An Island of
Your Own
Soft
sand under your feet, warm clear waters and gorgeous undersea life at
your doorstep: Andrew Greene samples a piece of
paradise.
The bay at the front
of my simple cottage is a magical place. With my feet up on the
cottage’s bamboo railing, a daybreak coffee in my hand, a dark blue
belt spills across the bay marking the boundary to the deep
waters.
The sun climbs above the
shadowy humps of Seraya Besar Island in the sea. On my side of the
azure border, the calm waters are a blue so pale that it could be
considered to be tan or even white.
On the belt’s other side,
the waters seemingly continue on forever, their blueness eternally
increasing. Each shade represents a different submerged world.
My first morning on Seraya
Kecil Island, with the tide fully in, I slip on my flippers, don my
mask and snorkel and sit in the water. I tilt forward, lay flat on my
belly and begin to pull my way, one handful of sand at a time, through
the knee-deep water. The water is very clear and the soft bottom is
less than an arm’s length away. A few sandy, nearly translucent, fish
dart out of my path as I float on my way above them.
Five meters seaward, I come
to a bed of sea grass. Here I begin to see more marine life. Crabs
crab their way through the thick green dancing fronds. Their
poppy-seed flick eyes dart and blink with panic as my pink bulk floats
overhead. These are small crabs, less than the diameter of a Malang
apple and are in no danger of making it onto my dinner plate.
Red starfish, large, stiff,
five pointed things with black nodules running down the crest of each
arm, likewise make their home in this grass bed. These too, I swim
over the top of. They remain stoic, fortified with the nonchalant
character for which all starfish are famous.
An
expanse of sea urchins lies just toward the end of the sea grass.
I
carefully paddle my way past these thorny challenges and into the
world where the true wonders begin, the coral garden. To use the
tired cliché that snorkeling above a coral reef is like looking at an
aquarium is a bit like saying that meeting an alien is the same as
watching ET.
Coral
covers the bed below; mounds of brain coral, forests of branch coral
and horizontal expanses of table coral. The reef does not seem to
have one true bottom. It is made up of layers and shelves and
outcroppings and tunnels and cracks, all homes, shelters and hunting
grounds to creatures doing what creatures do in any ecological
system. Fighting, breeding, hiding, stalking and feeding are all on
display below.
Colorful
anemones expand and contact and sway to and fro, harvesting
microscopic nutrients from the nutrient-rich marine atmosphere. From
between the anemones’ poisoned tentacles scurry families of
clownfish. Here in the bay, the first family I spy is a trio of skunk
clownfish, named for the white stripe painted down along their tops
from nose to tail.
Other
guests to the island have mentioned sea snakes and sharks. I have not
seen either. But I do see many large barrel sponges, their openings
large enough to take a rest within. I dive down to one particularly
large barrel sponge, its supporting ribs as thick and corded as a
weight lifter’s wrist, to find a lionfish in full bloom deep within.
This
turns out not to be the only lionfish I come across this day. On the
swim back to shore I meet another lionfish hovering, completely
motionless, over a bump of coral. Its fins fanned wide, supported by
a rack of poisonous ribs. Its heavy slung jaw is lowered and squared
and ready for any unsuspecting fish to wander into range. It is the
perfect ambush predator.
I swim a
circular route, giving the lionfish’s poisonous fins a wide berth and
make it back over the grass bed and onto the beach and walk up to my
cottage.
I have
traveled to Seraya Kecil Island from Flores’ westernmost port of
Labuan Bajo. To the east of the Wallace Line it is markedly drier and
browner in appearance than Bali, Java and Sumatra.
Labuan
Bajo is just an hour’s flight from Bali and Seraya Kecil is an hour’s
boat journey from there. It is also possible to travel to Flores
overland and oversea. I made the journey in four days by bus and
ferry from Jakarta.
The
island has only the one 10-cottaged resort for visitors to stay at. A
night with a free breakfast is Rp 100,000 and the boat ride to the
island is free. The downside is that electricity is generator-powered
and available only a few hours nightly. That is long enough to
recharge cell phones and cameras and pump fresh water into bathroom
basins, but not long enough to have a climate-controlled sleep.
Nonetheless, the island is popular with those travelers who have made
it to Flores.
The
resort is operated by the Gardena Hotel of Labuan Bajo. There is one
restaurant on the island which is also the snorkeling gear center,
front desk and library. It serves a limited menu of fresh fish during
three set times during the day and evening.
Paulus,
the manager, has worked here for four years. He is also the boat
captain that carries guests to the island from Gardena. His wife is
the cook.
In
addition to the guests, Paulus is fond of turtles. He visits fish
markets on the mainland and purchases any turtle eggs he finds for Rp
1,000 per egg. “I love turtles,” he says. “I don’t want the
fishermen to sell the eggs for eating.”
He says
that after bringing the eggs to the island they require up to 60 days
to hatch. He then keeps the hatchlings in plastic washing tubs in
back of the restaurant, feeding them bits of fish and changing their
seawater daily until they are large enough to safely release into the
ocean.
He says
that he has recently freed 60 baby turtles and only has a few to show
me. He brings out two who are immediate hits with the small gathering
of guests in the restaurant. Cameras pop out and the hard-shelled
infants are immortalized in photos that will surely be shown in photo
albms in Europe. Then they are put back in a bucket to fatten up
further.
As its
name suggests, Seraya Kecil is a small island, much smaller that its
sister island Seraya Besar. It consists of 10 hills with none taller
than 200 meters. To the south, behind the resort, over a hill and
across a saddle, sits a fishing village of 50 families.
Being
arid and lacking fresh water, there is no farming; a walk through the
hills leads to encounters with grazing goats, the odd deer, leafless
trees and many blocks of crumbling red rock overlooking grand
seascapes. Though hot, dry and barren it is a fine chuck of land to
explore and possesses spots from which to shoot panoramic photos or
simply sit for a picnic prepared below at the restaurant.
The
island is also a fantastic place from which to explore Komodo or Rinca,
the two main dragon visiting islands. Boats are easy to charter
through the restaurant and more inexpensive than those rented from
Labuan Bajo.
For
those looking for a real weekend getaway, those already on
their way to see the dragons or those traipsing further east along the
drips and drops of the archipelago, Seraya Kecil Island is well worth
a detour.
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