Day 1

Day 1. We left Salatiga at 6 AM on a bus. We had to go to the harbor in Semarang, a city on the north coast of Java, to catch the fast ferry to Karimunjawa. But on the way, we had to pick up one more friend. When he jumped on the bus, he had a recorder in his hand. For whatever reason, he had been sitting on his front porch playing it while he waited for us to come, and he forgot to put it back inside. That became kind of a trip joke, and several of us took turns playing our own renditions of everything from Celine Dion to patriotic anthems on that recorder. We hit some really rough traffic but still made it to the ferry with about 15 minutes to spare. Shortly after we found our seats and settled in, the captain came over the loudspeaker and gave us the standard monotone speech over the crackly PA system, “On behalf of the staff and crew, I thank you for traveling on our ferry today. I hope you are comfortable, and if you need anything during your journey, our staff is ready to serve you. We will be embarking shortly, and our trip to Karimunjawa will take approximately 4 hours. We are expecting good weather and smooth sailing”. Then he went on to say, “We would really appreciate it if everyone would take a moment right now to pray that we make it there safely.” I kind of looked around the cabin to see if other people thought this guy was serious, then all of a sudden, the captain SHOUTED over the PA system, “BERDOA MULAI!” (START PRAYING!). So I prayed frantically for about 20 seconds until the same voice barked, “BERDOA SELASAI!” (STOP PRAYING!). And then, back to the monotone, “Thank you for your prayers”. And with a loud screech of feedback as he hung up his microphone, the welcome speech was over.

So that was a little disconcerting… At any rate though, we made it safely to the main island of the Karimunjawa chain. I don’t know how many islands there are in Karimunjawa, but the majority of them are small and unpopulated. The largest island has one small town on it, and this is where all the ferries dock. Many hotels and things are here also, but we stayed on a different island. So when our ferry docked, we had to load 15 people and their luggage into the back of a pickup truck and drive partway across the island to another smaller harbor where we got on a fishing boat that took us out to our island.

This is a view from the boat looking back at the town on the main island.

And here is the island that we stayed on. It is called Menjangan Island.

The island we stayed on is largely uninhabited. On one side there are a few bungalows and some small shacks that the people who work for the “resort” live in. Other than those few people, there is nobody else on the island. We settled into our bungalows quickly and took a few minutes to explore the shallow inlet out front.

One of our bungalows.

The inlet and beach in front of our bungalows. Also, the boats we traveled on.

The staff had prepared a late lunch for us of rice, eggs, vegetables, and a sweet coconut drink. After we finished eating, we changed into our swimsuits, and walked to the far side of the island where we were told over 2000 species of fish lived.

I have to interject a seemingly unimportant story here. Before we left on our walk, I tried to lock our bungalow door only to find that the key was rusted into the lock and could not be removed. I asked for assistance from one of the resort staff, Mas Wawan, but try as he might, he couldn’t get the key out either. A heavyset older man in boxers and a stained wifebeater sauntered over with half closed eyes and asked if he could help. We explained the problem, and he tried to get the key out. Due to his old man strength (which I’m convinced is a real thing), I feared the bungalow would be destroyed with his attempts to strongarm the key out of the door. Finally though, he turned to me and said, “It’s not a problem. I’m the guard here. There are no thieves on the island. I’m the boss of this island. Nothing ever gets stolen. I’m the police around these parts. You don’t have to worry about a thing. I’m even the boss of the police on this island. I’ll guard your stuff. I’m the boss. No worries.” His story kept on getting bigger and bigger, but I didn’t have much choice but to trust him, leave the key in the door, and go swimming!

We snorkeled around in the shallow water off our island for a few hours until the sun set and it started to get dark. We saw tons of ocean wildlife including jellyfish, manta rays, star fish, sea urchins, eels, and fish in every color imaginable! I was allergic to something back there though, and after sneezing roughly 30 times (a difficult task in a snorkel, I assure you), then being attacked by some small fish trying to protect its eggs I presume, I decided to lay on the beach and read for awhile. Of course that made me fair game for being buried in sand and transformed into a merman! A very muscular merman, I might add…

By the time I busted out of my merman sand trap, the sun was setting over the water, and what a beautiful sunset it was! Even after the sun went down, the sky kept changing into one beautiful color after another!

Later on, after we showered and changed, they served us a dinner of rice, fried fish, tempe, and veggies. And then, while we ate, the resort staff built us a bonfire on the beach! I went out and messed around with long exposures on my DSLR camera. Before too long, my friends caught on to some cool stuff we could do, and they decided to firewrite. Below are just a few of their many attempts. Can you tell what they are trying to make in each photo?

That evening, a group of people from Jakarta came and stayed in the unoccupied bungalows. We chatted with them a bit and learned that they had all gone to college together, and they had a pact that once a year they would do a reunion trip. They’ve been doing it for 10+ years now. It made me really miss my college friends. I wish we all lived in a place where we could do that!