point, the depth and the time of when to expect the magnificent rare shark. Argh…
Anyway, we missed Maratua, but we explored another two islands, Samama and Pulau Panjang, nobody dive there currently, we went there trying to look for new dive sites. We found a dive site with beautiful coral, there could be a lot to explore, although the visibility was not very clear because the bottom was a bit muddy. Another dive site in Pulau Panjang was excellent for crab-eyed goby. We found so many of them just minutes into the dive. In Derawan, a dive site with it as highlight, we only found two pair. If all goes well, he he..they would name the dive site after my suggestion. I hope I get an update on that.
Overall, this trip is a budget and ala carte trip that we only ever done once in Kota Kinabalu, our first serious overseas diving. Something very special that I always wondering, until now, is the flexibility of payment. Indonesian money is complicated. The biggest note we have is one hundred thousand rupiahs, it’s equivalent with around fifteen dollar Sing. It’s bulky to carry around. We don’t have the convenient of credit card or Indonesian atm, so the operator actually suggested that we can transfer the payment later, after we got back from the trip. All he has is my handphone number and email address, even the accommodation is operated by another party, if we failed to pay, he would have to fork out money for us. So it was amazing how he trust us, I certainly hope that he never trust the wrong person.
To get to the destination, we had to do a bit detour to save money on the air transport. This had been our unreached dream destination because it was always too costly to go and to dive there, so we were very happy that this time we could find very reasonable way.
We stayed in Derawan island, half of the island is occupied by the owner of another Dive Resort, half of it is the village we stayed. There are several other motels on stilts. TV is rarity there, we actually didn’t see any, the electricity in Derawan runs from 6 pm to 6am, the village people treasure their peaceful day time without the need to have electricity. Children flocking the sea shore and the ‘street’ to play, which creates much healthier and complete childhood compared to those who are glued to computer or television. Eventhough it’s seaside, Derawan kampong road made of sand, is so compact that we thought it was made from concrete. The island has water sources, which is very critical for village life and one of the reason of why this island is more developed. Coconut plantation, some fruit and vegetable grow here, for the rest there is twice a week supply from Berau. Majority of the people live from the sea, directly or indirectly. Derawan people also active in Turtle conservation. It’s island of turtle, although it has seen less turtles coming from the beach because of illegal poaching and civilization.
Overall, we logged 43 dives, we did majority of them in Derawan.
Derawan
Derawan has decent macro diving with the specialty of jawfish. Jawfish is abundant there and Sangalaki also. In one terrain, if we happened to see one, we could just station there and see many many heads poking out to peek at us. We saw some carrying eggs in the mounths. We have another secret for another visit. I hardly saw jawfish anywhere else, let alone in this number, their sour and unfriendly face were entertaining to watch, some even dared to poke my head, according to hubby, I didn’t even know because I was watching another one. Derawan also has a lot of nudibranches, cuttlefish and octopus.
Heaven for various species of goby, we found some we had never seen before. I like the purple fire goby we found in the 25 meter depth in Derawan wall and the funny crab-eyed goby. Some sea slugs were so bizarre that I didn’t believe it’s a nudibranch until I bought a nudibranch encyclopedia and found the name inside.
(I haven't re-updated the identifications in the photo because it's about time for this journal to be posted already...!)
Some of the best dive site located just outside the sea in front of us, I remember fondly that we have a pair of pygmy sea horse in Turtle Bay at 23 meters. One was pregnant the first time we saw them, and the last time it has come back from maternity leave. I’m wondering how to spot baby pygmy seahorse? How pygmy it would be?
Why turtle bay fits into my memory was also because the huge manta ray paid us a visit there. Osland and the rest had never see manta there. We were enjoying the reef when I tried to take a picture of Humphead Parrotfish, when the surrounding suddenly went dark. Hubby pointed to my right, when I turned to the direction, the posh creature glided by. Like the feeling! Osland, in front of me, also felt the hovering darkness; he turned around, surprised and banged his tank to alert us, then realized that both of us were already wide-eyed with busy cameras.
I also like Tuturaga point when the blacksailfin goby stayed, and the divesite nearby with a lot of small critters in the depth. I loved it when we ended the dive in jetty, it’s the most pretty stilts with actually serious school of fish hanging in there. It was also the place where we ran frantically from triggerfish.
