Indonesia Diving Area Information & Sample Itineraries

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> Bali > Banda Sea > Fakfak > Flores Alor > Halmahera > Komodo > Raja Ampat > Wakatobi & Beyond >
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A sample of the routes available with Diving 4 Images

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All the sample diving, cruise routes below have been personally dived during working cruises. Go to Cruise and Dive Reports for more information about the diving on these specific routes.

Diving routes and the final itineraries are always made on a cruise by cruise or personal basis. Always being based on safe sea conditions and the groups / each private charters diving wishes!

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Bali - Komodo - Bali
Many liveaboard operators choose to take this route as it is a very easy place to start and finish your cruise. Most divers fly direct to Bali, it is then so easy to pop onto the boat in Bali and off you go, with all fresh supplies and no problems with extra luggage on any more planes.

This has to be the best easy all round easy pleaser for diving Indonesia. For a first time visit here you will see just about all aspects of diving, from outstanding pristine reefs, great critters, soft coral filled wall diving, often sharks & manta's and great schooling fish life!

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

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The various Komodo itineraries
There are many other areas both outside and even inside the Komodo National Park that are not so commonly dived. In fact there are some of the worlds most unique sites outside of the national park. We prefer to make different itineraries to suit, not only the seasons, but the varying moon phases. These different moon phases mean different water flow which highly influences the diving conditions in the north and south of this region.

NOTE: We do not promote the so called big fish diving in Komodo. If this is your aim, please try one of the many other operators, who promote these type of trips! We simply believe there are other parts of the world  that have "real" big fish diving with hundreds of sharks, rays etc etc. Our aim is to show the unique side of this fantastic area!

Groups can chose from a standard itinerary to take you to see the variety and the well known sites in the north and south of Komodo. However groups can try an itinerary to totally avoid currents and go in search of the more unique critter rich dive sites within this region and the very unique up-welling reefs this area has to offer (more on upwelling reefs). Groups can also opt for the pretty reefs and fishy dives where we can avoid the strongest currents. We often take specialized trips spending quality time in peak areas outside of the National Park, areas which have the very unique critter rich black sand diving sites. We know of areas where other divers rarely get to, simply because thankfully for us many operators never go there. When we have the chance and the right group of adventurous divers we love to go exploring for a day or half day, depending on moon phases and of course the group!

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

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Bima - Komodo - Bima
For maximum time in the National Park this route is the best. Departing from Bali looses a little too much time and takes too long to get into the very best diving in the heart of the Komodo National Park. Starting from Bima we can have you into excellent critter diving that same day you are on the boat. The down side of this route in the past has been a problem with airlines and luggage not always turning up on time, new airlines now going into Bima make this much more reliable and there are ways of making sure luggage arrives it just costs a little extra for that service!

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

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Flores - Wakatobi - Flores
For diving the Wakatobi island group, and the outer lying islands Flores-Wakatobi-Flores is my personal favourite routing. As this route offers divers outstanding dives from day one till the departure day. The longer the cruise on this route the better chance to see more variety of what you want most of. Resort diving here offers excellent wall diving with a few great coral gardens, however fish life within the resort range is fairly minimal. From a liveaboard you will be diving on the reefs which are very rarely visited on the outer islands with the clearest waters and chances of more big fish sightings. There are also sites on northern Flores alogn this route where we regularly see sharks and other large fishes.

The northern islands around Kaledupa and the smaller sister island of Hoga are great for large schools of fish and good chances of larger pelagic fish cleaning stations on excellent coral filled ridges and pinnacles that come to and ideal safety stop depth just around 4-5m / 12-15'. Pristine sea mounts rise up from the depths with great coral growth and masses of fish and perfect hard coral gardens in the shallows.

Critter diving within a small bay on Buton island can be very outstanding at times. There are 2 excellent critter diving sites here, both being very shallow which makes this area ideal for divers to make lots of dives to go after those rare critters.

The beaches we can visit on such a cruise can be incredible with palm fringed, powder white sand, village tours can be arranged and local welcoming dances. It is even possible with enough notice to go and visit the steel makers "Tukang Besi" of Binongko, this is after all where the island group takes it's original name from. 

NOTE: We will only promote Wakatobi liveaboard trips for full boat charters. This seems to be a similar situation to Alor, whereby a few dive liveaboard operators have simply not done this area enough justice. We have recently been hearing too many negative reports about divers who have dived this area onboard a locally operated vessel in the past year or so and found the diving to be substandard!

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

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Flores - Alor - Flores
When asked about critter diving cruises, this is my all time favourite and I find it beats Komodo hands down any day for critter diving with plenty of excellent black sand critter rich sites. Over the last few years I have been making more and more cruises into this area, each time I go a new critter rich, black sand site is found with more incredible marine life. There is also great variety available too with outstanding wall dives, a couple of great fish dives if/when they happen to be on form that is!

