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Diving cruise report from Irian Jaya, Raja Ampat through the Banda Sea to Flores - Private charter!

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Two back to back charters with fine diving and very fine dining to match, aboard the Ikan Gurami.

Arranging the logistics of two back to back charters to go exactly where two different charters wanted to go with no compromises. The logistics of the diving itineraries was easy though the difficulty was with arranging for high quality foods in outer islands like this. When booking a full charter for a vessel of this standard I offered an open menu plan, after lots of e-mails back and forth with menu samples, purchase lists etc we eventually agreed upon the best menu, the diving itinerary they were happy to go with flow of things which always works best for me... Both of these special charters were to be a real treat not just for these special friends, for me too. I have always been through here with full boats of 16 guests and at least 3 dive guides. In my mind this is too many divers underwater. Now it would be a total pleasure to go with keen divers putting their trust in me to find the best sites for their photographic needs.

Next trip 15 nights from Sorong to Flores
Out of all the itineraries I take throughout Indonesia this has to be one of the most diverse. Divers get to see every single environment, both the best best topside and underwater scenery that Indonesia has to offer, the downside there is rarely enough time to see enough of it!

Even though we had a little issue with our paperwork in Sorong, we still managed to smooze the harbourmaster enough for him to rush the clearances in time for us to get into Batanta that same day for a great check out dive. Once more I went in search of something new, a small bay and an area covered with algae was our dive site. Josie, brand new to Indonesia was over the moon when she came across her love - an ornate ghost pipefish, we came across plenty of cool sea slugs, lots of different scorpionfish, pipefish and shrimps.

Next day we woke with all the group now fully refreshed and ready to go in Farondi, east Misool, here we had excellent dives in the two caverns with great fish life, pigmy sea horses, sea slugs galore and knock you out scenery. The group chose to go and check out the scenery, we had a long trip ahead and they wanted to see some topside as well. We headed inland taking a tender boat ride through hundreds of tiny islands and lagoons, we stayed out till sunset to fully appreciate this incredible scenery.
 

Waking up in the morning we the crew managed to tie the main vessel off to the small islet we were to make a few dives on. Tides were looking right and a quick check confirmed this, a slight current running south, this meant we had all the big schools of fish in the right place. On entry there were literally swarms of fish surrounding us, at times we could not see each other, jacks, wahoo and other large pelagic fish all came in hunting on the stragglers in the swarm. We drifted by the gorgeous soft coral covered reef into a sandy bowl, here we stopped and watched the show of barracuda, jacks, tuna and giant wahoo going by above and around us. We slowly headed off with the flow of the current, plucked chicken pigmy sea horses were still there, drifting over the back we went further than usual. The current virtually stopped giving us a chance to explore a little further away, large lettuce coral formations, giant sea fans and soft corals covered the southern ridge, then we heading back to make our safety stop in gorgeous soft coral gardens.

Moving into and area called Boo, I was hoping to find an anchorage, the crew done a great job and managed to get the anchor to grip in the deep water here. We headed to a site I call Jendela Jendela which translates as "The Windows". Here another fish filled reef with thousands of silversides covering a whole quarter of this small islet. Once more it was diving in fish soup, I really haven't ever fish life so dense. More pigmy sea horses, they seem to be everywhere in this region, some cool sea slugs, though the fish really do steal the show here with vast schools of fusiliers, surgeons, unicorns, a few big jacks, more huge wahoo and even small groups of batfish cruising around amongst gorgeous soft coral covered rocks. This is a very interest site geologically and topographically as this little islet has been split with ridges that run along the shallows, these all covered in soft corals, it was here we came across a resting turtle which allowed us all to get very close up. The name I gave to this site comes from the main islet having a series of "Windows" going from one side to the other, these are covered with small invertebrates and low lying soft corals. When the current allows they make for great wide angle photo's too!

