Why are they just sitting there like blobs of jelly?

Day 9 - Maratua Island

At 10am we left Arasatu in our private boat to go diving and snorkelling. The boat was larger and more comfortable than the Derawan dive boats, and our first stop was to nearby Sangalaki Island, which we'd been unable to visit while at Derawan. Sangalaki is famous for its Manta rays but we were told at Arasatu that they haven't been seen for the last few years. We hadn't been told this at Derawan and online there are still many dive centres actively promoting the Manta rays. We were told that they have been over-fished for the Chinese market, and also that even if they were around this wasn't the right time of year.

We stopped just off the shore at the Manta Eel dive spot. K joked with the dive master about whether he'd messaged the leopard shark to make sure he turned up to work today, and after entering the water and descending down to 12 meters there was a leopard shark lying on the bottom, which immediately swam away. 

There was plenty of colourful coral and an array of interesting fish, K spotted what looked like a dark brown sea sponge which suddenly propelled itself forward, hid under a rock and changed colour to match the rock it was on - it was an octopus.

We then moved on to Kakaban Island, we followed the steps and the boardwalk about 500 metres to reach the huge lake in the centre of the island which is filled with millions of non-stinging jellyfish.  

Over thousands of years the jellyfish have lost the ability to sting as they don't have any predators. Unfortunately almost all of the jellyfish were asleep and motionless on the bottom of the lake, so our visit wasn't as exciting as the photos we'd seen of people surrounded by swimming jellyfish. After 15 minutes snorkeling in the lake we headed back to the boat to our next dive spot just a few minutes boat ride way.

Kakaban Reef follows the shore of the island and has a giant coral wall that goes to 180 metres deep. K dived to seventeen metres, the current pulling her along the wall for an hour,  while M snorkelled on the surface, also drifting along and finishing well past where K ended up. The wall was spectacular and full of coral, fish and gorgonia sea fans. M also saw what he thought was a grey nurse shark, as well as a giant turtle. The dive master saw a white tipped shark but unfortunately K missed it. There was a problem with the valve on her BCD leaking so the dive master stayed very close and did a good job to manage her buoyancy for her.

We were dropped back at Arasatu where we spent the evening watching the sunset followed by an impressive lightning show on the horizon.