Aside from its notoriety as a port used by people smugglers and the current proximity it has to the prison island Nusa Kambangan, I felt I knew Cilacap in another context too. So I looked it up.

It's on the southern coast of Java, nowhere near Bali. Intrepid Australian surfers who ride the waves on Java's treacherous southern coast may know it. The rest of us have heard of it because people have climbed into boats there on their way to Australia.

Then I saw that it's very close to Pangandaran, a place we visited with our sons and some friends 20 years ago. It's within driving distance of the capital, our home at the time. It was a holiday somewhere off the beaten track, and we stayed several days, chilling out and going for walks in the forested peninsula, a national park.

It was low key, a small resort with cabins. Spotted deer were roaming freely. The monkeys were less agreeable. On one walk, some were right at our heels. One snatched a bag from our 14-year-old and scuttled up a tree. The bag contained a camera and no edibles, which was probably why we eventually got it back.

Worse still, our eight-year-old got a scratch on the hand during the incident. Enough to draw some blood. It was only several anxious weeks later, after a series of injections in Jakarta, that we felt he was cleared of any likelihood of developing rabies.

It was our private family drama, yet how could we not have known that just across the narrow strait lay Nusa Kambangan, the prison island, now so much in the news. We had no idea about what stood across the strait while we holidayed at Cilacap.

Originally established by the Dutch, the prison island has been home over decades of political change to political prisoners and certain corrupt members of the establishment when their luck had run out. It was also the last place three Indonesians convicted of the Bali Bombings saw on earth.

And now I've read that the narrow channel of sea between Java and the prison island has guaranteed a haven of biodiversity with species of birds and animals long lost to the mainland. Pulau Nusa Kambangan holds life and death in a curious balance.