Looking out from Wata Bo’o Beach, I saw a calm blue sea, the water calm and only occasionally disturbed by the splash of a leaping silver fish. This serene tropical outpost, a thousand miles east of Bali, felt like it could always have been this way. However, the beach has had a turbulent history. The Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and most recently the Indonesians fought over it. With mass atrocities in the memory – they only gained independence from Indonesia 21 years ago – the focus here is on survival and rebuilding the country, rather than on attracting tourists. So far? Very few come.
But that may be about to change. Rumor has it that the northern coast of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, formerly Timor-Leste, could be one of the world’s largest ocean destinations, part of a marine migration superhighway with blue whales, sperm whales, fin whales, orcas , pilot whales, false killer whales, whale sharks, melon-headed whales, oceanic manta rays and more. Could this largely forgotten new nation – actually half an island (the other half of Timor belongs to Indonesia) – contain all this?
I landed in the sleepy, dusty capital of Dili, which was more of a seaside resort than a bustling port. Dili is the only place in the country with a decent infrastructure; elsewhere, facilities are limited, public transport is unreliable and there are few accommodation options. It feels like the Southeast Asia of yesteryear, where cultural traditions live on in the villages and the beaches are empty, sometimes in a surreal way, like at Dollar Beach, once a popular spot for first responders, where now abandoned swimming pools and a fountain in the water to stand. shape of a flip-flop.
I drove east for a few hours through a rugged rocky landscape with steep coastal mountains leading into the sea, lined with beaches and reefs. There was little traffic. Sporadic roadside vendors sold small plastic bottles of fuel, ripe papaya and green coconuts. Children waved, as they still do here.
I was heading to the second city of Baucau in the shadow of Matebian, the sacred Mountain of Spirits and an ancient stronghold of resistance fighters. With a run-down colonial feel, Baucau apparently only had two hotels, one of which was not accepting bookings and the other of which was not yet open but was willing to accommodate me. It felt like the country would struggle to keep up with the increase in visitors, at least in the short term.
It turns out I wasn’t the only one studying the rumors about marine life here. We also rented rooms from some of the world’s best underwater photographers and filmmakers – whose work has been featured on the BBC, Netflix and National Geographic – who were weighed down by long-lens cameras, drones and hydrophones. It felt like we might be onto something.
At my side was Bafta-winning cameraman Patrick Dykstra, who regularly searches for whale watching destinations for tour operator Natural World Safaris in between filming. He told me that until recently Sri Lanka was the best place to swim with blue whales, but they haven’t shown up for four or five years now.
“Some attribute their disappearance to climate change and its effect on currents and sea temperatures,” he said. “But it was also an unregulated industry with far too many boats and some operators really harassing the animals.”
On our first day we drove along a winding path to a sandy beach, waded to a launch at low tide, then drove into a sea so deep blue it was almost navy blue. There was not another boat or fisherman in sight; it was like we had the ocean to ourselves. As luck would have it, within a few minutes of leaving the coast we spotted a group of 40 pilot whales. We navigated the boat ahead of their path and I slid down the back ladder into the water. As I hung below the waterline, immersed in this outside world, I must admit that I barely noticed the blur of the whales rushing by.
The next day we set off at first light. Hour after hour we scanned the vast ocean for a fluke or a blow, listening for clicks and whistles on a hydrophone. The ocean can fool you, disrupt your balance and disorient you with its lack of landmarks and endless sameness. I didn’t see anything moving. Maybe a flying fish, maybe a fin, maybe neither.
Back at the ad hoc hotel I spoke with underwater photographer Shawn Heinrichs, who had been here for several weeks. “It’s a game of patience and perseverance,” he comforted me. “The exciting thing is that you have the possibility of the largest animals to ever visit the planet showing up. East Timor truly has a unique maritime corridor. It is unprecedented to find all these species in one place.”
Let’s name some of the most powerful water movements on Earth, a current that connects the Indian and Pacific Oceans zigzagging through the archipelagos of Indonesia and the Philippines. Amazingly, 80 percent of that water flows north past Timor. The sea is dramatically deep just off the coast several kilometers away, with rocky underwater plateaus that generate upwellings and push nutrients upward, creating feeding and migration bottlenecks.
These could hardly be more perfect conditions for cetaceans and pelagics, as well as anyone who wants to swim with them. On my third and final day we saw a pod of 100 false killer whales, including a lone bottlenose dolphin. Although we tried to keep up, they were passing us and the ocean swell was too rough for our little boat.
There are many variables involved in this type of travel, such as weather, climate change and an unfolding El Niño. Of course, there is also luck, which can depend on perspective. I was lucky, even though I missed the largest cetaceans. The week before I arrived there were sperm whales. The next week blue whales came along. It is difficult to determine the correct timing when dealing with migratory species.
Marine ecologist Karen Edyvade, president of the Marine Tourism Association of Timor-Leste, has set up a field station near Dili, in collaboration with the National University of Timor-Leste and Charles Darwin University in Australia. “Ten years ago we knew almost nothing about what was happening in these tropical waters,” she said. “Now we have great data sets, especially for blues and semen.”
We spoke on the phone shortly after I left and Karen’s team had recorded twelve blue whale sightings that day, and eight the day before. “It proves that the country can move towards ecotourism and away from an economy that is almost entirely dependent on oil revenues.”
One evening, after a day at sea, I had the chance to interview the country’s president, José Ramos-Horta, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1990s and survived an assassination attempt twelve years later when he was hit by a bullet. the stomach. I drove a few hours east to the town of Com and found him halfway through dinner at a makeshift beach camp, dressed in a Harley Davidson jacket, hosting old friends who were exploring the country by RV.
Ramos-Horta is a storyteller and a joker; he told me about his first job manning a tourist kiosk at Baucau airport, about carbon credits, post-conflict reconciliation, fiber optic cables, COP28 and how afraid he is of sharks. However, when we turned our attention to Timor’s oceans, he turned serious.
“I am 100 percent prepared to support the protection of our marine environment to prevent further damage,” he said, before adding resignedly: “But I have been talking about a joint maritime security policy with Australia and Indonesia for years. and they just drag it out. There will inevitably be political disagreements, but don’t forget the oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.
My boat driver, Ricardo Marquez, said that he and others are confident that his country will make some good choices as they themselves leave fishing and subsistence agriculture to tourism; they want to become boat operators and open homestays and eateries. “But I’m afraid the whales will leave,” he told me. “We have been talking for a long time about how to manage our activities, but we still have no regulations.”
“What we need is training and accreditation,” echoed Karen Edyvade. “Right now, anyone can jump in a boat and swim next to a whale, with no minimum distance. Sri Lanka is wrong. We can’t get it wrong.”
Meanwhile, the Caribbean island of Dominica is seen as a beacon of hope in sustainable maritime tourism. Last month the country announced a 300 square kilometer marine protected area for sperm whales, a world first. Patrick Dykstra played an important role in realizing this. “I hope Timor-Leste will do something like this,” he said. “My suspicion is that it is possible.”
Essentials
Michelle Jana Chan traveled as a guest of Natural World Safaris (01273 691642; naturalworldsafaris.com) which offers a seven-night sea safari to East Timor from £6,200 per person, including accommodation, meals, most drinks, airport transfers to/from Dili Airport and six days of whale watching in a private boat with an expert maritime guide.