Maratua Blue

Towards the end of November 2019, Simon Enderby and Gil Woolley joined the intrepid explorers from KL based ‘DiveOrbit’, on a week’s adventures around the East Kalimantan Islands of Maratua, Kakaban, Sangalaki and all waters in-between! With flat seas, sunshine and white fluffy clouds, our arrival at the Maratua Blue Resort was impressive to say the least. Newly built and with a few of the accommodation blocks and public areas still receiving their final touches the resort, as are all the facilities, spacious, modern and well built. The highlight of Maratua Blue Resort, beyond the incredible access to the reefs and main dive spots around all of the islands, Maratua, Kakaban, Sangalaki, and Derawan, is its very own jetty house reef for day and night dives. With 10s if not hundreds of thousands of anchovies schooling around the dive centre jetty, constantly wary of marauding jacks and longtoms, there are also the amorous mandarin fish dotted here there and everywhere.

Over the course of the week, we encountered thresher sharks as well white tip, grey reef, black tip, leopard and whale sharks not too mention eagle rays, green and hawksbill turtles, barracuda, schools of jacks and bumped parrotfish, massive barrel sponges and sea fans, colourful soft corals and pristine sun-drenched coral reefs and of course the incredible Kakaban jellyfish lake. From the biggest fish in the sea to one of the smallest, diving here has it all and guarantees a trip to remember for a lifetime.