As this was first time I have been here with such calm conditions and being able to get a skipper to even think about anchoring here, it was another new dive site found as a result. I went off in search, right next to the boat anchorage. A great new site with a few fans plenty with plucked chicken pigmy sea horses all fairly shallow and great soft coral life. On entry I took the divers down to see the pigmy's which was better than usual, they were all paired up doing their little mating dance, I had heard they only do this in the morning's, in Irian they do it at dusk too! Plenty of cool crustaceans, as always a good variety great sea slugs and what makes this another unique site were the bumphead parrotfish, we had stumbled across a resting site for these monstrous fish that come in to the shallows to find a safe home for the evening.

Another day here in Boo, the first dive a pinnacle rising up from 30m, plenty of fusiliers and one big Napolean wrasse with good scenery, though I was expecting more fish. The current started to pick up so I guided the group mid water back to the main reef where we could make an easy long and very enjoyable safety stop. Here we came across many different sea slugs and a few turtles too! Next was a place called Yilliet Rocks, a few of the group were feeling lazy and decided to miss the next dive, I tried to convince them though they really were taking it easy... It was just Josie and I this time, we dropped in and headed along the wall till we came to thousands of densly packed silversides, they were so thick we couldn't see the reef in places and couldn't see the outer blue water, this really was a unique experience. I have seen videos of bait balls on the Sardine Run and other places, this was similar, though on a gorgeous reef. At one point I made my way off reef to look down below and see a couple of mobula rays cruise below us along with a monstrous sized giant grouper. Moving to the west end again moving away from the vast schooling fish my eye was caught way off reef, this time flickers of white in the depths, suddenly I realised what it was and excitedly called over Josie, we descended back down to about 25m following this cloud untill we could fully see a huge school of cownose rays, this was a first for me, I have seen large groups of Mobula and eagle rays rays before but nothing like this, there must have been over a hundred of them. Josie works in Baha and is used to this kind of scene and agreed it really was big school, Josie too had never seen clouds of silversides on reef like this. Back on the boat the resting divers were gutted when we told them about our dive. I took those that missed out, but this time a mild current and lower visibility made it very different, most of the silversides had gone somewhere else too, it just wasn't the same a second time round...

A long overnight cruise to Koon island. This was a truly memorable evening, the ocean was so flat it felt like we were cruising through an oil filled lake with not the slightest ripple to be seen all round. As the moon slowly fell, and with my poor distance sight creating a slight blur, the moon on this evening looked like a perfect rose. I knew David had the same kind of eyesight too, he could see the very same thing, we both stayed up very late to watch this amazing rose like moon finally dip into the ocean. Next morning a slight chop on the ocean we dived the site known as "Too Many Fish" it was odd to see this site with so low visibility, only 10 -15m. With low vis', a ripping current running and divers who were not into that thing, I opted to dive the wall instead, here we had an easy dive with a few cool sea slugs groups of large snappers and great soft corals on the rocks on the reef crest here. When we eventually dived "Too Many Fish" vis' was still low, but the fish came close enough for us to see lots of jacks, barracudas, groupers, emperors, batfish and a whole assortment of other different fish, with a now mild current all the deep purple soft corals were in full bloom too.

We decided to check out the islands south of Koon, I reported in to the local village, made a donation, with this we had the blessing of the village leader to dive in the area. A few locals hanging around the harbour were a little moody, maybe it was due to the start of the fasting, they told me bluntly we were not allowed to make activities in the area unless the boat came in to their harbour and stayed longer. Wanting to spend more time in Banda we opted to say our goodbyes and head on our way. This was a shame as the reef systems in front the village looked very promising and much different to the sea charts.

An early arrival in Banda Niera for a land tour around the museum, forts and the nutmeg plantation. Oh I love this, the guy I now go to all the time makes the most amazing tea with his locally grown cinnamon, we have locally made nutmeg jam and try fresh chocolate, the surrounding flesh on the chocolate has a sweet flavour though not much of it. After our tour we settle for another Ikan Gurami gourmet meal before heading around to "The Lavaflow". This is another one of Indonesia's most unique dive sites. The reef here had to start life again in 1988 after the volcano erupted causing a huge flow of lava to wipe out the existing reef. Not many who come here believe what they see, the huge table corals look as if they are part of an ancient reef system, some have grown so large they cannot support their own weight and have fallen over and already started to sprout new levels from the sides, where old corals fall new corals start to grow straight away. What is also unique here is the amount of butterfly fish that live on this reef, most of the Indonesian species thrive here along with a few large Napolean wrasse and turtles. Just before before the sun goes down here a great show starts up, the Mandarinfish here give a great show.

