Maratua Island, Indonesia

A couple we met on Derawan wanted to go to Maratua Island for a few nights and were looking for someone to share the cost of hiring a boat for the 45 minute ride. We knew there was a fancy resort on the island, but no one seemed to know if there was somewhere to stay within our backpackers' budgets. We decided to take a chance and go for it. Our boat man took us to a village with one hotel and a few families offering homestays. The couple stayed with a family and we went to check out a new place that just opened outside the village. As soon as we pulled up to the small dock and saw the pavilion overlooking the water and a secluded beach we knew we were staying. The owner wasn't on island but the guys building new units called him and we negotiated a price as well as use of his restaurant kitchen and food. Meals were half price if we cooked ourselves, he would be back in a few days. We had the place to ourselves and spent six days snorkeling, beach walking and relaxing.

There was a ledge just off the guesthouse that dropped to 750ft

Stone fish

No need to kill this one, it is not invasive here

We moved to the village for a few nights to be within walking distance of the dive resort. There is no public power in Maratua so each house has its own generator that only runs at night. No one spoke English in the village and we struggled to communicate with every interaction. We ate nasi goreng and ayam goreng (fried rice and fried chicken) for dinner almost every night because every time we tried to order something else the woman got confused and frustrated with us. She even turned us away one night with what we thought was "I'm closed" signals and when we tried to ask where to go for food we realized she was just sending us away because she was out of the only meal she thought we ate, nasi goreng. She made us fried noddles instead, mie goreng.

Our grocery store

We were told this was the only restaurant on the island

Last weeks catch set out to dry

We didn't stay here, but enjoyed hanging out between dives. We did seven dives over two days with the resort, the last dive was the highlight when we saw three thresher sharks! We went down to 130ft looking for them with a small chance of actually seeing them. It was so exciting when we got lucky!

On the way back to Derawan we stopped at Kakaban Island to swim in the stingless jellyfish lake.

 

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Derawan Island, Indonesia

We never really knew where we wanted to go after finishing our continental Southeast Asia tour but we knew we were going to book a flight to a remote island for three weeks. A friend from St. John was on his sailboat in the Philippines and suggested we look at the Derawan Archipelago (Borneo, Indonesia) as it was as "accessibly remote" an island he could think of. After some research we decided it was indeed exactly what we were looking for. The small amount of information we found on it all pointed to a go now before it gets discovered attitude. We went. Siem Reap to Singapore; to Jakarta; to Balikpapan, Borneo; to Berau; two hour car ride; 30 minute private speedboat, no public transportation. 24 hours later we were on island looking for a place to stay.

You can walk around the island in 20 minutes

Main Street Derawan

We had no idea why there were motorbikes on the island but the kids all used them in the afternoons and evenings for joy rides. There was obviously no need to have a license. Some of the drivers were no older than 9 but would carry their younger brother and sister on the back for a cruise up and down the road.

Marci was the owner of the second place we stayed on Derawan and she was so nice to us. Breakfast and coffee was brought to our door every morning (mie goreng - fried noodles). She didn't speak much English but every time she saw us she would light up with a huge smile and wave and say hello even if she was across the street or on another dock. Very little English was spoken in Indonesia and we actually learned more of the language than we expected.

Most of the Losmens (hotels) were ON the water. We had a sunset view off our back porch and a sunrise view off the front. Below, huge green turtles came in on the tides to eat the grass. Derawan is home to the biggest green turtles we have ever seen and there are literally hundreds of them. While sitting on the porch reading you can glance down at the water and spot at least three in the clear water if it is high tide.

Erin's favorite fish :(

We met this man, Udong, one afternoon as he swam under our porch. Josh struck up a conversation with him about fishing and we were invited along on the next day's expedition. He has a 5kg Giant Cuttle fish in the picture.

We ended up with six fish on the hunt. A very great day for him because he had Josh along to carry the catch so he was free to keep shooting! He kept two of them tied to his shorts and then tucked them inside.

He invited us to lunch that afternoon to eat the catch. It was extremely good but he didn't tell us he was cooking it for us so after the snorkel we went to lunch ourselves. Then he saw us walking back to our room and said we must come eat the catch in a "where have you been for the last two hours" voice. We didn't decline of course but we did skip dinner that night since we were so full.

All the fishing boats are made by hand on island

It turns out Udong, our spear fishing guy was part of a four man WWF team that helped protect the Green Turtle nesting patterns on the island. The locals eat and sell the eggs if they can find a turtle laying. It is a huge business and a huge problem. These four guys walk the beach and when they find a turtle laying they wait for her to finish, then they have to dig the eggs up, put them in a bucket and bury them somewhere else so the locals can't find them in the morning. Every night during the nesting season up to four turtles come ashore on this tiny section of beach. We walked the beach three nights and saw two turtles laying eggs. They track and record all data on the turtles, the first momma we saw was 60 years old and had laid eggs six times during this season already!

Funny story. Josh wanted to venture out from the usual three or four things we tend to order on an Indonesian menu so he decided to point to a random item and hope it was something good. When it arrived we laughed as he had chosen the only thing on the menu that was a western meal. . . . . French fries!

Udong came to see us off

 

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