The Coralfest of Pulau Putri

Destination: Day tour to Pulau Putri (Princess Island).
Trip time: 90 minutes from Pier 9 Marina Ancol.
Travelers: Andri, Mat, Matthew (my colleague from Shanghai) and I.

The boat left at 9 am. It was a single deck. Luckily this time, the sea was calm. And it was quite refreshing with open windows that let the air breezed into the cabin. We arrived at Pulau Putri around 10.20 am and immediately took our cameras out of the bag and snapped, snapped. 

I couldn't help comparing it with Pulau Pantara.

We were welcomed by two dancers dancing Pendet (a Balinese welcome dance). The resort itself looked quite old and a bit cluttered from the entrance. But the sky was clear and surrounding water was visible with corals and colourful fish. O the fish! At one side of the pier we saw a group of fish really similar with baby sharks, but they couldn't be, right?

We got quick sandwich at the restaurant, served by friendly staffs. While Andri and I nibbled on our snacks, Matthew wandered around with his Nikon. And Mat shared the hobby, he took hostage of our small pocket camera and trailing along.

Then we headed off to the changing rooms (toilets) near Reception. The smell was foul. God! I guess I made a right decision to strip Mat and put him into his Superman swimwear at the restaurant, so that he didn't need to bear this toilet's awful smell. 

After we stored our bags at the Reception, we went to the underwater tunnel that's located at the pier. It was a short glass tunnel where we could see the underwater life. Only Pulau Putri has this facility.

 

Shortly after, we entered a semi-submarine boat to explore farther. The first couple of minutes we could only see deep blue water. Then suddenly, corals and fish started to appear at the left glass window. I saw clown fish, school fish, and other nameless fishes playing with the anemones. I was so focused only at that side, when I turned around, I was completely surprised to find corals at the right window. It felt like the bottom of the boat was enveloped by colours. Stunning! Peaceful! And I felt sleepy.

Seriously. When people said it was stress-relieving to watch fish swimming, it was true indeed.

We had company. A couple of passengers walked into the cabin. The male commented in fluent (but with strange accent) Indonesian language, "Lihat ikan-ikan itu. Berenang dengan tenang, ke sana-ke sini, seperti tidak ada susah. Tidak pikir harus bayar hutang. Tapi mungkin mereka juga sedang pusing cari makan .." (free translation: Look at those fish. Swimming around peacefully. No problems, no debts to pay. But maybe, they have problems finding food too ..) 

 *lol*

Mat only stayed a while inside the cabin. He spent half of the boat trip by staying at the deck and taking pictures of everything.

After we're back to the island, we walked toward the swimming pool at the back of the resort. At one point we stopped at the seashore and dipped our feet into the water. I listened closely, it was almost noon time, and hardly I could hear anything but the faint breeze and ripples. Like time stood still for seconds. Eerie. Really cool, though.

We found the pool was empty, clean, serene dark green with brackish water. (A bit of letdown cause I was hoping to dive into fresh water). But it had a perfect temperature for endless swimming. So nicely warm, Mat was ecstatic. We stayed there for a while till lunch time.

Lunch buffet was served in the same restaurant where we had sandwiches earlier. At the restaurant, there was a group of people, around 10 - all male, who had just finished their lunch. Then we witnessed them put on their life jackets and helmets, hopped onto their wave runners or jet skis, and took off to the open sea. One by one. Earlier this morning I noticed a couple of jet skis docked by the pier. I thought they belonged to the resort. But then I remember Pulau Putri didn't have any wave runners for the watersport facility, because they didn't want to ruin the wide corals area around the island.

So this could only mean the wave runners privately belonged to that group, most likely. And those men wore uniformed black t-shirts with "MARINA" written on it. Private wave runners. 1,5 hour trip Marina Ancol-Pulau Putri, back and forth. A short stop for lunch. Open sea. Beneath the blazing sun. A compass?

Wow! Talking about luxurious hobby, or just simply lunatic. Surely they made quite an exit with their roaring motors. Those bastards!

