Neighbouhood Treasure: Satang Island

8/03/2014 09:24:00 AM

Satang Island, an island reachable via Kuching City then a 30 mins speed boat ride from Telaga Air Matang. An privately owned island which was least know even to me Kuchingian. But yea, such hidden paradise will be known soon enough for it's beauty and "new-ness" to us.

With strong interest for Satang Island, I decide to get help from my strongest Guru of All Information, Google. Mr. Google popped up a lot of multi-not-what-i-want post and information, mostly from travel agencies which include dolphin watch... We are in very tight budget for the trip so, cut cut cut even the very tempting view of wild dolphin leaping...


While during the time when the trip was about to change due to lack of contacts and details about the place, Mr. Google show me THIS post~ At the bottom, admin left us a contact and the facebook page. WOW!!! ?But but but... the page hasn't updated for the past few yearssss.... Was the page still have an owner or was abandon ><

I called... The contact from bottom and a lady picked up. She told me everything is working and she welcome us to Satang Island. Although I got excited with the call, some how I got worried at the same time as the lady seems not to be the person in-charge, else the person who have the info we needed. Anyway, the "can-go" news was spread among my "want-to-go" friends. 

We decide to go for it.

Despite the many many reason I popped up in group chat on the incomplete of facility, the massive insect attack, no lighting, no water, no electric, no bed etc...

We decide to go for it.

Trip booked, total pax confirmed, rate was discussed, food & drinks were prepared and also include sleeping beds plus other necessity. We are ready to face the worst of anything on the island.

Yea, despite all warnings and expressed of unsatisfied with visits to the island... All we want is step on Satang Island, the turtle island.

Yeah  ٩(๑> ₃ <)۶ ♥ ♥

We meet at Telaga Air, Matang at 2.00pm and got ready to depart from Telaga Air, Matang. We saw someone waving at us so we walk down towards the boat. Amazingly, we are so easily recognised by the boat man. There are also other small size boat ready to depart, to who knows where, might be fishing or just doing some survey around the area~

While others was loading all our stuff into the boat, I heard a weak call from some very familiar voice... "meow meow meow..." from the opposite boat with no people on. A cat was calling at us... clearly she has been enjoying her sunbathing on the boat and heard us coming, the "loud" group, and she was hungry... *asumed*


We basically ignored her and get ready to depart, despite we have plenty of ready to eat food just fingers away. Bye bye, mimi aka cat's generally recognized name
ლ(>△<) ...

Here’s our boat, from the front view lar as I was looking and snapping picture at the “Meow”, all my friends has loaded themselves comfortably onto the boat. Perfectly left behind a front seat for me, I like even it means might be wet being splash by water giving ways to our boat but, yea, front roll have a pretty panorama view. ^^

Remember to wear your life jacket and remember not to ever enter a boat without life jacket even you are an Olympic Swimmers or “Am-Swim-Like-Fish”. Some bigger boats do not require you to wear them once you are on the boat or ship but one thing for sure is you know where they are available just in case. 

 

The boat is much much better then what I expected. Initially was told that, max. 6Pax include if we bring a lot of stuff, else is 8pax max. But we have 9pax in total so... the boat looked great for 9~ By the way, we did bring a lot of stuff also~


By just seconds, we are off the jetty!

Excited…? Yea
Suspense…? Of cause, due to so much negative inputs before we even booked the place.
Burdened…? Yea, at least for me at first since I’m the so call “Organiser” for this trip, sure won’t wanna expect any dissatisfaction or disappointment.
What else do I felt that time...? I just wanna arrive there soonest.

I even told everyone that we will survey the place first, if it was really unacceptable or voted to go back on the same day, well, I am totally prepared for the worst. I even prepared what should I tell the boatman and the person-in-charge why our 2Days1Night trip has to be day trip so last …

I just can’t do things without preparation, which will surely freak me out! 


The speedboat ride brought us along the mangrove area and if you are lucky, you might see sea eagle. Besides, views along the mangrove attracted us a lot. Pictures takings sessions.

Another wooden house on the right, just opposite Telaga Air Jetty. I wonder how nice it would be to stay just by the beach where you can actually laid on the sand to enjoy the best starry sky whenever you like…
  

Staying in Kuching is such a blessed. We are given beached and mountains within reach in less than an hour time. Kuchingian can go the beach today and enter the mountain on the exact same day!

Back to the Island, all our brought-overs was placed in front of the boat, as they have more space plus they actually stabilize the boat for not moving above the water too high… That’s one of my theories, backing up with Kally’s commend sense. This is how much we brought for just 2days1night stay on the island.


What did we bring over…?
> BBQ food (a few types) & equipment
> Changeable clothes (Extra)
> Insect Repellent or “Tree Coir” to burn off
> Plenty of drinking water
> Sleeping bags
> Snack & soda
> Torch light (A LOT OF THEM)
> SunBlock
> etc

Before reaching Satang Island, there will be a few small “tiny” island along the way. Some with plants on and some just gone naked. We were brought to view a rock island with as nestled by a lot of sea bird, might be sea gull*. From the picture I took might seems non, but with naked eyes or some can “zoom-zoom-zoom” far far away high-tech camera can take lar, but not my normal digital camera. Come and see for yourself lar~


We are so so close to the rocky island that we could actually touch any nearby lightly submersed rocks… Just kidding lar, means really really near to the island only ><


After that we have some other things to get excited about… the island approaching! We are going to Satang Greater Island (Pulau Stanag Besar). The smaller Satang Island was so small that you can walk around the island within few hours. But you can’t do that since some of the area was rocky and dangerous. There are not people staying there too, only to do conservative program.

There are not much information about Satang Smaller Island, so I am not here to gather information too so just enjoy and skip the legend and history~
 

From some Wilson Chin’s blog, he had mentioned that the island looked like a half bowling pin structure. What do you think…?

To me, Satang Besar looked so much like a mother turtle who makes her way along the beach to find a suitable nesting area. The smaller bump on the right was her head while the bigger bump on the left is her shell. Since Satang Island is also known as the Turtle Island, so looking like a turtle make more sense right? Another theory from myself.


Welcome to Pulau Satang Besar :)


Stepping onto the crystal clear water… Hmm! Hard to find in Kuching indeed. Clear water, soft and smooth sand accompanied by such great weather for outing. Luck is on our side~

We quickly unload ourselves onto the beach and satisfactory in everyone face… Well, at least in mine, a 200% happiness on the water, sand and the views!

Here’s a selfie~


Too happy to be here, too eager to see more and was drunk by the views. I also forgot about our much baggage and brought-overs are still on the boat. With the fastest speed, lined up in a straight line facing the side and started passing bags and items from the one by one to the following person. All bags was removed without hassle and much joyful photos was taken till awhile after only we notice that the boat man has been waiting for us to check in to our “accommodation”…



And so next post will talk the Accommodation & Facility ya!

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