The seaplane pilot turns around and holds up a sign: 10 minutes to paradise.

Around me, passengers grin and reach for their phones as the first flashes of reef appear below. From the seaplane, Bawah Reserve looks almost unreal – a scatter of forested islands, pale crescents of sand and lagoon blues so vivid they seem lit from below.

What is harder to reconcile is how easy it has been to get here.

Just after breakfast, a private car collected us from our hotel in Singapore and drove us to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal, where a Bawah Reserve travel host was waiting. From there, check-in, passport processing and ferry boarding unfolded with surprising ease.

After the 40-minute ferry to Batam, another private car took us to Hang Nadim International Airport, where our seaplane sat ready for the final leg: an 80-minute flight over islands, reef and open water. By the time we lifted off, Singapore already felt further away than it was.

As Bawah Reserve appeared beneath us, heads turned and cameras lifted. Below, reef patterns emerged through the water in shifting blues and greens. The descent felt less like arrival than reveal.

Remote, but within reach

The heat was familiar – the same humid warmth we had left behind in Singapore – but here, on the long jetty to the island, it came with a cooling breeze and water clear enough to slow our pace.

Below us, the reef shifted in color, flashes of blue staghorn coral bright beneath the surface, while parrotfish flickered through the shallows.

A shaded forest path then followed the water’s edge, leading us quietly toward our overwater bungalow. Outside, large wooden signs displayed our names, making it feel like a home away from home before we had even stepped inside.

The bungalow sat over the lagoon on stilts, one of a small number tucked along the forested edge of the island. Inside, it was airy and timber-lined, with high rafters, louvered screens and touches of lagoon blue.

But the real drawing card was its position: suspended above glass-clear water, with the reef beneath, forest pressing softly behind and timber steps leading straight into the sea.

We might have lingered on the deck for hours, but lunch was waiting. The Boat House sits close to the water with the kind of ease that suits a first afternoon: feet in the sand, ocean views, fresh seafood, salads, pizzas from the brick oven and swinging chairs made for settling in.

After that, the pace changed almost by itself: a slow wander back to the bungalow, a swim and a massage before dinner. Somehow, after a morning spent in transit, we felt more energized than depleted, already wondering how much of the island we could explore before nightfall.

Bawah Reserve occupies six private islands at the southern end of Indonesia’s Anambas Archipelago, within a 1,000-hectare marine conservation area.

There are just 36 suites, bungalows and villas in total, ranging from intimate stays for couples or friends to larger spaces for families and small groups, keeping the reserve spacious and quiet.

For those wanting even greater privacy, nearby Elang takes the castaway idea further with a more secluded private island experience just a three-minute boat ride away.

The rhythm of the reef

Stillness comes easily here, but it is not the only option. Bawah Reserve has the rare quality of making rest feel natural without making activity feel like effort.

With activities ranging from kayaking and paddleboarding to sailing, hiking, cooking classes, permaculture tours and daily wellness sessions, the hardest question was not whether there was enough to do, but how much we wanted to fit in.

Snorkeling was high on our list. Across two boat trips to nearby reefs, we saw several green sea turtles, baby barracuda and a school of massive bumphead parrotfish, their bulbous heads and buck-toothed appearance making them one of the reef’s more memorable characters.

But some of the best snorkeling turned out to be right off the island itself. Entering the water from our private deck, we could easily swim out beyond the jetty to the nearby reef, where we met a critically endangered hawksbill turtle that seemed in no particular hurry to be anywhere else.

For more than 20 minutes, we followed as the turtle glided over the coral, the reef shifting beneath us in sudden bursts of color. Giant clams appeared everywhere, tucked into the coral in shades of electric blue, violet, green and gold.

Occasionally, the turtle swiped away small black reef fish trying to pick at the barnacles on its shell. At one point, two blacktip reef sharks joined the scene – one large enough to command our attention from a comfortable distance, the other smaller and closer, darting among the fish.

Fresh, generous, unhurried

Food and wellness quickly became part of the same rhythm. Across Bawah Reserve’s four restaurants and bars, the settings shift from sand to treetop, but the thread is consistent: fresh local ingredients, Indonesian-meets-Mediterranean flavors, organic garden produce and seafood drawn from the surrounding islands.

All meals, snacks and non-alcoholic drinks are included, removing another layer of calculation from the stay – though not the challenge of choosing what to order.

The menus have a clear wellness thread: fresh, balanced and produce-led, but never short on flavor. At breakfast high in the rainforest canopy at Tree Tops, the view alone made a strong case for lingering: the long jetty, reef and surrounding islands laid out below.

There were booster bowls, Indonesian pastries, cooked classics and a lobster Benedict worth recommending. The mango chia bowl was a standout, though it had competition from the cake of the day – a flourless carrot cake, ordered three mornings in a row.

Lunch at The Boat House leaned into food made for sharing after a swim: Bawah Island ceviche, salt-baked prawns, crispy prawn wonton tacos and smoked calamari. Back at Tree Tops for dinner, the food became richer, moving through dishes such as kukulhu octopus, aromatic red snapper and duck ravioli.

Choosing from the spa menu proved almost as difficult as choosing from the dinner menu. At Aura Spa & Wellbeing, guests receive one treatment for every night they stay, so wellness is not squeezed in around the edges. Between meals, swims and time on the reef, treatments became another natural marker in the day. By the end, they were part of how we measured it: reef in the morning, water in the afternoon, spa before dinner.

A living reserve

In a place this dependent on the health of its reef, sustainability cannot sit quietly in the background. On a sunset boat tour, it was there in plain sight: rows of floating solar panels anchored offshore, mangroves thriving at the water’s edge and turtles surfacing in numbers we quickly gave up trying to count.

The next day, it appeared in a quieter form. Near the beach, I had paused beside an empty turtle enclosure where staff protect eggs when they are found. By the following morning, a fresh mound had appeared, marked carefully as a new nest. In around 60 days, if all goes well, the hatchlings will be released toward the same reef we had been swimming above.

It was only the beginning of nesting season, I was told, with more nests expected in the weeks ahead. After a few days on the island, Bawah Reserve’s conservation efforts felt less like something to be explained and more like something you could see all around you.

One last look

On our final afternoon, we walked the jetty one last time, slowing at the sight of baby reef sharks moving through the shallows below. It was the same water we had paused over on arrival, only now it felt less like a first glimpse than a quiet farewell.

Even the seaplane pilot seemed to understand the mood. He joked that the plane might not be leaving after all, since no-one appeared particularly eager to get home. It was the rare flight none of us was in a hurry to board.

But soon we were back in the air, watching the reef fall away beneath us in luminous flashes of blue and green. That is the strange magic of Bawah Reserve: how completely it removes you from the world, then returns you to it with almost disarming ease.

By evening, Singapore would be waiting again – all skyline, traffic and movement – but for a few days, it had felt impossibly far away.

To book your Bawah Reserve escape, go to bawahreserve.com