Sebuku (also spelled Seboekoe or Sebeekee) is an island in the

Sunda Strait The Sunda Strait ( id, Selat Sunda) is the strait between the Indonesian islands of Java island, Java and Sumatra. It connects the Java Sea with the Indian Ocean. Etymology The strait takes its name from the Sunda Kingdom, which ruled the weste ...

between

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

and

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

. It is one of the larger islands in the strait and lies just to the north of

Sebesi Sebesi (also Sebeezee, or 'Bleezie') is an Indonesian island in the Sunda Strait, between Java and Sumatra, and part of the province of Lampung. It rises to a height of and lies about north of the Krakatoa Archipelago; it is the closest large i ...

and south of

. It is administratively part of

South Lampung Regency South Lampung Regency ( id, Kabupaten Lampung Selatan) is a regency of Lampung, Sumatra, Indonesia, a strip of land surrounding the provincial capital of Bandar Lampung on its northern and eastern sides, and bounded to the west by the new Pesawaran ...

Lampung Lampung (Lampung: ), officially the Province of Lampung ( id, Provinsi Lampung) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the southern tip of the island of Sumatra. It has a short border with the province of Bengkulu to the northwest, and a ...

History

At the time of the 1883 eruption of

Krakatoa Krakatoa (), also transcribed (), is a caldera in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung. The caldera is part of a volcanic island group (Krakatoa archipelago) comprising four islands. Tw ...

, Sebuku was uninhabited, but a village on Sebuku Ketjil, a small island to its east, was completely wiped out. Official records give 150 killed, with 70 being non-residents. In the 1920s,

copra Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from copr ...

palms were planted on Sebuku to satisfy the growing market. However, due to a lack of maintenance the palms eventually withered and died. In 1999 a sunken Japanese ship was found near Sebuku by divers preparing for an underwater photography contest. Its age is unknown.

Geography

Sebuku is a low island, located in the eastern part of the mouth of

Lampung Bay Lampung Bay ( id, Teluk Lampung) is a large bay located on the southern tip of Sumatra Island in the Sunda Strait waters. At the southern tip of Sumatra there are two large bays, Semangka Bay is located in the Eastern part. On the east side of ...

, north of

and south of

. It covers a total area of . It is administratively part of

. Sebuku has a centre composed of

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomi ...

, indicating an early volcanic history. This centre has been dated to the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

and has been called an early manifestation of

volcanism Volcanism, vulcanism or volcanicity is the phenomenon of eruption of molten rock (magma) onto the surface of the Earth or a solid-surface planet or moon, where lava, pyroclastics, and volcanic gases erupt through a break in the surface called ...

in the Sunda Strait. The substrate on the northern side of the island consists of

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

ised coral, mud and sand, while on the eastern side of the island the substrate consists of mud, sand, gravel, and both live and fossilised coral. The outside is fringed by a

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes— deposition of sand, wave erosion planing down rock out ...

Ecology

Sebuku, along with Sebesi, has been noted as a "stepping stone" for butterfly migration between Sumatra and Krakatoa. There are numerous butterfly species from both

and Sumatra on Sebuku. Four species of ants have been found on Sebuku, fewer than Sebesi and Krakatoa. These included ants not found on Krakatoa, thought to be descended from fauna that survived the 1883 eruption. The waters near Sebuku have fewer

echinoderm An echinoderm () is any member of the phylum Echinodermata (). The adults are recognisable by their (usually five-point) radial symmetry, and include starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers, as well as the sea ...

s than further into the Lampung Bay. This is thought to be from exploitation and poor

resource management In organizational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective development of an organization's resources when they are needed. Such resources may include the financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or i ...

. Due to cultivation, few natural forests remain on Sebuku. However, along the eastern coast of Sebuku there are many

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

s. There are also tropical plants found throughout the island.

Tourism

Sebuku is a popular destination for

snorkelling Snorkeling ( British and Commonwealth English spelling: snorkelling) is the practice of swimming on or through a body of water while equipped with a diving mask, a shaped breathing tube called a snorkel, and usually swimfins. In cooler waters, a ...

and

diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), a ...

, with tourists generally arriving by boat from Candi village on Sumatra.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * {{cite book , last1=Vaisutis , first1=Justine, title=Lonely Planet: Indonesia , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eoMYUd6FsSkC&dq=Sebuku&pg=PA916 , year=2007 , publisher=Lonely Planet , isbn=978-1-74104-435-5 Islands of the Sunda Strait Krakatoa Lampung Tourist attractions in Lampung Quaternary volcanoes of Indonesia