About an hour’s sail south of Chole, Jibondo Island is the most traditional of the archipelago’s settlements, and most of its two thousand inhabitants engage in fishing, especially for sharks, and octopus-baiting. The beaches facing the open ocean are important turtle-nesting sites. Jibondo’s craftsmen are famed for their skill in boat building without the use of iron, or even nails.
Mafia Island (“Chole Shamba”) is part of the Tanzanian Spice Islands, together with Unguja and Pemba. As one of the six districts of the Pwani Region, Mafia Island is governed from the mainland, not from the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar, of which it has never been considered to be a part.
According to the 2002 Tanzania census, the population of the Mafia District was 40,801.The economy is based on fishing, subsistence agriculture and the black market. The island attracts some tourists, mainly adventure scuba divers, game fishermen, and people wanting relaxation.
The Mafia archipelago consists of one large island (394 km²) and numerous smaller ones. Some of these are inhabited, such as Chole Island (2 km²), with a population of 800. Chole Bay, Mafia’s protected deep-water anchorage and original harbour, is studded with islands, sandbanks and beaches. The main town is Kilindoni. The stretch of water between the deltas of the Rufiji River and the island is called Mafia Channel. There are popular rumours of pygmy hippo on the island but there are zero confirmed sightings.
Karimunjava or Karimun Java is an archipelago of 27 islands in the Java Sea, Indonesia, approximately 80 kilometres northwest of Jepara. The islands’ name means ‘a stone’s throw from Java’ in Javanese. They have a total land area of 78 km2. The main island is known as Karimun (2,700 ha), while the second-largest island is Kemujan (1,400 ha).
In 2011, the population of the island group was about 9,000 who lived on five of the islands. The population is largely Javanese, with pockets of Bugis and Madurese inhabitants. Javanese culture is dominant in the islands which are the only islands off Java where Javanese is the lingua franca.
Twenty-two of the islands have been declared 2001 as a marine reserve, the Karimunjava National Park. Five more islands are either privately owned or are under the control of the Indonesian Navy.
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, an island arc with an estimated area of 14,300 km² extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. The population was 1,831,000 in the 2010 census and the largest town is Maumere. Flores is Portuguese (as well as Spanish) for “flowers”.
Flores is located east of Sumbawa and Komodo and west of Lembata and the Alor Archipelago. To the southeast is Timor. To the south, across the Sumba strait, is Sumba and to the north, beyond the Flores Sea, is Sulawesi.
The most famous tourist attraction in Flores is Kelimutu, a volcano containing three colored lakes, located in the district of Ende close to the town of Moni. These crater lakes are in the caldera of a volcano, and fed by a volcanic gas source, resulting in highly acidic water. The colored lakes change colors on an irregular basis, depending on the oxidation state of the lake[10] from bright red through green and blue.
Adonara is an island in the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia, located east of the larger island of Flores in the Solor Archipelago. To the east lies Lembata, formerly known as Lomblen. It is the highest of the islands of the archipelago, reaching an altitude of 1,659 metres, and it has an area of 497 km². It is in the East Nusa Tenggara province.
Adonara Island is a part of the Indonesian regency of East Flores. It can be reached by airplane from Jakarta to Kupang, then by ferry to Larantuka, then by boat. The administrative centre of Adonara is the town of Waiwerang.