Look’s around

When visiting Derawan Island, the visitors will be enchanted by the very beautiful views of this exotic area. The clear seawater surface, with combination of blue and green color gradation present the view of various colors of fishes and the swimming green turtle. The white sands spread out beautifully. The lines of coconut trees, houseboats, and the blue sky add the characteristic view of the island. Small forest at the middle of the island is the habitat of various kinds of flora and fauna. And as the most special feature of the island is the charming beauty of its undersea panorama. No wonder if the island ranks third in the world’s diving destinations. Derawan Island is the dream island for the divers.

Derawan Island is located at Derawan Archipelago, Berau Regency, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. The sea park beauty at the water around the island makes Derawan Island famous for its diving tourism. It has various marine biodiversity, for example cuttlefish, lobster, ghost pipefish, blue-ringed octopus, nudibranches, seahorses, ribbon eels, and scorpionfishes. At the 10 m deep coral reef, there’s a reef known as “Blue Trigger Wall” where there’re a lot of red-toothed trigger fishes at this 18 m-length reef. 28 dive spots have been identified around Derawan Island. To move from spot to spot, the divers can use boat.

There’re many activities can be done in the island, particularly marine tour activities such as diving, watching various fishes and green turtles, swimming, snorkeling, and fishing. As the souvenirs, there’re a lot of handicrafts made of sea products. The facilities such as cottages, lodges, diving services, speedboats, restaurants, and cafes are provided.

Using speedboat, the island can be reached in 30 minutes from Tanjungbatu, the nearest port. Derawan Island is just one of the islands include in Derawan Archipelago, which consists of 31 islands, some sandbanks and atolls. Derawan Archipelago has several tropical ecosystems of reefs, sea grasses, and mangroves; and various characteristic preserved species, such as coconut crab (Birgus latro), whale, Dolphin, green turtle (Chelonia mydas), hawksbill turtle (Erethmochelys fimbriata), and dugong (Dugong dugon).

Besides Derawan Island, there’re three other famous exotic islands in Derawan Archipelago, namely Maratua Island, Sangalaki Island, and Kakaban Island. The 3 islands can be visited from Derawan Island using speedboat. They have their own uniqueness and features. Groups of Manta Rays are the target for the divers who are visiting Sangalaki Island. At night, the visitors can watch groups of green turtles rise to the shore to lay eggs. Maratua Island also presents the unique undersea panorama. Kakaban Island is the mysterious “Jurassic Park”. Its uniqueness is Lake Kakaban, a prehistoric lake (Holocene epoch) in the middle of island. The brackish water lake of the island keeps the secret of nature which is not yet fully revealed. The island also has jellyfish which is different from the jellyfish in the open sea out of the island.