Wicked Expedition - Day 4

Singapore To Komodo - Kumai

Kumai is a place that is special to all of us at Wicked Diving. Okay, not Kumai so much as the nearby forests.
Kumai is the name of the river and the small town nearby. We actually sail the Jaya right up the river to just beyond this point and moor up for a few days. We refill with Diesel, freshwater and fresh vegetables as well. But the real point of this little diversion is the incredible Camp Leakey! 

This is the original and one of the largest Orangutan reserves in the world. And it is so remote and so rarely visited that they are always looking for a tiny bit of cash.  What can you do to help? One way is to change your habits! Make sure your foods are Rainforest friendly. Responsibly sourced products are hard to find in the United States but are available. In European countries it is pretty easy to access these goods. The other way to help is by sponsoring an Orangutan!

However - there is so much more! After departing the Jaya, they will join a small river boat and wander deeper and deeper into the jungles and then into the park. Along the river banks are so many amazing creatures and scenes. Proboscis Monkeys jump through the trees as do Gibbons, a vast diversity of birds, and much more. At night millions of fireflys bounce around the rivers banks making it a living galaxy of lights.

Here is some notes from Amanda's trip Diary last year:

" Sunset along the coast of Kalimantan – photo time for everyone before dinner, hen a briefing on the next few days – our local guide Ari came across to the boat to explain the itinerary for the trip into Tanjang Putting to see the orang-utans. Early start tomorrow, pack a clean t-shirt, mozzie spray, cameras and we’re good to go!

Everyone was up and about bright and early ready for the trip into the jungle, and we got everyone in the mood by playing the soundtrack to ‘Jungle Book’. I wanna be like you-oo-oo… :)

 

Pick up at 0900 with a small blue and white boat and we met Jo, our guide for the trip. Left the main Kumai River and drove up into Tanjang Puting National Park. One side of the river is the area where most of the logging and forest clearing for palm oil plantations, so not so many orang-utans, but the other side is national park, so that’s where we’re looking! 





Eyes peeled for wild orang-utans! We spotted way more than we thought we would, loads of them hanging off the trees close to the river, we started to get pretty good at spotting them. Also plenty of proboscis monkeys and long tailed macaques eating and fighting throughout the treetops. Jo started each briefing or sentence with ‘how are you tomorrow?’, so we all started to address each other in the same way, and spent the day chilling on the boat watching for apes, with breaks for tea and strong Indonesian coffee with lots of condensed milk every so often. The river water was quite murky, it’s all the mercury contamination from the mining in the area, but soon we were headed into ‘black water’ which sounded a tad ominous, but actually meant the clean water area of the park free from contamination. The water visibility here was beautiful, and the calm of the water and the reflections of the jungle in the river sent us all running for our cameras "





Here is some video we took of the area and some interviews with guests and staff from last year when we visited Kumai.



If you would like to read some of the entries from the expedition last year....http://www.slideshare.net/wickeddiving/wicked-expedition-singapore-to-komodo

Remember to follow their progress, real-time here...http://ow.ly/aIZh6

If you would like to join our adventures in Komodo, you can join our 3 or 6 day Komodo Liveaboards.


-Wicked Diving