Sepa Island
Back in the summer of 2019, our holiday was a real adventure.
Planned out meticulously by my wife, we spent two days in Dubai before heading
to Indonesia, where the highlights of our stay there was a visit to the
Thousand Islands and later a train trip to Jogjakarta. We really blew the
budget in 2019. Little did we know we wouldn’t be back until 2022.
This story will focus on our trip to Sepa Island.
The Thousand Islands (known locally as “Kepulauan Seribu”) are a
group of islands just north of Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, situated
on the populous island of Java. If you care to look it up, you will discover that
there are actually only 342 islands and only 11 of them are given over to
tourism.
That was where we had decided we were going to spend the next few
days. I should point out at this stage that my wife is Indonesian, our three
children are mixed Indonesian / Scottish and in this year they were aged 11, 10
and 6. This was our golden age for travelling with kids, where everything was
at children’s prices, and their combined cuteness was at its zenith.
We were destined for the Sepa Island Resort. Google it if you
dare, it is still doing business at the time of writing and still looks
incredible, a vision of paradise that brings back happy memories as I write
this on a storm wracked December night in the Galloway hills five years later.
Our
journey began in Ciputat, a district in southern Jakarta. Our driver, whom I
lovingly referred to as “Deathwish Ricky” picked us up in the morning and drove
us at breakneck speed along the toll way to where we would ultimately get on
the boat. I sat in the front, Ida was in the back seat with the younger ones so
she could keep an eye on them and my eldest was in the rearmost seat with his grandmother
(or eyang).
We
arrived in plenty of time, and everyone except me had breakfast at the pleasant
dockside cafe. I had a notion that the boat ride would be at least an hour and
did not trust my innards on a vessel that likely didn’t have a toilet onboard.
While we waited the kids played with some friendly stray cats that they named Wacky
Blacky and Turtle-top. There are stray cats in every street in Indonesia,
semi-feral fellows that are tolerated by the locals. At Eyang’s house back in Ciputat
the street is full of them. Each house has a concrete bin outside it and each
bin has a cat associated with it. Most of the cats are shy of humans though and
I could never pet any of them, but these dockside moggies were friendlier,
perhaps being used to tourists.
Eventually
the boat arrived. It looked like a seagoing version of a tourist riverboat. The
trip was about an hour and a half and quite up-and-down in places. I am a salty
old sea dog, but even my stomach felt a bit wobbly after a while. It was hot
and cramped inside the boat with the other tourists and there were only small
sliding windows that could be opened a few inches. Not a good place for anyone
with claustrophobia.
Wendy,
my little daughter, was the one to watch, being prone to travel sickness. Bless
her, she held it in until nearly the end, but then was violently, explosively
sick all over herself and the seat. We were well used to dealing with the
contents of Wendy’s stomach though and the clean-up crew leapt swiftly into
action, and everything was cleaned up and bagged quickly and efficiently.
And
then we were there! The boat drew alongside the wooden pier, and we
disembarked.
We
walked along the sun-bleached planks and down onto the scorching sand, an area of
tame-looking jungle directly in front of us. Through the trees I could see the
buildings of the resort. This was it, I thought, I have set foot on my first
ever tropical island. And yet, now that I was finally here, in my sun hat and
flipflops, there was a slight tinge of disappointment.
Did you ever look at a tropical island somewhere remote and wish
you were there? A travel show presenter strolling down a pristine white sandy
beach next to an azure sea. An air-brushed perfect view of paradise. We see a
colour-saturated high-definition version of reality.
I think - if you’ve flown across the world, spent the money, taken
the mad car journey and the vomity boat ride - when you finally arrive, well
the reality is never going to live up to the image of a paradise island you
have held in your head all your life.
You forget that although it looks like in the travel
documentaries you’ve watched, it still has the bins, the clutter, and the unpleasant
smells that are all associated with any touristy place in Indonesia. It’s still
not quite perfect. Was there something wrong with me that I was still not quite
happy when presented with an island paradise? Perhaps part of it was that at
that moment I was just tired and hungry and in need of a lie down in a cool,
dark room. It wasn’t to be, at least not yet and we toddled off to our beach
house and unpacked, then headed to the restaurant.
It was a self-service buffet and I loaded up my plate. Basic food,
not great. The restaurant had shaded wooden tables outside, down by the beach,
a great place to hang out and take in the sight, sounds and smells of the sea.
We ate, drank cold Cokes and Fantas, and relaxed. The children were too excited
to sit for long though, so we set off to explore the island.
We
started along the beach, but in less than fifty steps it was all blocked off by
rocks. There was an enticing looking path going off into the jungle, and
although I was aware it led to the staff areas that it would be impolite to go
into, I wanted to at least feel a sort of jungle adventure sensation for a
moment and delved into the leafy shadows. The children were scared and called
out, that I might get accosted by snakes and spiders or something, so I turned
back after no more than a few metres.