This ugly fish, titan triggerfish, mentioned many times in my journal before, because we are sworn enemy, almost. I think compared to the number of dives and attacks, we hold a pretty competitive record. From being attacked from behind, side, front and ambushed, we always have special feeling for them.
Beginning of the dives, they were cool. I still got the chance to hang around them and took their pictures and it was alright. Although in between I decided to leave one halfway. It was eating. Eating is alright, means they are not in attacking mood. I was watching it, suddenly it stopped eating and started moving the eyes sideways (well, I can’t find a good description better than what my language has, lirik-lirik..kakakaka…). That was no good sign, that was the second I got to get the hell out, so I did.
Anyway, I didn’t see any titan triggerfish shortly after that, and completely forgotten about them. Until the second last day, we were diving in Tuturaga, I found a weird orange coral I had never seen before and tried to take the picture. Hubby and Osland was in front of me. I looked at them to make sure they were still around while taking the picture, like I always did. On the third glance, I saw Osland waving his pointer like hitting on something. I thought he was trying to get rid of jellyfish. We found quite a number of them around us the dive before. At that point they looked quite far from me, I thought it was because I took quite long to adjust my focus, but they seemed unusually far and higher than where I am. Then I saw hubby signaling triggerfish, without thinking twice, I swam forward and fast, then turned myself around.
Apparently while we were hovering, minding our own business, Osland was attacked. On the back of the head. I know how hard it could be because once a yellowmargin triggerfish attacked me from the back, fortunately, hit my tank, I heard a big bang and it shook my whole body. This one, titan, didn’t hit Osland’s tank, but went right at his head. He heard a loud bang, he thought it was one of our fins, but then again, it couldn’t be that hard. He turned around, and there it was, the titan was ready for another strike (well, what is more suitable word than ‘ancang-ancang’?!?). Headache, he tried to avoid the fish and tried to swing the pointer to cancel its strike. It went to hubby, who saw the whole thing and ready with the fins in front. Failed, the triggerfish saw me, still unaware and went to me with high speed.
Again, I was damn lucky. Steadying myself to get a focus, my leg was bent upward and fins were moving, titan is crazy, brave, aggressive, persistent, but they are not so bright in anatomy class. They mistook my tank for my head, and now they thought my fins were bitable. So there it was poking at my fins when I realized something was wrong.
Shoulda.. our triggerfish attacks happened all around this time of the year. Should have known that it was the critical time, but we didn’t see them for a few days, and suddenly the incident.
Osland was alright, he got bitten on the head and bled a bit, but it was alright. Head is probably the strongest part that can handle triggerfish bite. If it got the front or side of the face….. shudder… chipped ear and loss chunk of meat are common as results.
We went back to the same dive site on the last day, we saw a stork hanging upside down on a abandoned fishing rope on the jetty. It was so pitiful. Icuk freed it.
Going down on the same dive site, we swam to another direction because we wanted to avoid the triggerfish. It would definitely be there because it’s taking care of its nest, therefore the attack.
The great sight that I saw but couldn’t document was, school of titan and yellow-margin triggerfish, the two most aggressive species, all max size, probably around ten of them together. It could be a school of hell, and I was so tempted to take their picture, but how on earth I dared to get close to them. Nearby there was also one titan laying sideway on top of a coral. Perhaps laying eggs, or what, but I’m pretty sure it’s not in good mood for guests.
Below the same jetty, every sunset dive, we never failed to see mandarinfish, although it was very difficult to take their pictures. Not every night is suitable for sunset/night dive, because there is no bay, so we counted on current condition by prediction. On our very first night dive there, we found the magnificent creature we always wanted to see, blue ring octopus. Blue ring octopus is very dangerous marine creature, it’s tiny, hard to spot, but when it attacks, the venom can kill in minutes, or cause fatality and paralysis.
I remember when I went to Lembeh and learned that there could be blue ring there, I was quite restless and anxious to know that me and that creature would be sharing the same water. But then again, we wasn’t lucky enough to meet it yet. And the trip after that. And after that. So this time, when Osland said that there could be blue ring octopus, I just took it lightly and never thought about it when we entered the water.
