Maratua is the outer atoll of East Kalimantan’s Derawan Archipelago: a ring of white sand and reef wrapped around a deep, turquoise lagoon, with a fraction of the visitor numbers of Bali or the Gili Islands. This guide focuses on Maratua Island specifically for travelers planning a diving- or nature-first trip to Indonesian Borneo, rather than a quick stopover tacked onto a wider Kalimantan itinerary. If you’re coming from Bali, Lombok or the more established parts of Indonesia’s tourist trail, expect the pace, infrastructure and overall feel of a trip here to be noticeably different, in ways that reward some extra planning. It covers how to physically get there, what kind of lodging actually exists on the island, what fills the days once you’ve arrived, and the trade-offs against neighboring Derawan Island.

Independent research guide, updated for the 2026 season. Flight schedules, boat prices and resort availability change often in this region, so confirm specifics directly with operators before booking.

Where Is Maratua Island, and Why Go

Maratua sits roughly 45 nautical miles off the coast of Berau Regency, East Kalimantan, as the outermost atoll in the Derawan Archipelago alongside Derawan, Sangalaki and Kakaban. Geologically it’s an uplifted coral atoll rather than a volcanic island, which is why its lagoon is unusually deep and clear even close to shore, and why the surrounding reef wall drops off so sharply just offshore. According to Indonesia’s official tourism board, the Derawan Archipelago is promoted as one of the country’s priority marine destinations, alongside Raja Ampat and Komodo, precisely because of this reef quality, though it receives a fraction of the visitor volume of those better-known parks.

The island itself is split into several small villages, Payung-Payung, Bohe Silian, Bohe Bukut and Teluk Alulu, connected by a single ring road that loops the atoll. Most dive lodges cluster near Payung-Payung and the small airstrip, while the more traditional stilt-house villages sit further around the ring. There is no town center in the way a Bali beach town has one; Maratua is intentionally low-key, and that’s the point for most people who make the trip.

Compared with better-known Indonesian dive hubs, Maratua still feels under-the-radar: dive boats rarely queue at a site the way they can around Bali’s Nusa Penida, and it is common to have an entire wall dive to one or two buddy pairs. That relative emptiness is itself part of the draw for divers who have already done the more crowded circuits and are looking for something quieter without sacrificing reef quality.

Getting to Maratua

There is no direct international flight to Maratua. Most travelers fly to Tarakan or into Berau’s Kalimarau Airport via Balikpapan, then take a speedboat (roughly two to three hours from Tanjung Batu or Tarakan, weather dependent) to the island’s jetty. Maratua also has a small domestic airstrip with limited, irregular scheduled service, which can cut travel time when flights happen to be running, though you shouldn’t plan a trip around it.

We cover the full step-by-step routing, approximate costs and weather considerations in a dedicated how-to-get-there guide, since this is usually the part first-time visitors underestimate: it is realistic to lose most of a travel day to flight connections and the sea crossing in each direction.

Where to Stay

For specific, bookable resort picks in the wider archipelago, see our roundups of luxury resorts in the Derawan Islands and Derawan Islands resorts in Borneo, several of which run their own boats out to Maratua’s dive sites rather than requiring a separate transfer.

Diving, Snorkeling and Day Trips

Maratua’s appeal is almost entirely underwater. The island’s outer walls drop steeply into blue water with strong but generally manageable currents, drawing schooling barracuda, reef sharks and the occasional pelagic visitor. Most dive operators also run day trips to Sangalaki for manta ray cleaning stations and nesting green turtle beaches, a species whose conservation status is tracked by the IUCN Red List, and to Kakaban for its stingless jellyfish lake, covered in full in our Kakaban Jellyfish Lake guide.

Non-divers can usually join these boats to snorkel the same general areas, though manta encounters and wall dives are naturally better experienced with scuba gear. Divers without a current certification can often complete an Open Water course locally through resort dive centers affiliated with PADI, though course availability and instructor languages vary by resort, so confirm before you commit multiple days to it.

A typical day-trip itinerary bundles two or three of these stops together: an early departure to Sangalaki for manta sightings while the water is calmest, a mid-morning stop at Kakaban for the jellyfish lake, and a final reef dive or snorkel back near Maratua before the boat returns in the afternoon. Operators usually cap group sizes fairly small, so it’s worth booking a day or two ahead rather than assuming a spot will be available on arrival, particularly from June to August when regional dive tourism peaks.

Best Time to Visit

The calmest sea conditions generally run from April to October, outside the wetter northwest monsoon months of November through March. Visibility and manta sightings at Sangalaki can vary month to month even within the dry season, so if your trip is diving-led, it’s worth checking current conditions with a resort directly before locking in dates. We go deeper on seasonal patterns across the whole archipelago, including rainfall and sea-state notes, in Best Time to Visit the Derawan Islands.

School holiday periods, both Indonesian and international, add a secondary layer on top of the weather pattern: dive resorts can book out well ahead for July, August and the end-of-year holidays even though sea conditions in those months are generally good, so plan lodging further in advance if your trip falls in one of those windows.

Practical Tips and Combining With a Wider Trip

Bring more cash than you think you’ll need: there is no reliable ATM network on Maratua, and card payments are rare outside the larger dive resorts. Mobile signal is patchy and mostly limited to village centers, so treat Maratua as a partial digital-detox stop. Pack reef-safe sunscreen, a dry bag for boat transfers, and a basic first-aid kit, since the nearest hospital-level care is back on the mainland in Berau or Tarakan.

Power can also be inconsistent outside the larger dive resorts, with some homestays running generators only part of the day, so charge phones, cameras and dive lights whenever power is available rather than assuming a reliable overnight charge. A universal adapter and a portable battery pack are worth packing as backups.

Divers sometimes pair Maratua with Malaysian Borneo’s Sipadan and Mabul dive sites or the Semporna archipelago, both reachable via a longer overland and boat connection through Sabah; it’s a demanding routing best suited to a two-week-plus trip. For a shorter visit, Maratua alone, plus Sangalaki and Kakaban as day trips, is enough to comfortably fill four or five unhurried days. For other Indonesian island pairings, see our guides to Natuna and Bangka Belitung.

FAQ