Expedition to the Sera island

Fascinating worlds

Sera is one of the Tanimbar islands, located in eastern Indonesia between New Guinea and northern Australia. The archipelago belongs to the southwestern Molucca islands – a particularly remote of the huge country of Indonesia, where animal and plant species from the Asian and Australian regions meet. The participants could exclusively discover this extraordinary world in daily excursions to uninhabited atolls and snorkeling tours.

Traveling to this special location takes a long time. The ride in a wooden boat from the main island Yamuda to Sera already takes seven hours. Since there are no hotels on the island, the traveling group asked the locals about possible overnight accommodations. “The locals welcomed us cordially, and everything was discussed soon”, Birgit Lutz remembers the situation which was unusual at first, but became a great experience due to the hospitality if the islanders.

Explorer tours

During the following days, the group explored the overwhelming nature. Since the tide influences the beach zones, it was possible to discover interesting crustacean species and corals during walks also further out. During daily diving tours, the group had the opportunity to explore the fascinating underwater world. Besides impressive coral reefs, they got in touch with many of the 780 fish species that live in the Moluccan waters.

For presenting the beauty of untouched nature even better, Johannes Dürbaum traveled to the surrounding islands in sailing and fishing boats with them. There, they climbed a coral wall, snorkeled in remote lagoons and explored caves. Besides countless bats, the got in touch with a python almost 2 m (6.6 ft.) long. In small experiments, they also tested how feather stars reacted to feeding with sera marin granulat and GVG-mix. The result: The echinoderms immediately take up the food – this clearly confirms the high quality of the food.

The return trip led the group via Bali, where they visited local markets, extensive sandy beaches and the rainforest.

An impressive journey

The lucky journey winners will not quickly forget this extraordinary excursion.

All in all, the journey was a complete success: “It was a really great adventure which we often will remember”, Johannes van Heeswijk summarizes.