After lunch, Mat and Andri headed back to the swimming pool, while Matthew and I headed to the dive shop to get our snorkels and fins. The shopkeeper warned us not to snorkel too close to shallow water. We plunged in from one end of the pier signed "SNORKELING AREA" and immediately captivated by the underwater view. Coralbed was so wide and far. Colourful fishes surrounded us, they seemed tame. But no, I wouldn't touch them. As if I could, though. One second they're so close to me, the next second they disappeared just like that.

As much as I enjoyed my snorkeling, I couldn't help it when fear starting to crawl under my skin. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Totally unnecessary. But some things triggered it.

In case everybody's wondering, I could swim and for sure I could float. And I was kind of sea-phobe. (Wait, sea-phobe? Is that even a valid word?). Unlike the last time, I didn't wear any life jacket. That made me feel like I was skinny-dipping. And my skin was sensitive with cold water (been thinking perhaps I was reincarnated from a cat who always ran from cold water). And the water temperature around the corals kept changing. When I expected it to be warm at the shallow side, it was cold. Then I moved farther to the deeper side, it was warm. Really warm - a bath tub or shower warm. Even at some shallow spots, the water was half warm and half cold, I floated right in the middle. It was .. well, strange.

I tried very much to stay in the warm water. And it got me carried far away from the pier. I looked around, to the surrounding water.  Immediately I swam back toward the pier.  At my right side, I could still see corals and fish.  But at my left side, there was nothing but the deep blue bottomless sea. I never even wanted to peer to that side.

I felt goosebumps all over me. Underwater goosebumps did exist, y' know.

When I reached to safety, I rested on a flat reef.  The sun was really burning, it must be around 2 pm.  I looked for Matthew.  There he was, standing on a flat reef as well, couple meters from my spot.  He shouted at me, "I don't know how I got into this area!"  He was trapped in a shallow water, and I knew sea urchins were spreading among the corals.

Yea, sea urchins.  They were so intimidating with their black long spikes, sticking out, like a group of balls who badly needed hair conditioner.

While I was sunbathing right there on the reef, something bit me on the waist.  It didn't hurt, but it caught me off guard.  Maybe because I stayed still, the fish thought I was a loaf of bread or something. So I continue snorkeling, to avoid myself becoming fish snacks.  I took my chances at the shallow area, being really careful not to brush against anything. And just because I knew the fishes were quite hungry, I stayed away from some bigger fish, with fierce colors of black and red.  And the sea urchins ..

Nevertheless the anemones around here were beautiful. I came to the spot where they're literally dancing.  I floated still and watched it.  The anemones were rooting on some plates at the bottom, and they're moving.  The anemone plates were moving in rhythm, side by side, creating a wonderful optical illusion. I almost forgot to breathe into my snorkel.  

Once again, I so regretted I didn't have an underwater camera.

I guessed it was time to get out of the water.  And one fish confirmed that I really had to, it bit my finger when I tried to touch some corals on the way back to the pier. Alright, alright.  Lesson learned.

(Oh, Matthew got bitten too, and his leg got cuts by the corals).

After we returned all gears to the dive shop, we headed right to the swimming pool  I could hear Mat's voice echoing from a distance due to the serene surrounding.  He was already cleaned up.  I looked at the time, it's 2.15 pm.  Shoot.  Got to rush.

The semi-open showers near the pool turned out to be so much better than the smelly one near the Reception. And the changing rooms were clean and dry.  Aaaah.  Fresh air!

After settling our open bill at Reception, we directly went to the boat.  Blinding, blinding hot.  Fortunately, the boat was quite empty, because most of its passengers would only return to Jakarta the next day.

Boat left the island at 3 pm.  Considering the afternoon high tides, the boat trip was ok with few bumps.  We took this opportunity to rest.  And we arrived at Marina Ancol right on time at 4.20 pm.

We loved this trip.  In terms of resort, Pulau Putri was old.  But the marine life was fantastic.  I was pleased even with my back totally red by the sunburn.

Couldn't wait till we had a chance to visit another island.

Visit here for more pictures taken by Mat.

.. to be continued to Segarra Restaurant, Ancol.