Dodola Beach Morotai

When asked about the most beautiful beach in Indonesia, most folks may choose Padang-Padang beach in Bali (thanks to Julia Roberts to make it even more famous than before) or one of the Gilis beach in Lombok. Some who thought those two are overrated may offer Wayag in Raja Ampat or Pink Beach in Komodo as the substitute. I’d rather to lay down my back in Dodola Beach, Morotai, not only because I already visit all those beach before, but also the comprehensiveness of this Morotai’s landmark.

Dodola – do not confuse this with Loloda some 180 km away from Dodola island – is a tiny island lies in the vicinity of outer atols of Morotai (also known as Morotai west belt) were already been selected as the destination for Dutch’s “Sinyo and Noni” beachgoers during the colonial era. It consists of two islands actually: Dodola Besar (Big Dodola) and Dodola Kecil (Small Dodola) separated by tiny sandbar (5-20 m width) that submerged during very high tide.

Dodola Kecil – as well as Wayag and Pink Beach – is also uninhabitated, leaves us to make “selfie” as much as we want with no one disturbing. The big different between this island and those previous is you have option to visit both side of the beach, east side or west side, this is important since normally when you have west monsoon, you can swim in the east side, and if you are in east monsoon you can do in reverse. East side offer pretty calm sea actually, so you can snorkel or just ditch your self in this valhalla, all year round.

There is a cottage in Dodola Besar that you can rent for a couple of days, is owned by Morotai Island’s local government. If you do so, you can also contact us to come by and pick you up for diving around the adjacent island (Koloray, Kokoya, Mitita, etc.).