Pulau Mantanani

“Pulau Mantanani – The Beginning”, By Silvia Yen (PADI Instructor & Camp Manager, Borneo Dream)

“Ah…Mantanani Island…..Where is that?”

That was my reaction when I first heard about a new job opportunity as ‘Camp Manager’ for Camps International and Borneo Dream on Mantanani. I quickly did a search on Google, but nothing much came up really on Mantanani. I found out it was a small island (well in fact it’s a set of 3 small islands) off the north west coast of Sabah with swaying coconut trees, a muslin community of about 800 people, and famous for its friendly resident Dugongs in the pristine water of the shallow lagoon (they have not been seen for a few years by the way, but the locals told me about 2 weeks ago that one has been spotted hanging around the village jetty again). I pondered about it for about… 5 seconds, and then I thought “ OK, I am going to Sabah!”.

Sun, Sea & Sand

So what did my new job involve….

Basically, Borneo Dream teamed up with a UK company called Camps International, a company specializing in school expeditions and Gap Year travel ( also the winner of “best volunteering organization” of 2008 Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Award ) to set up a new “camp” on Mantanani Island. Sabah was Camps International’s first operation outside of Africa. In some of their travel programs, a PADI Open Water Diver Course or a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver Course plus some Marine Awareness Program dives were included, so some help from dive professionals was needed. This is where Borneo Dream came in!

Silvia at the Camp on Mantanani

Borneo Dream’s aims to provide “a diving experience with the highest safety / dive training standards while having the most fun” was just what Camps International was looking for. I was to be the Manager of the Camp. Apart from managing the day-to-day operation of the Camp, I was also to seek and carry out ideas for practical projects that can help the community, teach the young people participating in this program to dive, and find all sorts of local activities to amuse them as well as to create a bound with the community. The duration of the program was to be 4 weeks each time, with a few days break in between (meaning I’d live there full-time if the camp is busy).

Issues, issues, issues………Opportunities!

The View from the Camp

I have always been someone who’s up for a challenge, and the more I learned about the situation Pulau Mantanani was in, the more I wanted to go.

First, the elementary school there has the highest fail rate in the whole country of Malaysia (the exam the year 6 kids take at the age of 12 ). 

Secondly, the major livelihood of the community is fishing, but the stunning coral reefs around the island were over-fished and damaged by destructive fishing practices. The fishermen have not got enough money to buy any decent boat engines, let alone some proper cold storage on board, so their wooden fishing boats can’t really travel far for better catch.

Thirdly, there is not any medical facility on the island, no sewage system, there is no 24 hour electricity (the village generator is only on between 6pm to 6am… sometimes not if they run out of fuel).

Communication to the mainland is hard, and even though Mantanani is only about 38 km from the nearest town (Kota Belud) on mainland, when the sea is rough (which is fairly often!), getting to or off the island is impossible.

What the good things are…

The Village

However, you quickly realize that Pulau Mantanani is an island of amazing natural beauty – blue sky, crystal clear water, white sand, coconut trees, mangroves, bat caves, jungles, rocky cliffs… and beautiful people. 
For an island as small as Mantanani, it’s surprising how different one end of the island is from the other (it takes about 40 minutes to walk the length of the island ). Apart from the resident dugongs and the juvenile green turtles, and some baby black tip reef sharks in the lagoon, Mantanani is also home to a few endangered bird species (Christmas Island / Greater / Lesser Frigate birds, Mantanani Scops-owls, Nicobar Pigeons ), and the local people are the friendliest. 

On a clear day we wake up to a full view of Mount Kinabalu; the clouds at sunset are in a thousand different shades, and we have the most beautiful starry sky at night. 

To most people, this island is just as exotic as a tropical island can get. And the best thing is (or the worst, depending on how you look at it), it’s virtually free of anything touristy.

To be continued…

The camp has only been up and running since July 2009, and there are only a small number of people in each group (3 ~ 5 pax).

The immediate impacts (positive ones !) we have made on the lives of the community so far are things we include in our projects like beach clean-ups, teaching English in the school, or extra income (all staff, except for me, are from the village and we pay rent for the land we built the camp on), or just by interacting with the people (a game of football, spending a few ringgits at the village shops).

We hope, slowly but surely, the guests from Camps and the people from the island can form a genuine and nice relationship/friendship, which will be an inspiring experience for all.

By Silvia Yen, Camp Manager – Mantanani

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 12:48 am and is filed under Enjoy Sabah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.