Playful fish and rowing grannies in Wakatobi waters

Playful fish and rowing grannies in Wakatobi waters

Ati Nurbaiti, The Jakarta Post/Wanci, Southeast Sulawesi

Too little time, too much to explore around the sparkling
waters and white-sand isles off the tip of Southeast Sulawesi. In
no time it was farewell to the Wakatobi National Park, and
clinging memories of pretty darting fish, trips to interesting
sites by boat with either utmost basic comfort with thin
mattresses -- on deck or in cute cabins with a view of the ocean
-- or yucky dinners of noodles and rice, compensated by star
gazing on the deck. And all that fresh fish!

Our group of travelers were journalists invited by the
international organizations of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
and The Nature Conservancy (TNC), to expose issues in the
national park.

Tourism has only recently been encouraged here, in part
because Wakatobi -- an acronym for its main islands of Wangi-
wangi, Kaledupa, Tomea and Binongko -- has just become a regency
with a regent seeking the best means to raise revenue.

So the only crowd we saw on one of these islands, Hoga, were
researchers working with Operation Wallacea, an environmental
program to assess and help preserve the ecosystem. Embarking on
the remote isle populated by many foreigners, one recalls scenes
from the Beach movie minus the lovely waterfall.

That many of the visitors were mostly from the United Kingdom
may or may not have anything to do with the Englishman who the
operation is named after, the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace.
He is famous for discovering the "biological zones" (the "Wallace
line") differentiating the animals of western and eastern parts
of the archipelago.

Wallace evidently passed these islands in late 1856, as he
mentions Wangi-wangi on his way south from Makassar. The crew,
his journal reads, caught a shark for breakfast and another for
lunch! We were thankfully safe from sharks when snorkeling and
diving -- but that's sadly because the predators have either been
wiped out by overfishing or have fled further south.

Wakatobi is famous as one of the world's best diving sites.
Even the snorklers among us were grinning after sighting their
first funny fish and bright corals in shallow water. I saw my
first small stingray and first "Nemo" orange clownfish here!

On shore, the beams and doors of the Hoga Lodge, comprising a
canteen and library for the researchers, are painted with playful
snakes and romancing sweetlips. Near the kitchen a humorous mural
depicts life on Hoga; sunbathers and divers, fish flying up to
coconut trees and a fridge full of sausages and bacon! Whether
fact or fancy we weren't sure. "There's a lot of jokes in that
mural," says the painter, Olga Miksche, who must be Hoga's grand
dame, having been a virtual resident in recent years.

A walk round the island leads to souvenir stalls and the art
shop of Pak Safar, the only other painter here. He's busy
catching up on commissioned paintings featuring all manner of
fish on paper, wood and bamboo, for the young things who were
about to return to England as summer ends. He also owns the
turquoise lodge nearby, which is among some 40 homes on the
island rented for the researchers, apart from a few others for
tourists.

The lodges have basic, clean showers and toilets with just
enough water as long as you stick by the rule: Shower only in the
afternoon. No one wants to bathe in the morning anyway at the
sight of the white sand and seawater!

A few minutes away by speedboat is the community of the sea
gypsies, among the very few left in the world, we're told.
They're called the Bajo and the ones nearest to Hoga are called
the Bajo Sampela, after the area where they built their stilt
homes. As we neared the area children were maneuvering boats and
grannies were carting firewood before parking the boats under
their homes.

Some women were roasting sea slugs -- they were yummy! A big
turtle and a sea eagle were among their "pets" as we trudged and
tripped on the planks like flat-footed fools.

On the island of Wangi-wangi lives the supposedly more
"modern" Bajo people. But the waterways and boats are still
central to their lives just like streets and cars are to us. In
the late afternoon Bajo women sail in a convoy to the nearby
market in Wanci, the capital of the isle, to sell fresh catch.

Like kids anywhere, their children screech delightfully at the
sight of a cameraman -- but unlike most of our metropolis
infants, they easily plunge and slither under the water.

The Bajo are still gypsies at heart, the researchers here say;
they could just leave and roam the sea when they see fit, even if
the trigger is irreconcilable differences with a neighbor!

Also on Wangi-wangi island is the popular Pasar RB market; RB
is short for rombengan or cheap second hand items, reportedly
from Singapore. Maybe this explains the cool T-shirts on people
here -- apart from big Italian-made motorcycles sold for only
about Rp 6 million, which are illegal the minute they're spotted
outside the island.

Another "RB market" is on Bau-bau, among the last boat stops
before the remote islands and the last chance to get essentials
like flashlights, just in case the Hoga outlets run out of them.

The markets also sell big multi colored sarongs, hand made in
Buton and the Wakatobi islands. On Hoga they claim the cloth is
so strong that they make it into hammocks for two people!

I just bought a couple of T-shirts, one with one of those
bright blue fish swimming just under the surface. It's the least
one can do to blend a bit around here -- the Ts here suggest
everyone's been checking the corals or swimming with sharks (or
so it seemed)! Most of the domestic tourists among us were
neither reef checkers or deep sea divers -- but all agreed we
needed to come back another time to these waters, and to these
stars.