love Kyle Blakeway ocean is deep: it started when he got his diving certification water free junior -it was ten years- blossomed over the years that his passion took him to Egypt and Gilis and finally manifested in the purchase of "Cecilia Ann", a 60 foot ketch rigged sailing ship anchored in Anyer, West Java, and itching to take vacationers on exploring for Krakatau, Ujung Kulon National Park, Panaitan and beyond.
Blakeway ostensibly came to Jakarta there are five months to visit his parents. But as luck would have it he ended up buying a boat.
"I was living in Australia and I always thought about buying a boat ... always ask around and check the Internet," says Blakeway. "But I came to Jakarta one of the friends of my mother actually knew someone who sells and when I saw Cecilia Ann I knew I wanted. "
But again be the head of something like Cecilia Ann, the large decked ship, designed to provide enough space for up to 35 people on charter day trips or sleep 10 as a live-aboard, was something the young entrepreneur who recently took Cecilia Ann and Java Sea Charters, had dreamed about for almost half of his life.
having been a certified diver in open water for more than half his life, experience is something this 22 door with a shovel.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, and grew up around the Globe- everywhere from Athens to Sri Lanka-Blakeway, who started diving at the age 10 years, seemed somehow destined to end up owning the cabin cruiser four, world class leader dive trips and surf charters along West Java and into the Sunda Strait.
certified before that he was still a teenager and got his PADI diving instructor certificate at 18, Blakeway passion for diving and open water led to some of the best dive sites exotic and sought after on the planet, sacred sites such as Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and the famous Gili islands in Lombok here.
Jakartans still complain of being stuck in the city for the weekend. But what they do not know how easy it is to be in the water and out to explore places like Krakatau and Ujung Kulon National Park, Panaitan or wrecks of both the USS Houston 'The Galloping Ghost Java Coast 'and the HMAS Perth, which, after being torpedoed in 1942 in the battle of Sunda Strait, now rests firmly at the bottom of Banten Bay on the lip of the Sunda Strait.
Some of the best diving in the whole of Java, Blakeway says, is right under our noses.
"You do not need to go to Bali or Lombok and Gilis to get your diving certification. It is just around the corner here in West Java. It is a week- end. "
the best way to make a weekend of it is to charter the boat with some friends or colleagues and sit with Blakeway, which has its specialty Padi license, and make a plan .
"weekend trips How we do it right now is that we do. You go down Friday after work and you eat dinner at Blue Moon, it is a good little restaurant about two minute walk from the port, and then you get on the boat at about 9:00 and go to sleep and you wake up in the morning and you're Krakatau. So it's Friday night, Saturday night and then you come back Sunday afternoon about 4 or 5 hours "
More importantly, the owner of a young company is eager to pass his passion to the next generation.
" We want to get the boat in about 20 once a month. I mean there are many dive shops here in Jakarta, but none of them are really tapping into the schools. We certainly want to tap into the schools and get the kids out there ".
Java Sea Charters offers junior open water course for ten and eleven, while other divers experience can earn advanced nitrox, deep diving, wreck diving or fish identification course Padi every weekend trips with two perfect days that include five dives.
But there is not the legendary surf or one-of-a-kind underwater experience available to Blakeway, it is on sustainability and preservation of reefs in West Java for next generation.
Java Sea Charters works hand in hand with the World Wildlife Federation, on a project called "Build Your Own Reef," where divers spend the weekend off the coast of Unjung Kulon fight against the effects of dynamite fishing by reattach transplanted corals harvested in unaffected by bombing areas of concrete slabs built by local villagers, the creation of new coral colonies to help the reconstruction of the area for help and sustainability.
"According to WWF the coral building has a very high success rate," says Corine Tap, the former owner of the Celcia Ann and a founder of the project.
Tap explained that the project, which will celebrate its fifth annual diving and reconstruction weekend on June 18 and 19, has a rate of re-growth of 80 percent along the 25 slabs divers and locals provided to help boast the regeneration of coral.
"the weekend is all about giving back. It is a small project, but we did not have to do much to get the divers involved. They are eager to restore the environment they love. Divers want their children to be able to enjoy the coral too. "
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