Where is Rune?

Pulau Derawan (and nearby islands) is another one of those hidden gems in Indonesia’s remote corners. Not many have heard about it either.

Arrival at Kalimarau airport.

Excited as I was, on 4 January, 10:40 hours, I flew from Balikpapan on KalStar Aviation (Rp 720k) via Samarinda, and arrived at Kalimarau airport in Tanjung Redeb, the main town in Berau regency. I asked the taxi drivers about transport to Tanjung Batu, which is the gateway to Pulau Derawan. Chartering a taxi to Tg Batu would cost me Rp 500k (before bargaining) and was out of the question. Instead, one of the friendly taxi drivers searched for a shared taxi for me, and I was finally dropped off at the bus terminal (for Rp 40k, which is the standard taxi price from the airport), where a Kijang van was waiting for passengers to Tg Batu. I waited another hour before the Kijang took off, with me and a few other passengers. The fixed price to Tg Batu was Rp 50k for the shared taxi. The trip took around 2.5 hours on a good, paved road through the jungle. The driver had already arranged (by cell phone) with a boatman to wait for me at the pier in Tg Batu. Upon my arrival, I was a bit hesitant to the asking price of Rp 200k for the speedboat charter to Pulau Derawan, and the price soon came down to Rp 150k, which I accepted. The fast trip out to the island took about 40 minutes in a small speedboat.

Speedboat to Pulau Derawan.

Upon arrival in Pulau Derawan, I checked into Penginapan Reza & Dira, a small home stay located straight on the beach, with some of the cottages built above the sea, attached to a pier. Those latter cottages were full, so I rented a regular room (with attached bathroom) instead. Price per night was Rp 125k.

Next day, I joined a chartered speedboat trip together with 4 other travelers (from Argentina, Australia, Estonia, and Germany) to the nearby uninhabited islands Pulau Kakaban and Pulau Sangalaki. It took around an hour to get first to Pulau Kakaban, in a small speedboat in uncomfortably choppy seas. The trip cost Rp 800k, so Rp 160k per person. The boatman was the same guy who took me to Pulau Derawan the day before.

View from my guest house, Pulau Derawan.

Pulau Kakaban is a strange, but beautiful, island. It has white-sand beaches, is covered by dense jungle grown on limestone cliffs, and has a huge brackish water lake in the middle. Countless non-stinging jellyfish are living in the lake. The only man-built feature on the island is the wooden pier leading to the lake. We spent some time at this lake, snorkeling among the jellyfish, and also walking on the beach. It was too shallow for snorkeling near the beach, however.

Afterwards, the boatman took us for snorkeling outside Pulau Sangalaki, which is famous for the big manta rays. And this seemed to be our lucky day too, as we spotted a veritable swarm of these creatures swimming around us in the ocean. At one point I was swimming near 3 manta rays, and I could almost touch them, as they were not afraid. I guess their size was around 2 meter across. On the way towards the beach I also saw a bluespotted ribbontail ray (a species of stingray) scuttling across the bottom. Pulau Sangalaki is surrounded by a beautiful white-sand beach, which we explored by foot. We also met a local ranger on the beach, showing us green sea turtles about to hatch from eggs and crawl out from the sand on the beach.

Jellyfish lake at Pulau Kakaban.

It was now almost sunset, and it was time to return to Pulau Derawan.

The rest of the week was spent on Pulau Derawan only, snorkeling and walking on the beach and in the small village (pop. ~1200). The island is very small and can be walked around in just half an hour. Most visitors on the island were local tourists, there weren’t many foreign faces to see.

Pulau Derawan is famous for being the feeding site of plenty of green sea turtles, as they come to feed on the sea grass during high tide. This was also one of the highlights during my stay here, and I could easily touch the huge turtles while snorkeling and following them through the water. Several times I could also see bluespotted ribbontail rays, and I also saw two strange, relatively large type of bluish ray fish with rectangular head, around one meter in length. Somebody told me the name of the fish, but I have forgot it.

On 11 January, I decided that I had spent enough time on the island, and started on the similar journey back to Balikpapan. I shared a speedboat (Rp 100k) to Tg Batu, and then took a shared taxi straight to the airport (Rp 50k). Thereafter a Batavia flight to Balikpapan (Rp 750k).

German climbing coconut palm, Pulau Sangalaki.

Beach at Pulau Sangalaki.

Police station at Pulau Derawan.

Alley leading to my guest house, Pulau Derawan.

Village at Pulau Derawan.

Green sea turtles feeding on banana leaves, Pulau Derawan.

Driving through jungle, Tg Batu to airport.

View from plane.