Batukaru, Pemuteran and Bali's North Coast
Trip Start
Mar 16, 2011
1
28
37
Trip End
Jul 02, 2011
Pemuteran, Bali, Indonesia
Friday, May 27, 2011
Eka who is also a farmer, was very knowledgeable. He talked about the nature and life in the area and how ecotourism supports local people and villages. It usually rains in the afternoon so the next morning we set off for a walk to explore the local area and villages passing cocoa, coffee, vanilla, snake fruit and other plantations. Farmers usually travel from the village to their fields in the morning and return back home with sundown. The road was busy with people going to their fields or another village and kids walking to school located in the next village.
We then got transferred to Pemuteran, in northwest of Bali which is considered by many people a real beach gateway. It’s a small fishing village with only a handful of places of stay and not that many tourists. Those who made it here mainly intend to dive or snorkel in Pemuteran bay or nearby Menjangan Island. These were also our intentions. We stayed in a diving place that also serves as a sea turtle hatchery. Reef Seen Turtle Hatchery Project was set up in 1992 in order to help protect local sea turtles and their eggs and increase their numbers in the area. The idea is to purchase sea turtles that got caught in fishermen’s nests and prevent it from being eaten. They also purchase turtle eggs from the local villagers, as they are considered a delicacy in Bali. The eggs are buried in a sand pit in the hatchery and monitored. The optimum temperature is between 30 to 32 degrees. If the temperature is predominantly at 30 degrees it is more likely that the eggs would be male, and at 32 degrees they would be female. After a 45 to 60 day period the eggs will hatch, the hatchlings are then placed into salt water ponds, monitored, fed and cared for until they are 2 to 3 months old. They are looked after for this period of time so they have a better chance of survival in the open sea. The local fishermen and villagers are educated about the impact of capturing turtles to sell for food and the tourist trade. The fishermen can now make more money by selling the eggs to the Project rather than the sale of a turtle or the sale of eggs at the market. The eggs are also collected from areas where they have been laid and are vulnerable to local dogs who dig them out of the sand, and prevent potential environmental and man-made hazards which would decrease their opportunity to hatch. In fact, the local fishing communities have now made it mandatory for anyone accidently catching a turtle to bring it back to the project. Here they receive a small ‘reward’ to compensate for lost catch and damaged nests. Anyone caught catching the turtles intentionally; killing, eating or selling the turtles elsewhere is fined by the fishing community and may be expelled if they continue to do so.
We decided to release a couple of turtles and watched the hatchlings make their first step towards the ocean. The hatchlings are released early in the morning to insure they have a better chance of survival. The main point of us staying at Reef Seen was to go scuba diving, We had some really great dives over at nearby Menjangan Island where we saw lots of nice aquatic life which made us want to do more diving during the rest of our trip.
On our last day, we decided to go for a tour of the mangroves located 40km east near the harbour at Gilimanuk. We were told that the best time to go was in the morning and as our trip was in the afternoon, there was less chance of seeing any wildlife. We did see a small crocodile and monkeys in the distance but the low tide made the manoeuvring the boat difficult. Because it was so shallow, we could see many types of starfish, urchins, large worms and crabs. We jumped out of the boat and walked around these creatures which would normally be covered by water. This made it a really memorable experience that we both really enjoyed. The following day we got a bus that took us to Padangbai where we would catch a boat to the Gili Islands.
