Island style - Diving weekend on Papa Theo Island

What better way to experience diving in Indo than on a private island. Yes, that's right...we were fortunate enough to be invited to spend the weekend on Papa Theo, which is one of the Thousand islands (Pulau Seribu). Papa Theo is approx 2km in circumference and has only 5 houses (bungalow's) amidst swaying palm trees. By private I mean, really private, small island in the middle of the ocean "private"...it was fantastic.

On Saturday, 1 November we left the harbour in Jakarta at around 7am and arrived at Papa Theo at about 8:20am.



Our transport - 7 of us, the skipper and a boat boy
The resident island doggy

Fishing boats on the small Papa Theo beach

We got off the boat and headed to the bungalow. By the time we finished admiring the amazing location and views around the island and commented on how good it was to breath fresh air, the island "porters" arrived with our bags and cooler boxes filled with the weekend's supplies of food and drinks. As there is no restaurant on the island, we were tasked with providing lunch on the Saturday, Paulo and Nadine took care of dinner and Chris spoiled us with breakfast and lunch on the Sunday. Thanks guys...I would go back just for the food, yum!

Our accommodation

Hundreds of swaying palm trees on the island

The view from the veranda

The guys went over to Sepa, which is a short boat ride away, to collect the cylinders for the planned dives on Saturday.

The first dive was what you can call; Diving in style. We kitted up on the jetty and just stepped into the clear blue water. It was a easy dive along the reef, almost on our bungalow's doorstep ;-) We went to about 13m and after 20 minutes we turned around and surfaced at the exact spot, where we started. After lunch, we returned to the jetty to kit up and head out again, this time with Chris's rubber dingy.

The diving couldn't have been any easier or more convenient. We just left our gear on the jetty for two days and when we showed up for the next dive our gear had been rinsed off and full cylinders were ready and waiting for us to just kit up and dive in.

Relaxing in the water in front of the bungalow between dives on Saturday

Okay, now I'm really relaxing; on my lylo in the ocean.

A shower is always great after a dive, especially in a setting like this :-)

On Sunday morning we arrived at the jetty and kitted up for what looked to be yet another day of perfect diving conditions. Kitting up on the boat is the kind of diving that we are used to, minus the bumpy boat ride of course and the added bonus of clear blue water where you can almost see to the bottom of the reef. But, what we didn't bargain on was a water spout (small twister) approaching us on our 1st dive.

After carefully inspecting the mini tornado and deciding whether or not we should be worried, we were very happy when we notice that it started dispersing and we were good to go. Phew, we luckily didn't have to race back to the island to send SOS warnings about a hurricane on it's way.

We returned to the jetty, changed cylinders and headed out for our last dive, which was a wreck about 15min boat ride from Papa Theo.

Underwater photographs taken by Paulo

We went down to approx 30meters and started swimming up, along the side of the massive ship and finally settle at about 16 meters on top where we stayed for approx 20 minutes, just admiring the fish life and colourful coral with fantastic visibility of about 20 meters. I always find wreck dives a bit eery of course but it's amazing and so much fun to see these vessels under water.

Marc in his element, giving us the thumbs up after the dive

We returned to the bungalow, ravenous after two dives. We enjoyed a fantastic spread of Alaskan cold and hot smoked Salmon, cheese and crackers, Sate Ayam (Chicken) and peanut sauce, Kalimantan prawns (spoiled, thanks Chris).

Marc and I volunteered to return the cylinders to the Sepa dive centre so that I could see what it was like.

The beach on Sepa Island

Marc helped the guys off load the used cylinders

Heading back to Papa Theo

By 3pm we were packed up and our stuff was loaded onto the boat for our return to Jakarta.

It is rather depressing, looking at the amazing pics of the island, on the camera and the next thing, you look up and you are staring into the grey, muggy sky and grey, dirty and smelly water at the harbour. What a contrast...

What more could you want....an escape from the city; socialising with friends, spectacular, easy diving, swimming and relaxing in warm, clear blue water and just chilling "island style".

Thank you Chris, (Tamera, we missed you), Paulo and Nadine. We had a fantastic time and we look forward to the next trip.