This archipelago in Indonesia is a growing destination that offers the best of the Coral Triangle.
We landed at the small Kalimarau Airport in East Kalimantan and took a 20-minute car ride to the small port of Berau. A small speedboat was waiting to take us to our hotel in the Derawan Islands, an archipelago in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan with unparalleled diversity of marine life. We sped past homes and oil wells along the Berau River, then out on the Celebes Sea. After almost three hours, we arrived at our hotel in Maratua, one of the islands in the archipelago, just as the sun was setting.
Booking some sort of tour—either one for the duration of your trip or individual day trips—is essential in the Derawan archipelago for one main reason: you need a boat. The Derawan Islands are made up of 31 islands surrounded by one of the highest marine biodiversity on the planet. The hotels in the archipelago are mostly located in Derawan (which is the name of the archipelago and one of the islands within it) and Maratua Islands, but the area’s best sites are located on other islands. Clear lagoons, karst lakes, stingless jellyfish, and the world’s biggest shark are all a boat ride away.
A Hot Spot for Whale Sharks
A decade ago, most of the travelers that came to Derawan were avid scuba divers, as the waters around Derawan Islands are teeming with dolphins, manta rays, sea turtles, and whale sharks. The early hotels to open in the area were bare-boned hotels that cater to avid scuba divers — they’re still around and start at $30 a night. In the past few years, non-divers have discovered the archipelago, which has plenty to offer on the surface or just below the water.
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The area’s recent claim to fame lies in the lake on Kakaban island: the jellyfish. There are four types of jellyfish in Kakaban Lake, which have all evolved to lose their stinger after being isolated in a saltwater lake without the natural predators they’d encounter in the ocean. The lake is one of only a handful of places on earth where you can not only find stingless jellyfish but swim with them.
Another reason for Derawan’s rising popularity is that the destination has become known as a whale shark hotspot thanks to the local fishing tradition. Fishermen near Talisayan on the main island of Kalimantan use a tool called Bagan, which is like a floating platform with a net underneath that can be lowered and lifted to catch fish. They’re typically used to catch anchovies in the dark using light. The light attracts plankton, which in turn attracts anchovies, which in turn attracts whale sharks. The presence of the Bagans means that the area is one of the most reliable areas for whale shark spotting.
Where to Stay
With the increase in tourism, more modern hotels have been opening in the area, with a majority of them located on Maratua Island. Arasatu Floating Villas & Sanctuary is currently the most luxurious lodging option on the Derawan Islands right now, although more are under construction. The hotel currently has three sea-view villas and eight overwater bungalows. The overwater bungalows are painted in white to contrast with the turquoise ocean water, and each one features a large, semi-open rain shower and a net hammock on the deck.
The sea-view villas are typically offered at around $200 per night, while the overwater bungalows are around $300 per night, including three meals a day (and a midday snack/coffee break) for two. It’s a much more affordable overwater bungalow option than more popular destinations like Maldives. To describe the Wi-Fi anywhere on the archipelago as spotty is being generous, but you’d forgive and forget as you watch the sunset from the hammock of your overwater bungalow.
Close Encounters
The marine life sightings we had in Derawan seemed to come easier for non-divers. We spotted half a dozen sea turtles on our short snorkel along the Maratua coast. Dozens of dolphins swam alongside our boat as we approached Kakaban Island one morning, our captain whistling the whole time — a part of us believed that his whistling helped call over the dolphins.
On Kakaban Island, wooden stairs led from the dock to a small platform on the lake, and mangroves covered the edges of the lake on either side. On good days, the brackish water of the lake is so full of jellyfish that you can barely swim without touching one. There are rare times that the jellyfish hide at the bottom of the lake for reasons that researchers are still trying to figure out. A similar phenomenon happened with the jellyfish in Palau following a drought and El Niño.
The whale sharks are mostly found around the fishermen’s Bagans near Talisayan, which is located on the mainland of East Kalimantan. As fishermen use Bagan to fish with light throughout the night, the whale sharks typically come just after sunrise. We left Maratua at 5 AM in order to arrive in time to see them. The first Bagan we arrived at had a whale shark, but there were already two boats of snorkelers, so we moved on to a different one to avoid overcrowding the whale shark.
The boat captains communicated with some of the local fishermen to find out which Bagans currently had whale sharks nearby. We were the only boat at the second Bagan, where we spotted a whale shark underneath. We got in the water, and to our surprise, there was another whale shark swimming behind us, circling the speedboat. We swam with the two sharks for fifteen minutes, getting a long and close look at them.
Beyond the Whale Sharks
Wildlife encounters aside, our days were spent swimming in clear waters of all shades. There’s Kehe Daing, a lagoon on the eastern side of Kakaban Island that features a sandy beach on one end. The name “kehe daing” comes from the language of the local Bajau people, and it translates to “fish hole,” referring to the small tunnel that connects the lagoon to the open ocean. The white sand bottom gives the shallow and long lagoon its turquoise color.
On the southern end of Maratua Island is Goa Halo Tabung, an 80-foot deep karst cave filled with refreshingly cold azure-colored water. On the mainland, we swam in Labuan Cermin, which literally translates to “mirror harbor.” Labuan Cermin is technically a cove as it’s directly connected to the ocean by a small, short inlet. Near the surface, the water at Labuan Cermin is freshwater, much like a lake, but salt water sits just three feet below the surface. The boundary of the two types of water creates a light refraction when the sunlight hits. On the route back to Maratua, we picnicked on the white sands of the uninhabited island of Manimbora, which is nicknamed Spongebob Island as some say the towering palm trees reminded them of the island in the cartoon’s opening sequence.
Striking a Balance
As a growing tourist destination in a developing country, Derawan, like many others, is trying to find its sea legs and will need to figure out how to balance economic opportunity and environmental conservation. While the Indonesian government has imposed regulations around wildlife and conservation, it has a spotty track record on enforcement. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a success story. In 2013, the manta ray numbers really dwindled around Sangalaki, which many say was due to hunting as their gills were in demand for Chinese medicine. Thankfully, due to the catch ban introduced by the Indonesian government in 2014, the population has bounced back.
The Indonesian government has released regulations surrounding whale shark encounters, including a ban against feeding and touching whale sharks, but it is currently largely up to the tour operators to enforce these rules. Derawan’s tourism is growing, but for now, it’s still curbed by the limited lodging and the rather inconvenient journey it takes to get there. The speed boats that transport visitors to and around the islands have no bathroom facility — the boat ladder to the open ocean is the only place to go on the full-day tour to Talisayan. These inconveniences might deter some people from coming for now, but those who have made the journey know it’s well worth it.