{"id":86,"date":"2022-11-24T13:46:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-24T06:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/?p=86"},"modified":"2025-08-07T17:12:50","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T10:12:50","slug":"diving-in-borneo-the-derawan-islands-and-a-blissful-life-aquatic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/diving-in-borneo-the-derawan-islands-and-a-blissful-life-aquatic\/","title":{"rendered":"Diving in Borneo : the Derawan islands and a blissful life aquatic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The steering wheel spins frantically, the engine graunches and the tiny speedboat slews side-on to the swell, centimetres from a mess of floating timber. Luckily our captain, a Bajo \u201csea gypsy\u201d from the fishing people who first settled Borneo\u2019s Derawan archipelago, is a master of the marine handbrake turn. He grins and guns the engine; the white sands, tall palms and stilt houses of Derawan island come into focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-V81L3ZHhzjA\/XIy3A2l59PI\/AAAAAAAAGm8\/jqpmrFtvxzIbFyaEErB9Fd8O3wzzoUkmACEwYBhgL\/s1600\/Pulau%2BDerawan.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My teenage son and I have travelled through the coal mine-scarred landscape beyond Berau, a riverside town in Kalimantan on mainland Indonesian Borneo (and reached via two flights from Singapore), to take a boat out to spend a week exploring a few of the archipelago\u2019s scores of islands. Only two are officially inhabited, though 30-odd others have names and some are home to scientists and sea-dwelling boat people. By the end of this year the islands will be better connected to the mainland, with the completion of a small airport on Maratua island, which will handle short-haul flights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\ud83d\udc33 Scuba Diving in Maratua | Derawan Islands | Dive Indonesia | Chevron Barracudas | WorkaholicsDairy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RsxoK7CeRA8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019ll be spending the next couple of days at Derawan Dive Lodge, a cluster of elegant wooden cabanas reached by jetty over limpid waters, where green turtles graze on sea grass and algae. At least 15,000 female turtles return to the archipelago every year, often swimming many thousands of kilometres to lay their eggs on the beaches where they had hatched. Now, so many turtles graze off Derawan island, many of them non-local breeders, that their food sources are becoming scarce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The highest tides, around the full moon and the new moon, are the best time to watch the females drag their heavy bodies up the sand and wheeze and grunt through the ovulation process. \u201cOne laid her eggs under the restaurant a couple of weeks ago,\u201d says the lodge\u2019s Indonesian manager. We\u2019ve missed their hatching, sadly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The steering wheel spins frantically, the engine graunches and the tiny speedboat slews side-on to the swell, centimetres from a mess of floating timber. Luckily our captain, a Bajo \u201csea gypsy\u201d from&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tourism","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/1523102519_4922.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-news.solodroid.net\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}