Hi all,
I did this trip on September 7 ~ 15 2019
dive resort: Home By Borneo Diving
It is Chinese owned and managed onsite by a local manager.
They offered me a 7D6N package
5 days of diving
first 4 days, one island per day, and the 5th day we can choose one island on our own.
The first day is for check dive so we dived the Derawan main island.
All 3 dives including a night dive we did at the jetty, which was very nice.
there is a small wreck at 2x meters deep, full of soft corals.
and the jetty itself is full of fish. The motorbike is near the jetty in the shallow.
Day two we challenged the Maratua island!
the highlight is the Big fish country, for the schooling barracudas!
the current was so strong when we dived, I can hear wind sound!
besides barracuda, there are some sharks and lots of turtles.
During the surface interval, the local children at Maratua imitate everything we do
day three we went to the Sangalaki island for the mantas.
It has been told the manta sighting is unpredictable, and two of our dive buddies are worried because they have failed to encounter manta in the German channel(Palau) and Ishigaki(Japan). I tried to comfort them that even if there is no manta, the coral reef will be beautiful. One of them asked me please don't say anything about the coral if we really don't see any manta, just don't.
Fortunately, before we enter the water of Sangalaki, we saw mantas already!
On that day, we saw more than 50 mantas, if not 100 ~~~
here is my best shot of the 3 dives.
In the evening, the ranger in Derawan says Hatchlings will swim toward the moonlight by instinct, but the modern lighting always confuses them. So on a night of the full moon, he carefully picks a dark beach to send them home. I go into the water and wait with a snorkel. I try to capture the swimming babies but they swim so fast and it's extremely hard to focus. Finally this Tukik (Indonesian) comes to say goodbye on its way home. I hope it has a safe journey despite all the predators and threats it is going to encounter.
4th day we went to Kakaban island, but the weather wasn't great and viz degraded.
We didn't see the big animals(some other groups saw schooling hammerhead and thresher sharks), but the coral walls and jellyfish lake were very nice.
the 5th day we wanted to dive Maratua again, but the wind was too strong, so we can dive Derawan only. It was fun, but nothing to write home.
On the way back home, we realized that the bad weather was a big problem, because it caused a forest fire in Borneo, and the smoke shot down the airport in Berau for days!
We all had to get back to work, so we took a car ride (17.5 hr) to Balikpapan airport ... of course, we missed our original flights and hotels, and the car ride was an adventure.
useful information:
the manager told me the most stable weather is in April - May and not so crowded. Try to avoid the national holiday in October, it's super crowded.
PS.
There are a lot of cats on Derawan island, and they may need vet and ligation.
I did this trip on September 7 ~ 15 2019
dive resort: Home By Borneo Diving
It is Chinese owned and managed onsite by a local manager.
They offered me a 7D6N package
5 days of diving
first 4 days, one island per day, and the 5th day we can choose one island on our own.
The first day is for check dive so we dived the Derawan main island.
All 3 dives including a night dive we did at the jetty, which was very nice.
there is a small wreck at 2x meters deep, full of soft corals.
and the jetty itself is full of fish. The motorbike is near the jetty in the shallow.
Day two we challenged the Maratua island!
the highlight is the Big fish country, for the schooling barracudas!
the current was so strong when we dived, I can hear wind sound!
besides barracuda, there are some sharks and lots of turtles.
During the surface interval, the local children at Maratua imitate everything we do
day three we went to the Sangalaki island for the mantas.
It has been told the manta sighting is unpredictable, and two of our dive buddies are worried because they have failed to encounter manta in the German channel(Palau) and Ishigaki(Japan). I tried to comfort them that even if there is no manta, the coral reef will be beautiful. One of them asked me please don't say anything about the coral if we really don't see any manta, just don't.
Fortunately, before we enter the water of Sangalaki, we saw mantas already!
On that day, we saw more than 50 mantas, if not 100 ~~~
here is my best shot of the 3 dives.
In the evening, the ranger in Derawan says Hatchlings will swim toward the moonlight by instinct, but the modern lighting always confuses them. So on a night of the full moon, he carefully picks a dark beach to send them home. I go into the water and wait with a snorkel. I try to capture the swimming babies but they swim so fast and it's extremely hard to focus. Finally this Tukik (Indonesian) comes to say goodbye on its way home. I hope it has a safe journey despite all the predators and threats it is going to encounter.
4th day we went to Kakaban island, but the weather wasn't great and viz degraded.
We didn't see the big animals(some other groups saw schooling hammerhead and thresher sharks), but the coral walls and jellyfish lake were very nice.
the 5th day we wanted to dive Maratua again, but the wind was too strong, so we can dive Derawan only. It was fun, but nothing to write home.
On the way back home, we realized that the bad weather was a big problem, because it caused a forest fire in Borneo, and the smoke shot down the airport in Berau for days!
We all had to get back to work, so we took a car ride (17.5 hr) to Balikpapan airport ... of course, we missed our original flights and hotels, and the car ride was an adventure.
useful information:
the manager told me the most stable weather is in April - May and not so crowded. Try to avoid the national holiday in October, it's super crowded.
PS.
There are a lot of cats on Derawan island, and they may need vet and ligation.