Borneo [Malaysia and Indonesia] - July 2009
Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation of an article originally written in French. I apologise for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have resulted. If you read French, click on the French flag below to access the original, correct text:
Français
A new little film for lovers of manta rays ... I finally got down to editing my videos, brought back from Sangalaki ! This small Indonesian island, located off Borneo, is part of the Derawan archipelago, where I stayed for ten days last July.
Video: Sangalaki's manta rays
Mantas are easy to observe and almost guaranteed in Sangalaki! Both on the surface with fins-mask-tuba, and underwater while diving.
They are the big attraction of the area, with the turtles of Derawan and non-irritating jellyfish from Kakaban.
Excursion to Sangalaki
Well, obviously, Sangalaki is a bit the end of the world. To have the chance to observe these marvels, it is better to have some time in front of you...
The easiest way is to stay on the neighboring island of Derawan, as I did (there are many guesthouses to cheap in the village), and to organize a day trip to Sangalaki, by renting a boat.
There used to be a very chic and expensive resort on Sangalaki itself, but it is closed and abandoned.
On the island, there are only monitor lizards hiding in the bushes, and a few guards, who take your name in their register when you come ashore for a picnic, between two dives. They live in a building at the back of the resort, and take care of a small WWF conservation center for turtles, as in Derawan.
Sangalaki maps
To locate Sangalaki, some maps below. Starting with a Google Map for a global view:
Display Sangalaki on a larger map
The location of islands and dive sites, found on LombokMarine.com (attention, on this site, the information concerning the accommodations are not up to date, in particular on the resort of Sangalaki, now closed):
And this one, very precise, for the different islands of the archipelago, borrowed from the excellent site Starfish.ch :
Sangalaki on Small Bubbles of Elsewhere
Finally, on this blog, the different posts where I already talked about Sangalaki :
► Mantas and nudibranchs
► The mantas rays of Sangalaki
► Dreams of mantas
🙄
