By Priyo, Sea Kayak Guide.
Blue is the coolest color. I mean, literally cool. Blue is the color of the secret marine lakes where our guests and our guides cool off on a last stop after a long paddling day. If you don’t know what a marine lake is, it’s a landlocked body of water that’s actually still connected to the sea through a tidal tunnel or underground cracks. What results is a hidden world of peculiar fishes, peculiar corals, peculiar jellyfish, and, once in a while, you’ll find peculiar sea kayak guides (that’s us!).
Looking at the marvelous hidden lake from above.
It is seriously hidden, as you can’t see them from the shore. No sir, you just can’t see them! They hide themselves inside lagoons so well, like magical buildings in Harry Potter stories! That’s why I missed them so many times in the first season of guiding in Misool. There was one time when I was sea kayaking with guests from lagoon to lagoon, talking like a proper biodiversity professor, and promised them the wonderful secret lives of the secret salty lakes. Then I jumped out of the kayak like a ninja, helped the guests, and lo and behold: It was at the wrong lagoon! It was like a game to find them sometimes. But I don’t make that mistake anymore; I’m a senior guide now, for Neptune’s sake!
So, you have to fly your drone up or look at satellite pics to spot the marine lakes. Or ask the locals, of course, although this doesn’t always work, as locals can also be confused just like us mortals, you know! They are always situated in inland depression areas between hills, among colorful jungles, and always on karstic limestone areas. Their sizes are generally not so big. Marine lakes also have a fancy scientific name: anchialine lake. How fancy is that?
Anyhow, Anchialine lakes are sublime places to observe and swim around. Or, in my case, to meditate. What I usually do is just float facing up, spreading my arms and legs like I am a fallen leaf. I usually just savor the tranquility while a part of my ears is submerged in the water, looking at the blue or sometimes gray sky through canopies of healthy trees. Maybe a fish or two tickles my bum, but I don’t give a damn. A hornbill or cockatoo with their beautiful looks and their hideous squawks sometimes flew by, minding their own business. While waiting for the guests or team to do whatever they want in this salty secret pond, I most enjoy the serenity of a secret life. Those are some of my most peaceful moments.
The other guys prefer to swim and greet the little reclusive fishes that live in there. Sometimes, when you are swimming near the tunnel where the sea comes in and out, you can see the fishes swim as if they are using the tunnel current as a treadmill. They look funny. They usually are gobey fish, soldier fish, halfbeaks. There are some corals too in these lakes, stony ones and sometimes soft ones. They also have starfish, brittle stars, sea cucumbers. Despite being a little less salty than the open sea, this hidden world still supports a vibrant ecosystem!
Cut off from the sea, but connected somewhere below, the marine lakes are like chamber of hidden things!
Currently, there are 40 observed marine lakes in the Misool area. This is a significant number in one area, as there are so far only about 200 marine lakes observed on Earth. But in Misool, some of these lakes have jellyfish populations in them. And marine lakes with jellyfish populations are even much, much rarer!
Swimming with the jellyfish in these marine lakes is a surreal experience. It’s like you’re swimming among floating and lost souls. Lost but orange, souls. They are mostly the golden jellyfish. These jellyfish in these lakes have benign stings, which means you will only feel it around your mouth. But why would you have a jellyfish near your mouth anyway?! In fact, we should try hard not to touch any of these jellyfish. We should not even wear fins when snorkeling in the jellyfish lake and wear only marine life-safe sunscreens so we don’t harm the jellyfish. But this is no easy task when you have literally thousands of jellyfish floating around you. So, you pretty much have to dance around these funny orange creatures!
The guides and I have many more silly stories to tell about these secret lakes. But to end this little blog, I will only say that visiting the anchialine lakes is a must. And one more thing, I like the word “Anchialine” so much I named my pet sugar glider: ‘Anchi’!.
