who's been to Derawan Island?

[opalobsidian]

Hello ScubaBoarders!

Who's been to Derawan and surrounding islands in Kalimantan? Would love to hear any stories!

thanks so much!
Shivaya

 

[jcclink]

Derawan diving is just average compared to areas like Raja Ampat & Komodo. I only did muck diving there, which was good but Lembeh & Bali have more variety. Only one manta at Sangalaki on my day trip there. Enjoyable but been there, done that. A 2 hr boat ride from mainland to Derawan Dive Resort can be expensive depending on # of passengers. Resort was comfortable, great food & dive guide was very good. I was only diver during my 10 day stay in Sep '09. Logistics are similar to Sipadan (fly, fly, boat). It was a more popular destination in 1990's.

 

[NickLongfellow]

Man, derawan/Sangalaki/Kakaban was one of my favorite places visited yet. I had to take a visa run from Sipadan/Mabul area wher eI was working at the time, and decided to visit Kalimantan. Took quite a journey to get there (Ferry, speedboat, taxi flled with durian, mini-bus, speedboat) but when we got there... bliss. In one day we snorkeled with about 20 green turtles on derawan, went diving barracuda point kakaban where we saw white tip sharks, black tip sharks, and spotted eagle rays, then surface interval in the jellyfish lake (mind blowing). on the way to sangalaki we saw a devil ray on the surface, a pod of dolphins, and of course 10-15 mantas at sangalaki. (Not to mention the rhobust ghost pipefish). The boats are tiny and uncomfortable and you basically have to convince the DM to take you diving, but man is it worth it when you see schools of manta rays and not another diver or dive boat in sight. just me and my girlfriend.

The reefs around sangalaki are in bad shape because of crown of thorns, but the mantas are still around. Hopefully it starts to recover soon.
-Nick

 

[scorpiofish]

Nick,

When was your last visit?

 

[kkfok]

Although I didn't see any manta ray in Sangalaki underwater, it is still one of the best dive destination I have visited so far.
Diving around Derawan is mostly about macro, but there were also lots of turtles.
We only saw one manta ray from the boat in Sangalaki, but we saw some leopard sharks.
The channel (Big fish country) in Maratua was very exciting, we saw endless barracuda and a big fat grey reef shark patrolling the channel. We also saw a few eagle rays around Maratua.

 

[NickLongfellow]

I was there in january of 2010.