In fact, there were blue ring octopuses. On our very first night dive there. And strong current. We found the first one just after the mandarin fish, the first highlight of every night dive. It hid away inside the rock, it’s hardly visible and very difficult to spot because it looked just like everything else. Never hover too near to the bottom, or touch anything you don’t see. We continued with the dive and found ornate ghost pipe fish, leaf fish, coral crabs, shrimps etc when Osland banging his tank profusely.
We saw the second blue ring, this time it was so obvious because clearly, it was agitated. The electric blue ring spots shone when we point the torch toward it. We took shots and shots, somehow I didn’t have my fear with me anymore, but when the strong current swept it and us, together, it jumped from corals to corals, to our direction. Since I needed to be near to get macro shot, I somehow had to always reminding myself to keep the distance. Anytime we peeked through the screen, the creature could let go o the rock and jumped. With the help of the current, it made it fast towards us, although we also drifted together with the current. It was scary, but exciting at the same time to see the amazing creature, as long as we kept it safe. The current blew stronger and stronger, and we done taking a lot of shots, so we left it alone. Flying through the coral, superman diving at night was already unusual for us, we found more creatures like decorator crab, stone fish etc. When I saw cone snail buried in the sand, with only a quarter of the body exposed, I know night dive here required a lot of caution. It’s dangerous to do night dive in strong current and so to say, some of the most dangerous marine creatures. We saw blue ring every night dive there, until it’s overdose on us. ;p
When the current seemed to be intolerant, we would abort the night dive and sometime just play in our own jetty, snorkeling, diving with new tank or just used the leftover air in the tank. Down there we could find a lot of things too. Moray eels, various crabs, mantis shrimp, squirrel fish, turtles of course, pipefish, snake eel, puffer fish, cardinal fish, fang blenny and even Picasso triggerfish. There were so many fang blennies in this trip, hiding, ventured in the open, white colored version, and this jetty resident we could visit any time we wanted. I also very happy to see Picasso triggerfish, it had been in my list for long time, and I didn’t even know I could find it in Indonesia. Below there, the Picasso family have their home. This species of triggerfish is much smaller and pretty and shy.
Going further from the stilt, we could find more varieties, anemones, cracks in the bottom of the sea that hosted many type of fish. The topography is pretty much like Poopoh, Menado, with white sandy bottom and green grass, my favorite. In the jetty structure itself, there are many encrusted corals, crabs and oyster. We could also reach other jetties with more abundant and even big school of fish, and the site we always go on night dive.
I always like to dive in the jetty, even though it’s too shallow for my liking, as the water would only reach two meter depth or slightly more. We would need to spend more than one and a half hour to go deeper area. We never did, because it was just too busy along the way so we took it slow. Shallow make it difficult to look at the screen because of the bright sun, also shallow make me wary about boats. However, even though there were a lot of boats as we were diving in the row of jetties; most of them were only parked there passively. Anyway, aside the amazing rich water, we always met a lot of turtles.
Jetty dives can only be done early morning or late afternoon, if not night, that was the time when the water was high enough. Midday or lunch time the tide would be so low that it got knee depth and Samsidi would go fishing for mantis. He only need to use two long leaves and tied a bait, put it into the mantis shrimp nest, wait and jerked it out when the bait was taken. We watched the whole process in less than ten minutes, happened just below our deck.
When the water started to go up, the kampung children would come out and play in the biggest swimming pool with the clearest water one ever dared to dream of. How we envy the lifestyle.
We did our first dive around 8.15 in the morning, then eleven and followed by long lunch break before third and sunset/night dive. Lunch break was the quietest time. Tide was low and nobody was around. Everyone was resting or doing their own activities. Normally we just sat around the deck, taking picture or looking at the sea or turtles below. We could see various mantis shrimps, crabs, octopus, moray eels, cornet fish, our ‘barracuda’, razor fish, butterfly fish etc. Sometimes we sit around the jetty staircase and dip our legs while enjoying the quietness. We really really miss that beautiful place. Sometimes we also just lied down on the deck and let the wind breezed away. Closing to three o’clock, the surrounding would start come to live. Icuk and Osland would come, sometimes with pisang goreng and terang bulan, delicious kampong snacks. We would sit around and chatted for another half an hour before getting ready. Sometimes Bapak Solo would come around and he would shared many stories like the history there, the turtle conservation, the nice or the arrogant bules around, the various diving industry development stages etc. We really miss the people too. It’s so natural to see them come everyday with the smiles on their faces, stress free, worry free, in their own time, doing what their like. It must be life. Mama Rina would carry a super big pillow, she likes to have a afternoon nap on the wooden deck too.
