Corals, Cultures & Dragons Indonesia Adventure - From Bitung To Komodo

You will be welcomed aboard the boat, meet the crew and our fellow passengers, as you settle into our seaborne home for the next two weeks and set sail on our adventure.

Our first stop will be the Tangkoko National Park, which we will visit by car. Alfred Russel Wallace did a lot of his collecting here in the 19th century, and the park is now a haven for wildlife, including tarsiers, cuscus, reptiles, birds, and the always-fun black-crested macaque.

Back on the boat, we head south along the coast of North Sulawesi, and we will have multiple opportunities for snorkeling as we visit multiple reefs and islands, as well as pay. A couple of visits to some local villages.

In the small seaside town of Botuborani, where an absolute highlight might await – the chance to swim with whale sharks, the gentle giants of the sea.

In the Togean Islands, we will enjoy a fantastic snorkel on the reefs near the island of Malenge, before taking our snorkels and masks to experience a rare opportunity to swim with stingless jellyfish in nearby Lake Mariona, one of only 20 lakes in the world that are home to these amazing creatures. Also, have the unique opportunity to see the babirusa, Indonesia’s rare and endangered native pig.

We will visit a local village and meet the people, and enjoy a late afternoon walk in the local forest before being witness to a most amazing show of nature as flocks of hornbills come flying in to roost in the trees – a once-in-a-lifetime sight only accessible with SeaTrek.

We visit with the Bajau sea gypsies of Southeast Asia and their famous patriarch ‘Jago’, a people with a very unique way of living with the sea. About 2,500 people live in the small overseas village, and we will be welcomed into their world to meet and talk with them about their lives.

We will head to the southernmost tip of the park and have a long snorkel near the before setting sail to the southeast for a most unique wildlife encounter the following morning.

A very unique experience awaits you today, one you will very likely have never had before – an encounter with a Maleo bird at a locally-run conservation project. One of Sulawesi’s most interesting birds, it is a flightless fowl with some very unusual characteristics and behaviours, and also the symbol of the province within which it lives.

Cruise south, we will snorkel in the afternoon on a beautifully rich reef in front or Pulau Dua, or ‘two islands’ in the Indonesian language.

We have the rare privilege to swim in a small marine lake filled with stingless jellyfish, one of only 20 lakes of its kind in the world.

We will visit the bustling Indonesian island port town of Banggai, a place filled with activity and commerce. Here on Banggai Island, we will visit the local market, explore the neighbourhoods, the sultan’s palace, and the Maleo bird egg museum, all from our fleet of brightly-coloured motor rickshaws, which will be on the dock awaiting our arrival.

The last of the day’s highlights will be a snorkel on a local reef where we will see the most elegant, but very threatened, Banggai Cardinal Fish – a darling of saltwater aquarium lovers worldwide. We will snorkel on one of the local reefs around a Bajau “sea gypsy” community whose famous as Southeast Asia’s nomadic cultures.

We spend time in the Wakatobi National Park, a very hard-to-reach archipelago filled with fascinating culture and also one of Indonesia’s best national parks, with outstanding underwater life and natural beauty.

You will enjoy a personalised tour of the island of Wangi-Wangi, with highlights that include a seaweed farm, meeting with a traditional weaving community, and the ruins of a centuries-old Dutch fort, a relic of the ancient Spice Trade.

We drop anchor at an uninhabited atoll where guests have the chance to beach-comb, snorkel, paddleboard, or kayak

We visit a famous local blacksmith where the local craftsmen use hand-operated bellows on the furnace in the blacksmith’s shop to produce machetes and knives that are highly sought-after right across Indonesia.

Stop by an uninhabited sea mount in the middle of the Flores Sea that is home to tens of thousands of seabirds. It’s rich in upwelling nutrients and a perfect habitat for fishing and raising their young.

Bonerate is rarely visited by tourists outside of SeaTrek, and seeing this open-air boatyard is an experience to be savoured. We will walk amongst the hulls and hulks of a huge unlaunched flotilla of pinisi ships being built on a remote island archipelago. We will meet the shipwrights and discover their age-old traditions of shipbuilding that they have practiced for centuries.

Giants will loom large in your day-to-day: Komodo dragons, flying foxes, and manta rays, three of the biggest and most impressive animals in Indonesia.

Entering the Komodo National Park, you will have a hands-on experience at a coral conservation project on Hatamin Island, where you will learn about the work and get a chance to create your own coral rack and place it in the sea.

As the sun starts to set, we will gather on the deck and be witness to a most spectacular event as thousands of flying foxes leave their mangrove forest homes en masse on their nightly fruit-foraging missions.

We have the chance to hike a scenic route of Gili Lawa Darat, or you can stretch your legs on the beautiful white-sandy beach. After the hike, we will be back on board for a mission: to count how many turtles we spot with our own eyes in Siaba Besar island, which is famous as turtle heaven.

We will take you for a privately arranged, ranger-led walk around the island of Rinca, where we will see not only Komodo dragons, but also their preferred menu of prey – monkeys, deer, pigs, and buffaloes.

The crew will prepare a beach BBQ for us as we all feast, sing, and dance the night away by a roaring fire under the stars.

On our final day, we will wake as the boat is cruising slowly, making its way to the town of Labuan Bajo. After a final Indonesian breakfast on the boat, we will say farewell to our crew, who have looked after us so well for the past sixteen days, and transfer to Komodo airport for our flight and our onward journey.

Our mission is to provide the best experience possible for our guests given the current conditions and when unexpected opportunities for adventure may present themselves along our cruise routes. Sometimes weather conditions, tides or other local factors dictate that we need to vary from the published route, and at times there are special opportunities to explore and discover new locations, events and activities. These explorations will always be a definite enhancement to the published itinerary and will be undertaken after discussion and agreement among guests. Ultimately, the boat captains and your tour leader will make decisions to maximize trip safety and your overall enjoyment, so please come prepared to be flexible!