(JP/Novia D. Rulistia)As an Aquarian, Riyanni Djangkaru finds her true calling in the sea — drifting across the ocean while preserving the marine world as an expression of gratitude for the pleasure she has received.

“I travel and dive a lot, and I guess along the way, without realizing it, I became a conservationist — it’s like a give-back from me to nature,” she said.

The editor-in-chief of diving magazine Divemag Indonesia said that for the past two years she and the magazine had been actively involved in saving sharks in local and global campaigns.

She said she became interested in helping save the environment because it was her obligation as a human being to contribute something to the environment.

“There have been movements that save turtles or the orangutan, so I looked for something else that had not been touched on often, like sharks. In addition, shark finning keeps increasing each year, and shark meat seems to be easier to find in supermarkets nowadays,” Riyanni said.

She added that by preserving the ocean, it would also improve the welfare of people living along the coasts.

Apart from raising public awareness, she also actively pushed the government to insert a shark-protection chapter in the 2012 Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry regulations on the fishing industry.

Riyanni, 33, established Divemag Indonesia in 2010 with her friends because she wanted to share her experience about Indonesia’s seas. Despite her years of experience in television, the former host of the Jejak Petualang (Adventure Trail) TV program chose a magazine as the medium so she could have more room to explore marine issues.

“Honestly, I was not so sure when we started this, because I did not have experience in magazines. The first five months was very tough, but we knew that was a phase we had to go through,” she said.

She created the monthly magazine as a lifestyle magazine for divers, providing information about diving as an alternative lifestyle for people.

Moreover, the magazine also aimed to encourage people to better understand Indonesia’s identity as an archipelago.

“Indonesia is the biggest archipelago in the world, and its seas are marvelous. Unfortunately, not too many people are aware of that yet,” she said. From only two subscribers, the magazine now has around 1,500 subscribers across the country. It also has 200 subscribers, mostly living abroad, for the photos published in the magazine.

Riyanni’s face is well known as she has been a TV personality since 2002 as the host of Jejak Petualang.

As the host, she was required to master all outdoor activities, including diving. So she got a diving license in 2003.

She completed her open-water diving course in Taka Bone Rate National Park in South Sulawesi, and went to Manado in North Sulawesi before checking out the waters of Thousands Islands.

“That was a mistake putting Thousand Islands as the third diving destination, it was a disappointment,” she said, laughing.

Besides diving, Riyanni also did a lot of trekking and mountaineering for the program. But as much as she enjoyed those activities, the pleasure could not match the feeling when she was under the sea.

“I like trekking, I enjoy the scenery and love the idea of having to survive during the journey, but mountaineering, for me was a little bit too much. They’re just not me,” she said.

In 2005, she underwent surgery after she injured her spine and knees in a cycling accident.

The doctor told her to only do low-impact activities, and she chose to restrict this to diving.

“My diving activity then became so intense, and gradually it became my soul, not only a part of my job,” said the dive master who has more than 1,000 dive logs. When she was not presenting, she helped with writing the scripts or training the new hosts.

After 10 years working for the TV program, she quit in 2012 to focus only on the magazine.

“My teenage dream job, being a journalist who dealt a lot with nature, had been accomplished,” she said.

She recalled the time when she was a teenager and was smitten by the job of a host of an international sports TV program, as well as many flora and fauna programs on the national TV channel.

Coupled with her love of traveling, she always found ways to make her dreams come true.

“I remember in college, I traveled while trying to be a journalist — asking questions, writing things down and so on,” said the law graduate of Pakuan University in Bogor, West Java.

She also often took a job as a sales promotion girl and used the money she set aside for traveling.

“When I first appeared on TV as a presenter, my sales promotion girls friends could not believe that I, who liked to dress up and wear make up, would get dirty in the wild, while some traveler friends could not believe I was on TV. So it was like uniting my two personalities,” she said.

As her job requires her to travel here and there, the mother of a 6-year-old boy often took him on a diving trip to bond.

“He can’t dive yet, still too young, but he likes it when I take him on trips,” she said.

When she is not underwater, she still hikes occasionally and roams around cities to refresh her mind so she will not be bored with diving.

“But don’t ask me to stop diving, I can’t not dive because that makes me happy.”

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