We took of from our bungalow's floating jetty at around 8:30am on a very choppy sea under a drizzling and threatening sky.
Snorkeling first in Kakaban was superb! We started by the stingless jellyfish lake which basically makes 95% of the surface of the lake. The other 5% is pretty much a surrounding ring of rainforest protecting the lake from the sea. Simply a gorgeous sight! Swimming among these creatures was quite something. There were so many that you didn't know where to look. To the right, to the left, behind you, in front of you, below you, above you, on your arms, your feet, your chest, your face...just everywhere, of all sizes. Magnificent!
But here again, a absolutely failed not sustainable effort funded by USAID to protect this fauna from tourists bad/uneducated behavior. Yes there is a little poster telling you Do's and Don't while swimming in the lake, but you can barely see that poster, and none of the welcoming few rangers will tell you to even read the poster when entering the site. So the sad result is, careless and uni serving tourists will make lots of abrupt movements while in the water, and accidentally decapitate (separate the top cap of the jelly fish from its legs) hundreds of jellyfish in a few minutes. And when talking to the few guides accompanying other tourists on site, it seems that they are not even aware of the "rules" to respect for the fauna's sake underwater in this specific lake, A simple solution now that the poster is a produced in both English and Indonesian would be to enforce in the ranger's procedure to have all the incoming visitors stop, read, and understand the poster's warning. As simple as that. But no, nada, niet!
Anyhow, after a long post lunch nap on the wooden jetty, under the gentle and life saving shade of a big tropical tree (it was so damn hot and the sun was at its peak) while waiting for the low tide to end and rise again, we finally head to what we had all been waiting for, (at least for me, the sole initial reason for my coming to Derawan) Sangalaki island, or the regional capital of giant mantas. We snorkeled around the key manta points, Manta Run, Manta Parade...for about 1:30hours...and nothing. What a disappointment, since aside from spotting mantas of the shallow off shore of this tiny island/atoll, there is nothing to see, the coral is all dead, barely any big fish. So it is with a sad grin on our face that we headed back to Derawan at a fast speed, to make it on time for high tide and not have to push the boat on hundreds of meters in the low tide, murky and sea-urscent-filled water.
Ufff...lots of sun today and filled with exercise. The currents are extremely strong around here so you have to struggle quite much to stay on track and not just fly through this marine landscape without actually enjoying it.
The cold shower back home was just so delicious!
As we are waiting for our food to arrive at April Resto, Sudine, our turtle ranger friend swings by telling to hurry because they thinks quite a few turtles are about to arrive on shore to lay eggs.
We eat very fast, go get our head lamps, and off we go at fast pace towards the other side of the island.
We get there, already two gigantic turtles are laying eggs. The first one laid 117 eggs and the second one 119! Ufff so many tourists were there and disrespectfully flashing their lights and cameras in the face of the turtles. I got upset so started to tell them off with the behaviour. I laid down on the ground, putting my face at the exact same level than the second turtle's head, sort of providing moral support while she was covering her eggs (which had already been taken by he rangers), process that can take up to a few hours. Some tourists got bored and left. Thank god! We, Fede, Julia, John and I accompanied the turtles to the water until the last minute. At the end it was only the 4 of us, the turtle, the millions of stars...the full moon was hiding somewhere, making the sky plain magical.
On our way back, we bump into Sudine again, two other giant turtles were about to lay eggs a bit further. Wow! 4 turtles in one night. Busy night! (So amazing that we managed to see turtles laying eggs every single night since we got here). By the end of the third one, only John and I remained. So peacefull.
While the 4th one was dealing with recovering her eggs, we went back to a shorter coconut tree we had spotted on the way, hoping that thanks to a ladder that had been left aside by some random person, we could get ourselves some sweet yummy water. Yeah right! Our two tall selves were totally helpless in setting up this ladder the right way against the tree. Grrrrr! We managed to get some help from two students doing some research on the island. Nice guys with decent English. The slimmest one immediately starts climbing the coconut tree and in less time that it would take me to open a can of beans, we are on their terrace, with three coconuts opened and about two liters of fresh coco water poured in a big jar for us to drink. We spent about two hours chatting with them about their work and I got all excited about ideas to shoot at them for ways to reposition the tourism on this island around a pilot project on environment sustainability education and awareness for local tourists pairing the project with north american and European schools for best practices exchanges. Gosh, it was passed midnight and I just would not stop. Lol what an interesting portion of the evening.
On our way out, we are right on time for when the last and fourth giant turtle is about to get out of her dig to reach back to the sea. So we morally escort her, following every one of her step and almost pacing our breath with hers to fully accompany her.
When she reaches the water and starts swimming at sea it is 1 in the morning, the moon is full and back high up in the sky, the whole village is asleep, except a group of four old men playing dominos according to the most uniquely strange way, but I shall tell you about that later...
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