After
going along the beach in the other direction I realised that the island was
tiny, barely three hundred metres from side to side. I’d not be having any long
walks here. The kids were having the time of their life though. Ida rented a kayak,
and I took them out into the ocean. We looked down through the crystal-clear
water at the spikey anemones below us.
In
the evening, we had dinner, and located Eyang who has been talking to two young
local girls in bikinis. The seemed to adore Eyang and when they saw Wendy, they
are captivated by her and went to the island shop to buy her treats. Wendy
received these gifts like a queen receiving her tribute.
The next day Ida had us all awake at seven in the morning to be
picked up by a small boat by eight. We were taken a good distance north of Sepa
Island to a remoter part of the archipelago. Today, the boys and I would be snorkelling
while Ida, Wendy and Eyang remained on the boat. Wendy was to catch a fish for
the boatman’s tea.
We
were miles away from Sepa, in a shallow area of sea between some other small
uninhabited islands. We swam through the rocks and reefs, the guide leading the
way, while the boys, both excellent swimmers, followed along, taking in
everything. I brought up the rear, watching they boys having fun as much as I
watched the fish. Enjoying their enjoyment as much as my own.
It
was a wonderful experience, but again, it’s not the high-definition, or slow
motion and carefully curated experience that my mind expects from watching so
many wildlife documentaries. It is murky when you dive down, the fish, those
amazing fish, are all there, but their colours are muted, dulled by the tinted
glass of my facemask. In other ways though the experience is, of course, beyond
anything a television could give you. The warm water on our bodies, the taste
of the sea, the tightness of our lungs as we dive down into the rocks to take a
closer look at the coral and the colourful fish that lived there. We follow a
turtle as it swims leisurely along the sandy sea bottom, gliding between the
rocks, and then, on the way back to the boat after a good two hours in the sea
we come across a sunfish (or a Mola Mola), and watch in awe as its huge square
body cruises slowly past.
When
we get back to the boat, I see that Wendy has caught a small fish on her line
and is dipping it in and out of the water as the boatman laughs and smiles at
her. Fly, fishy, fly, she says gleefully. I beg them to let the poor thing off
the hook and put it back in the water. Ida tells me that it was fish number ten
that had suffered the same fate!
With
the snorkelling finished, the small boat putt-putted its way further out into
the sea, weaving between small distant islands until the sea was so shallow, we
could hop out and walk. We were in an area between two islands where the water
was barely knee deep. It felt as warm as bathwater and although the sun was
hot, there was a light breeze as we walked through the shallows, the children
running and splashing while we adults follow, taking photos and marvelling at
where we have managed to find ourselves.
Apart
from us and the boat there were no other signs of civilisation other than
something off in the hazy distance that looked like a fishing jetty. I watched
as our boat cruised slowly past the jetty and I felt a connection to this
place, a sense of belonging, if only through my family, of times gone by when
these seas were travelled by djongs and junks, of traders from the west
arriving on these shores and explorers heading out further east in outriggers
in search of the unknown.
I
was finally getting it, that tropical paradise feeling that I had been hoping
for. We walked between the islands, through half a mile of shallow sea, out to
a sandbar surrounded by waters on all sides. The hazy air muted the distant
green colours of the islands and accentuated the blueness of the sea and sky. The
sand was white and pure, and so hot on the toes it was better to stay in the
water. The children loved the beach, any beach and this was endless beach in
all directions. The perfect beach, and they were at the perfect age to
appreciate it the most as they raced, swam, and splashed through this world of
half sea, half sand. Eyang walked behind them, her ankle length black dress
billowing behind her as she glid through the water. Ida is somewhere behind us
taking photos, recording this wonderful day in pictures that will never do it
justice and I suddenly feel sad in the knowledge that this day will never come
again. We could come back here some other time years from now, but not with our
young family in this golden moment of perfect childhood. The feeling passes and
I get back to enjoying the rest of the day, wading, and walking from sea to
sandbar and back to sea.
But
wait, what’s that in the sand? A bloody food wrapper! I picked it up and read
the bright orange packet. Malkist – Krim – Keju Manis. (Sweet Cream
Cheese Crackers) This sudden intruder from the modern world is unwanted and I discreetly
fold it up and put it in the pocket of my shorts.
The
boat had been following us all this time at a distance, in deeper waters and
once everyone had had enough it came in to pick us up and take us back to Sepa.
Back on the island my stomach was not happy, probably due to the restaurant food,
so the next day I mainly lay in the shade on a large wooden sun lounger,
sometimes reading but mainly dozing, watching the children play in the sea
through the smallest of cracks between my eyelashes. I listened to Ida and Eyang
talking in Bahasa, exchanging gossip while they ate and drank. When they go
silent, I know they are on their phones.
This
is one of my most cherished memories and if I ever have trouble sleeping, which
is rarely, I imagine I am here again, dozing on that lounger, feeling the warm
air on my skin, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves and the sounds of
distant laughing children.
We
do not spend nearly enough time on Sepa, and it is not long before we on the
ferry back to Jakarta. Still, another adventure in Jogjakarta awaits! Bankrupt
but happy.
