Island Life Newsletter: More Turtles than Guests

Andrew Dixon
Aug 18
5 min read

This is an archived edition of Island Life. Island Life is the bi-monthly newsletter and whimsical musings from the team at Nikoi and Cempedak Islands. You can subscribe to it here.

Brand Loyalty, Literally

When I’m on the islands, I always make time for the staff morning meeting. It's the perfect chance to catch up with the team and get the goss. There’s usually a healthy dose of banter and chit chat, which I love. To make sure everyone turns up on time we have a rule that you have to do a push up for every minute you are late. Since introducing this, our meetings always start on time and sometimes even early.

At a meeting on my last visit to Cempedak, I spotted one of our hard-working engineering team, whose main job is managing waste, sporting a tattoo of our logo on his arm. As we’re in the middle of a rebranding exercise, I reminded our marketing team (all of one person) to tread carefully with any logo changes… they might be more painful for some than others. Apparently, one of his other tattoos is a tribute to the other MVP of our waste management team - the black soldier fly larvae!

Dodi with his tribute to Cempedak and ‘Belating Bersatu’ which can be translated to ‘Maggots Unite’!

More Turtles than Humans

We’ve already had a record number of turtle nests on Nikoi this year and Amandine, our resident marine biologist who joined us earlier this year, has been doing a brilliant job caring for them. So far, we’ve counted 56 nests, which is 30% more than at this time last year. Right now, we have more nests on the island than guest villas, and this week more turtle hatchlings have “checked out” than human guests.

Amandine’s theory is that we’re now seeing the return of the very first turtles we helped protect almost 20 years ago. While scientists aren’t exactly sure how, female sea turtles return to the same beach (or at least the same area) where they hatched to lay their own eggs. It takes around 20 years for a female hawksbill to reach maturity, and with Nikoi now in operation for 18 years, perhaps some of our “repeat guests” are of the cross-species variety. Even with all our efforts to protect the nests, many eggs don’t hatch and most hatchlings don’t survive to adulthood - the odds are about one in every 1,000.

Two little islanders meeting for the first time. And Amandine shows guests fresh turtle tracks and explains how to identify the species that left them.

2024 Impact Report

Protecting turtles is just one part of how we aim to make a positive impact. Our approach follows the 4Cs framework of The Long Run. For years, all our efforts were bundled into a rather dry (yes, I wrote it!) PDF called our “Responsible Tourism Policy”, which we dutifully updated with each achievement. For 2024 though, the team took the reins and transformed it into an Impact Report. It’s a fresher, more engaging look at the past year, packed with stories and statistics. We much prefer celebrating what we’ve done rather than making grand promises about what we might do (which I reckon strays into “greenwashing” territory, but I won’t get into that here). If you’re curious, do have a read, it’s full of fantastic stories and far better written than my old attempts.

Given how many teachers over the years have told me about students presenting projects on Nikoi, our next step is to create a child-friendly summary of our responsible tourism efforts. If you’re a teacher or a passionate parent with ideas on what we should include, especially if it can align with school curricula, we’d love your input. Drop Leanna a note at leanna@nikoi.com.

A Very Brief Maiden Voyage

I was on Cempedak last week when the team excitedly launched a traditional sailing boat called a kolek. For many years, we’ve sponsored a local race of these beautiful wooden boats, and this year the nearby village of Air Glubi offered to build one for our team so they could join in the annual competition. A kolek has four crew and no keel, which makes it famously tippy. The balance comes from tying a rope from the mast around a crew member’s waist - a method that is as precarious as it sounds.

Our team, brimming with confidence, managed to capsize before they even left the shore (video proof). Attempt number two got them a few hundred metres out before they were unceremoniously towed back in, all in front of a very amused crowd of guests (and me). With my branding hat on, I suggested we hold off putting the logo on the sail until they’ve mastered staying upright. The race is on 17 August, which is also Indonesian National Day, so if you’re around, you can expect even more entertainment this year.

“Nice beach, great food and sh*tty wifi.” - A positive review

A recent guest told one of our staff how much they were enjoying their stay. When asked what they liked most, the reply came quickly: “Nice beach, great food and sh*tty wifi.”* They went on to explain that the slow wifi was actually a positive - it meant their kids were spending more time exploring nature instead of screens. And yes, our wifi isn’t always lightning-fast at the moment. That’s thanks to a recent change in government regulations around bandwidths for microwave links, which has left our provider struggling to adapt. We have also invested in a Starlink connection as a back up, but even that is not proving to be as reliable as we would like. Still, it’s nice to know that, for some guests, a patchy connection is part of the charm.

Around the Island in 31 Minutes

On Nikoi last week there was a bit of a commotion and applause as a young 12 year old set the island swim record - an impressive 31:06 mins for the 2.5km. It's a cracking pace especially given it wasn’t perfect conditions by any measure. Our team put together a trophy for him to take home. Congratulations Spencer Stanley on such an impressive swim. I like to consider myself a reasonable swimmer yet I have only swam it once, did it with fins on and didn't even come close to this time. My preferred and much more leisurely version is the jetty to jetty swim, ideally with the current!

We now have a blackboard with the fastest times so if you feel up for it, sign up. Just be sure to check in with our team before you head off - they will keep an eye on you and work out the best times to do it (the currents can be very strong if you get it wrong!).