Staying on the stilt was very fun experience. Beside the beautiful water and surrounding, we were free from sands that could get irritating after a while. We carried hell lot of bandage because we thought two weeks diving would rot our feet away. Normally, after a week, cut and bruises by fining and fighting currents, sands trapped in booties would take its tool. So, this time I prepared a stack of bandages. Amazingly, I didn’t have a single cut on my legs. And amazingly, yeehahaahha..I hope this is the end to it, I didn’t develop any skin allergic. My first few dives, I got a bit of reaction, but after that, it was like I bath in fresh water. No itchy, rash, allergic, annoying red spots got into me. I really really grateful for that. That didn’t mean I got away easily though. Derawan has so many fire corals and we couldn’t avoid some brushes on the knees sometimes. It’s painful and extremely itchy. I also got stiff hand for almost two weeks because of my camera. Hard to explain, but holding the camera for so long, even underwater, really made my right hand looked like seventy years with old acute rheumatism.
There was one afternoon where everyone was not around, the wind blew very hard that the coconuts tree looked as if they were ready to fly. The wind was followed by the rain, we were scrambling saving our towel and wetsuits and stirring more hot sweet tea. It looked like something serious was really happening and it didn’t seem possible to dive the rest of the day. However, after two hours, the sky was bright again and everything back to its usual.
The last two days, the low tide was sooo low that the water ended far away from the last stretch of the jetty. We even had to push our boat in. We couldn’t help by feeling paranoid that it’s normal by asking them. The low tide could get further than that, so it’s normal. We have this sort of strong attachment to the people and the place that we actually worry for them, not us.
SANGALAKI
Sangalaki has been so called my dream destination since I started to love diving. Manta ray, the posh and beloved sea creatures are abundant there, although according to some dive journal, some people are not lucky enough to see them. There was a time when Manta Ray completely disappeared for a few months, for unknown reason, but fortunately, they are back now, although as usual, according to locals, they had seen better days where there is nothing but manta along the stretch of the dive site to the island.
Eventhough, our experience in Sangakalaki with Manta is incomparable with all the places we had encountered them. Manta Point in Bali, various dive sites in Komodo, Manta Bowl in Philippine, nothing compared to this. Sangalaki is probably the world’s best well known place for Manta, beside Yap, I heard.
Samama is the island we passed before we reached Sangalaki. There is no dive site there according to Osland. I suggested that we probably could try and dive there, because for two weeks trip, we had plenty of time to explore everywhere. He agreed, so we dropped by for one dive on our second trip to Sangalaki.
Samama has different type of sandy bottom with Derawan and Sangalaki. It has yellow, rough and heavy sand. The advantage is, the sand goes down quickly if there is silt, therefore the visibility was always good. It has nice coral and surprisingly good macro. After our quest in Derawan to look for the robust pipefish with no success, we found a pair here gazing around the bottom. It was so close to the end of the trip. Osland was so happy that he made victory movement when he found them. I can’t explain here, you should go and see him doing that yourself. I was also very excited but pissed. Because..because..! Last few days of diving, my camera started to give me trouble, it got fogging after half the dive, no matter how many silicon pack I put in. Sometimes, when we already moved to shallower water, it would become normal again, but most of the time, that was it. Samama has good variety of nudibranch and now we found robush pipe fish, hubby had fish eye on his camera, and my camera fogged. I was still trying and spent good amount of time trying to get good shot and fortunately I had. Phew!
Sangalaki island is a small island with only one resort. It doesn’t have water source, that’s why there is no village life. When we were there, the resort was in trouble with the permit and authority; it was closed and deserted with only two island takers there. It used to be my original destination to stay, because of the turtle coming at night to nest in the island, but since I’ve heard so many bad recommendations and again, I’d prefer to deal with local operator, I stayed in Derawan. It was proven to be good decision; I can’t imagine if I plan my trip and go there to find that the operator was no longer in operation.
