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.