Bollywood actor Parineeti Chopra is seen all geared up and excited to take the plunge into the ocean in one of the spellbinding snaps of her recent trip to Indonesia posted on social media.
This beautiful moment had been frozen by Parineeti at the Kakaban Island, which is a coral atoll off the East Kalimantan Province covering 774 hectares of uninhabited land. The Kakaban Island is one of the 31 islands, including Sangalaki, Maratua and Derawan, belonging to the picturesque Derawan archipelago.
Kakaban in local parlance means ‘hug’ and its name is after how the island ‘hugs’ the saltwater lake in the middle of the isle. The lake, which is a major attraction for tourists, occupies two-thirds of the island and is replete with thick mangroves. Moreover, there are thousands of saucer-shaped jellyfish in the lake waters. Usually, jellyfish are menacing with a deadly sting up the sleeve but not those in the lake on Kakaban Island.
As the jellyfish in the lake are harmless, the tourists have the opportunity to swim with the free-swimming fish without any fear. The varieties of jellyfish found in the lake include the translucent Aurelia aurita, the Tripedalia cystophora, which is as small as a fingertip, the bulb-like Mastigias papua, which has hues of green and brown, and the Cassiopea ornata, which is known as the upside-down jellyfish.
These kinds of innocuous jellyfish can be found, besides the lake on Kakaban Island, only at Palau in Micronesia. Apart from jellyfish, the lake houses a robust local marine life.
The lake bed is covered in green algae, and you can get a feel of the underwater world as it is home to Sea cucumbers, Gobies, Anemone fish, Tunicates, Nudibranch, orange and purple clams and different types of sea snakes.
The lake is close to 17m deep and it has lukewarm saltwater. Other attractions besides the lake are the Barracuda point and the Blue Life cave.
The Kakaban lake has been declared as a government nature reserve and nominated as a World Heritage Zone.