Journey to Sangalaki , we would pass by a very big part of the ocean where the water suddenly turned light green because of the shallow and white sandy bottom below. It was pretty and very clear. I remember the school of small fish kept flipping and breaching through the surface and sea gulls flying along the way. Indescribable.
If the sea was calm, Icuk would just fold his hands in front of the chest and let the boat ran itself, ha..he was cool. Too bad I didn’t get a picture of him doing that because he was very alert in movement around the boat, and he’s like me, we hate being photographed!
Morning dive in Sangalaki, we usually strolled around the dive site, except beautiful coral, there is my favorite big sandy field with nothing, nothing but white sand and it was breathtaking, thinking about underwater sand tobogganing. The other bottom slope are also decorated with abundant fish, fusiliers (Icuk call them ikan ekor kuning), batfish, red-toothed triggerfish, surgeon, anthias, it was just amazing to see the various size and color of the fish soup.
Beneath the beautiful coral, we could also find nudibranch, blennies, lobster and some other lives that we didn’t have enough time to encounter because of mantas. When we roamed the dive site in the morning, we usually strolled in the bottom (as per normal) and encountered few mantas.
However, during midday, all the mantas are out. We could see the tip of their wings breaking the surface everywhere, literally every directions. We then geared up and dive the bottom, from there, manta sightseeing hunting started.
Some mantas would go to the bottom, passed through and around us, many of them would be nearer to the surface. It was like madness, we saw manta, chased to take the picture, another passed by, and another and another, some were below, some were above, some just stroll behind our back. Busy busy busy, but it was hell of exciting dive. If we were to check our dive profile, eve the biggest liar in detector couldn’t beat our zig zag path. I couldn’t imagine the excitement of manta hunting where anytime I could just let go of the chasing, because I knew another would pass by. We went to Sangalaki twice, yet we only got the excitement and Manta Parade twice because we dived other sites also, due to request of other or us, and the second time was cut short because Osland just aborted the dive without informing us because he got headache, it must be the profile because he also kept going up and down. He trusted us to dive alone, but he should have signal first, anyway, we decided to go up also since it already an hour and there was down current at that moment and we were quite exhausted chasing manta.
The manta we saw from the surface and below in Sangalaki is much more than ten times the mantas I saw in other dive sites combined. Well, I didn’t see many manta in other places to start with, but Sangalaki is magnificent, eighty or more mantas for two dives in manta parade is a terrific number, if not more. So, when we were in the boat, the mantas kept passing around us. It’s pretty to see their wing’s tip breaking the surface. Icuk would stop the boat and we would enjoy the sight in the silence, both of us wandering around the boat, getting excited. I also did some snorkeling and it was grand to see the big ad posh creature coming to me unknowingly, they like me better without bubble I guess. But I didn’t snorkel as much as I wanted too, because my snorkel holder broke and I had to hold it manually, it was five years old and not a good quality snorkel so I kept inhaling water. Together with the sore feet we got from chasing manta underwater, well , I couldn’t keep myself afloat for long, he….
KAKABAN
Kakaban has the second largest jellyfish lake in the world, first one is the infamous Palau. Except the stingless freshwater jellyfish, resulted from evolution of years, Kakaban also has beautiful untouched jungle, advanced cave diving and beautiful wall diving.
We were briefed like this by Osland, with sketch and all: We would hit the surface together, go down together and the current will bring us along the wall until almost the edge of the island. At the edge, we should be able to see chevron barracuda schooling, reef sharks etc in the blue, but we had to make a turn there to follow the reef, if not, the current will carry us to the blue and it could be difficult to fight. We have to fight and make it to the left and tried to look for a line where we can hang for safety stop or to help us withstand the current. Uhm, sounds familiar, it has been sometimes since we did current fighting diving. Well, anyway, we had to prepare for this, because at that time, we were told that the upcoming Maratua should be the real challenge.
When we reached there, however, the sea was super calm and flat, there was no current visible, it could be good news, but to the disadvantage of the diving, normally the big stuff and fish action exists in ripping current. We went down as usual, unlike staying together as intended, we descended and greeted by the pretty wall. It has been a while since the last time we dived in bottomless ocean, the last was in Bunaken 2007. It’s easy to lost the sense of depth in the wall, even though we had to take good notice on the computer to maintain the depth, it’s nice to enjoy the wall without worry that we were getting to close to the bottom and touched the sea life. It’s all blue and black below as far as we could see.
