Borneo: Indonesia + Malaysia - July 2013
Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation made from a post originally written in French. My apologies for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have been generated during the process. If you are reading French, click on the French flag below to access the original and correct text:
I love the bright colors of coral on a blue underwater background. Small immersion, in pictures, on the splendid reef of the island of Kakaban, in Indonesia, near Borneo.
The girl who takes pictures underwater
Some girls, when they go on vacation, fill their suitcase with clothes. Me, it's my diving equipment and my equipment photo-underwater that take up all the space in my bags.
All this to photograph fish and coral! Yep... 😉

The pictures you see here were taken in July 2013, near Borneo, Indonesia, during several dives around the small island of Kakaban (see the presentation of this trip at the end of this link : Diving in the blue of Borneo). The beauty of the seabed fascinates me a little more each dive ...
Underwater, then in front of my screen, I am ecstatic about the bright colors of the coral - red, pink, yellow, orange - magnified by the flash.
I am happy when I succeeded in capturing a ray of light piercing the surface, in illuminating the delicate interlacing of a giant gorgonian, in freezing the irresistible movement of a school of barracudas...
Light effects
Kakaban, which I presented you the amazing jellyfish lake, in the previous post, is really worth the detour.
At midday, the sun falls on the top of the reef, providing a spectacular play of light along the wall.
Magnificent !
Along the "wall" of Kakaban, there are giant gorgonians everywhere, huge barrel sponges...
The coral is beautiful and my dive buddies gradually accept the life of the underwater model.
But what they prefer is to pose near the gorgonians... 😆
Barracuda Point
And then Kakaban has a Barracuda Point, which rarely disappoints. The barracudas are almost always at the rendezvous ...
I did not do any macro photography in Kakaban, and I sometimes regretted to have only my fisheye camera with me. There is also a lot of fun to be had, with the usual small tropical fauna: clownfish, morays, scorpion-fish, flying scorpion-fish, butterfly-fish, anthias, exotic shrimps and mini crabs...
Kakaban also reserves some surprises that make our heart beat a little faster: twice, we saw eagle rays... From a little too far, unfortunately, no way to take pictures.
As for sharks and turtles, they are less abundant than in Sipadan (Malaysian side of Borneo, which I will talk about later), but they are regularly encountered.
At the end of each dive, when we go back to the light and the coral garden, it is an explosion of life and colors...
Kakaban has become my favorite spot for underwater photography in the Derawan Archipelago.
👌