This route is very specific critter diving special trip with a few fantastic reefs along the way. Alor has been a tough sell in the past to many divers, though with our itinerary aiming to critter divers we have had nothing but rave reviews on this route. Photographers have said this has been the most productive itinerary they have taken! I believe that in the past other operators have done Alor a injustice by trying to dive too many of the old so called big fish dive sites or just diving very average reefs instead of the unique reefs!

Land tours here are mainly in the form of village visits though we are often visited by locals when we finish diving wanting nothing more than to see divers underwater and have their photo's taken. Often I taken underwater photographers here and they often want to make dives just to take more photographs of the locals going about their fish trapping or spear fishing. Certain times of the year there are hot streams that enter the ocean making for great bathing in the areas where the water is cool enough for us.

We can watch the local making sarongs (locally weaved cloth worn around the waste by both men and women), watch the fishermen mending nets.

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

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Flores - Banda Sea - Irian Jaya "THE ULTIMATE INDONESIA" and in reverse
I am often asked what is my favourite area to dive. This is such a difficult question as each area has it's own unique features. If I have to say one favourite cruise to take, it would have to be from Flores to Alor, through the Banda Sea, finally ending in Irian Jaya.

The reason being... this cruise takes us through all of the most unique diving environments within Indonesia. We have outstanding critter diving in Flores and Alor, unique diving with vast aggregations of sea snakes, here we can view some very unique feeding behaviour, then we have Indonesia's very best wall diving, forget Wakatobi, the walls in Lucipara and Banda are the probably the worlds best walls with great fish numbers and outstanding pristine reefs. Then for the last half of this trip, we have the very best diving for soft coral and fish packed reefs within the Raja Ampat.

Along with this having the best diving diving, land tours on this cruise can include, small primitive villages and friendly faces of Alor, the birds and chicks of Gunung Api, the fort & nutmeg tour and welcoming villages of Banda Islands and of course the birds of paradise walks that take us under the canopy of prime rain forest.

And... if you are lucky and conditions allow we can take divers to the most unique Blue Water Mangroves (view Blue Water Mangrove gallery)!

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

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Sorong - Raja Ampat - Sorong
For the fish species and scenery lovers this has to be the best overall cruise in Indonesia. You will see vast numbers of schooling fish life with lots of larger pelagic fish action.

The above water scenery in Irian Jaya is the very best seen in any dive location, many even say it is better than those mushroom islands of Palau. Land tours here are incredible as you have the chance to see the rare birds of paradise and just to be under the canopy of prime rainforest is incredible here. Short treks to see incredible panoramas of the surrounding islands can be made on certain routes through here. The winding channels and many islands make canoeing or kayaking here excellent.

NOTE ON BIG FISH: Don't join this trip expecting to see lots of sharks, you will see Wobbiegong or Carpet sharks, however sharks are not so commonly seen in this area, plus sharks are not a unique feature, if you want sharks opt for big fish destinations such as Galapagos, Cocos, Bahamas and the likes!

NOTE ON CRITTERS: The one thing this area is not incredible for, are those classic critter dives. If you have dived on the critter rich black sand sites of Sulawesi or the Nusa Tenggara and want more then Irian Jaya may not be for you! For sure we have a few excellent critters dives though these are not the unique feature for this area, we believe the essence of this area is the marine bio-mass, bio-diversity and outstanding reef scenery!

 

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Sorong - Fakfak and in reverse
This route is specifically for the outstanding reef scenery and bio-mass in the area.

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

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Sorong - Banda Sea - Ambon and in reverse
This route is mainly for the fantastic reef scenery and fish life with a possibility of critters at the end in Ambon or groups can chose for more great photographic reef scenery in the Ambon area.

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

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Ambon - Ambon
A new route with outstanding reefs and great critter diving. A few of the sites here need to be dived in a specific way to avoid being swept off the best area. Sites have very unique and photographically gorgeous areas we will focus on for those want to see the best! Some of the critter dives here should only really be dived at certain times of the day to avoid currents and allow divers to really slow down and look close for the unique critters we love so much!

We can take divers down into the heart of the Banda or Spice Islands, for fantastic walls and outstanding coral packed reef tops, swim-throughs, there are places with big schools of fish, what I like to call Superschools of jacks and chance encounters with other biggies!

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

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Ambon - Flores
This route is a mix of reefs and critters, we can make the route more critter specific or more scenery specific to suit the groups best wishes.

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

Diving Halmahera
Another new route with a few special charters heading this way in 2007.

Interested? Click here to mail us for more detailed information about this route

NOTE: All routes work in reverse too!

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