Belitung 2017 - Part 3 Island Hopping

Despite our original plan to go island hopping on the third day, I suggested to go on the second day because the weather had been good. It was lucky that we did because the third and fourth day was rainy and cloudy.

View from balcony in the morning

When we tried to charter a boat for island hopping from Jakarta, we were told to just hire one on the spot in case of bad weather. It made sense so that's what we did. Our car brought us from the hotel to Tanjung Kelayang harbour. We left the hotel at 9 am and it took about half an hour to get to the harbour. We paid Rp. 550.000 (about USD 45) for the boat and Rp. 70.000 per adult for food. There was also Rp. 20.000 per pc for life vest rental. It was good that they had child sized vests for the kids. Miss Kiki and I brought our own so we didn't need to rent.

Off we went!

The first island we hopped on was Pulau Batu Berlayar or Sailing Rock Island. It got its name from the sail-shaped rocks on the island.

Then we hopped back on the boat to the next destination...

I must mention that island hopping in Belitung is fairly comfortable even for the faint-at-hearts as the islands are so close together the trips between islands only took 10-15 minutes. Compared to our boat ride to Pulau Macan or to Derawan Islands, this was a walk in the park.

Our next stop was a tidal island called Pulau Pasir or Sand Island. We were told that you can usually see starfish on this island but we weren't able to see any. The tidal island we saw at Derawan Islands was larger and with more things to discover.

And back to the boat we went...

We made a stop for a little bit of snorkeling. The water was nice but there weren't much to see where we were at. The nicer corals were a bit further away but it was windy and the current was strong at that time so we didn't go.

For this trip, I bought new snorkling masks for Miss Kiki and DH. Miss Kiki tried hers out here for the first time but because it was all new to her she got scared and changed to regular swimming goggles instead.

After we snorkeled we went to Lengkuas island where stood an old lighthouse built in 1882. At the time we were there, visitors were not allowed to go to the top of the lighthouse. However, it is still possible to go up to the second or third floor if you buy entry tickets.

At the same island, they have a shack full of baby turtles. You can purchase them not to take home but to release them into the water. I was told that there are many lizards on the island so a lot of turtle eggs won't survive if left alone. So a group of people collected the eggs for safekeeping.

The kids had a lot of fun playing in the sun on the sand. It took some effort to get them to go back to the boat from every island. 

We got really hungry at Lengkuas island. Our captain offered to drop us off at an island while he went to fetch out food, but we decided to go with him to where the food was. It was a good decision afterall, we were able to eat warm food on a proper table and chairs. Had we booked our meals early, they would have brought food from the main island and that would not have been as good we're sure. 

Our food were plenty and tasty. Considering that we paid for 4 adults, it was pretty cheap as the food provided filled 7 empty stomachs with some leftover too! The crabs we ate were that morning's catch. It was so fresh!

After lunch, we continued our island hopping to Kelayang Island. There, they had a small lagoon you can check out. The kids and DH went but it wasn't anything impressive so we older girls didn't think it would be worth braving the giant stones to get there.

Garuda Island behind us

Walking towards the lagoon

They made it

Instead of going back to the deeper waters to snorkel, we decided to stay on the island and play. Miss Kiki got to try her new snorkling mask in a calmer condition and she was able to use it well.

Can you spot the fish? Kiki's friend took this picture.

DH and Miss Kiki went to check out some corals

At that point we were quite tired so we decided to head back to the harbour where our car had been waiting and headed back to the hotel to clean up.

Sunset from Balcony

That evening, we went to Dynasty Chinese Restaurant for dinner. The restaurant had good ratings on Foursquare but it was empty when we arrived so we had our doubts. When we entered though, most of the tables were already reserved so we were lucky we got there before they did. We ordered various things, and as soon as we submitted our order people started coming in and the restaurant was full.

Their portions were big, the taste was good, and the price was also decent. I guess that day was good food day :D

That was our island hopping day. Stay tuned for the next part!