Anyway, the non existence or very mild current made us reach the edge with a little non deco time left. Being twenty over meter depth we didn’t have much non-deco time to begin with. So by the time we were greeted by the chevron barracuda school and a few white tip reef sharks, The current then begun to pick up with the direction to the open sea, so we didn’t really pursue the barracuda but taking it from the place we were. Remembering Osland’s advice, we didn’t distance ourselves from the slope, anyway, the non deco time was over. We proceeded to the shallower area. It was once in the blue moon that Kakaban didn’t come with current, luckily, the barracudas were still hanging there despite the lack of it.
We did our surface interval in the island, the freshwater lake. It was nothing that I imagine. Well, I imagined it was like a small lake, probably the size of two Olympic swimming pool with clear dark water. It was not.
We need to climb wooden staircase up and down to reach the middle of the island. The distance was not significant, but somehow climbing the steps was quite exhausting. It was not allowed to dive in the lake, so we only carried ourselves and cameras. The lake was hidden from outside because of dense vegetation, it is a very protected island without anybody staying there. Emerging from the green, there wesaw it, the emerald color of the lake, breathtaking. The lake was huge! Huge! So huge that we couldn’t see the end. There was a wooden deck to go in and out. The deck doesn’t come with the staircase, instead, it has slope on both side, which is, frankly, quite difficult to climb, with the slippery slope. Sitting down, I slid down slowly from the deck to the lake, but somehow, my five years old wetsuit caught in the deck and praa…there was a sizeable hole just below on my back tigh. Huoy!! So embarrassing,,, but to be honest, I stick with that wetsuit until the end of the trip. There was just no way I would put in thicker wetsuit if I don’t have to. The skin of the wetsuit was still there, so I just needed to make sure that it didn’t flip away and expose the skin. Huhaha…
The lake was warm, the structure of the deck itself had a lot of encrusted oyster and corals. Below, as far as we could see, was sandy bottom with green grass, decorated with upside down jellyfish and hangout for some fish. I felt that the surface of the lake somehow thicker than the sea, although I don’t know the explanation for that. The further we swam into the lake, the more concentrated was the jellyfish. It was literally everywhere, and I was still nowhere near the middle. I had to keep treading water because my camera had negative buoyancy and the skin wetsuit didn’t help much, the ‘manual-holding snorkel’, damn! If only I knew it would break like that. Anyway, from the point I was, it was already impossible to avoid the jellyfish. They were cute, I must say, and bouncy. They didn’t mind if we touched its canopy and felt the softness we wouldn’t able to feel if we were in the sea, because here, they are stingless. If we lifted the jellyfish out of the water, it became quiet and stopped moving,, as if embracing the introduction to the other world outside water. Once we put in back, it would start bouncing again.
The lake was very quiet; we spent some time swimming and enjoy the paradise for ourselves. I like this trip so much because of the quietness. Only one occasion did we encountered other boat while searching for manta in Sangalaki, otherwise, we were practically by ourselves. The best thing is, we only needed to share boat for few dives, otherwise, it was us only, and below, underwater, we didn’t meet any other divers, which is very nice and relaxing.
We dived the wall of Kakaban again after the lake surface interval, this time we dived in front of the jetty and swam with the reef on our left side. The wall reminded me of Bunaken. Nice corals, nudibranch, mysterious cracks and beautiful shallow water where we could see colorful fish under the penetrating sun. Ah well. Party always has to end.
We feel really sad ending this trip. The last full day we had, we walked around the village with Osland. It was a beautiful village with simple life and simple people, a real paradise. Icuk brought us fresh coconut, then five of us, together with Otong too, sitting there the whole afternoon sharing stories about diving until the sky turned purple. We even forget about visiting the turtle conservation center.
Early in the morning, everyone, including Bapak Solo, Mama Rina, Paul and Isabel, waved us goodbye at the jetty. The really different thing with this trip is, by the time we left, we didn’t only leave part of our heart for the place and underwater, we really leave big chunk of our heart for these people, who made our two week stay feels like the home we always searching for.
So long... I’m pretty sure it’s not goodbye.