Along with these little beauties were a few large Spanish dancers, other large sea slugs and pipefish galore!

Next morning we woke to dive Batu Kapal, one of Banda's top dive sites, here we saw dense schools of red tooth triggerfish. Moving over to the two pinnacles against the mild current we were easily able to work our way all round, a huge Napolean wrasse lay resting in the crevice at 25m and another was seen deeper below us. Back to the main reef the wall section with it's usual moray eels, lionfish and then we had a school of jacks towards the corner were the current picked. I was really keen to get back to diving Great Aunt Pam's Magic Window and it was a highlight of the trip. Here we dropped down through the hole in the reef top to the small cavern, hundreds of fusiliers were schooling around the mouth here. Being on the corner of the island the current here can be very strange! I was contemplating heading one way and then just decided as usual to go with the flow, we let the very mild current drift us reef left, we went past cool overhangs and swim through areas packed with colourful coral scenery to a purple soft coral covered ridge at about 30m, here the current stopped, I heard Dwi making noise and flailing like a wild woman, I noticed her actions were all very justified as a huge manta ray circled above us a few times. The current decided to change taking us back past the window, great reef scenery and this time past even more fusiliers and other reef fish. Coming to am edge on the wall, here we were stopped by another current hitting us in the face, here a huge school of crazy jacks came in and left us like they were fleeing trouble, then they came again, a few times they did this till we let go in the current and finally ended back around the window to make our safety stop on the gorgeous reef crest here... another new top dive site! Next up Snakes & Ladders, a wall dive with large overhangs, crevices all filled with excellent coral life, giant black coral bushes, here we saw a few different reef sharks cruise by below us!

As we cruised back towards Banda Niera we stopped and eventually became surrounded by a huge pod of pilot whales, needless to say this was a sign, so the group decided to open the bar early ...

Everyone agreed it would be cool to go somewhere new in search another new dive site. We headed west Banda. I checked out a lot of reef all very good though we had seen plenty of fish in Papua I opted for another little hole in the reef. Dropping in on the reef top, a few of us slowly descended down a narrow hole to a small cavern which came out onto a wall face, the wall dropping to 28m, here the scenery was a great mix of sea fans and large tubastraea coral trees on a deep sloping reef.

Heading south we came across a current and chose to turn back with the current past the cavern, a great reef top with plenty of small fish and a few nudibranchs! Next time I have another area of this same reef I will heading for! I had nothing to do with this, they called it "The Glory Hole"!

Now starting to make our way east we made a great wall dive before heading to Run to set foot on this very historic island (check out the great book Nathaniel's Nutmeg for more on the spice islands!). The girls went off along the beach and the blokes had a quick game baseball with bits'n'bobs we found on the beach, then lazed and thought about what it must of been like on this island that was swapped between the Dutch and British for Manhattan on April 1667. Snorkelling was OK in front of the beach, but not really worthy of diving so we decided to start making our way into real open ocean to Lucipara...

A calm crossing had us diving in the morning on Bingkudu wall, here a shear drops below out of sight, huge black coral bushes and light pastel coloured soft corals lined many areas, as usual huge tuna cruised by and the odd Napoleon wrasse below with leaf scorpion fish, sea slugs and lots of juvenile fish on the reef crest! Next up was my favourite in this island group, a site we named "Kadola drop off". A shear wall drops down a different ledges at different depths, large schools of giant longnose unicorns, large dogtooth tuna, a few reef sharks a school of barracuda off reef and most impressive of all are the vibrant soft corals and gorgeous reef scenery here.

It is so good we dived this site twice!

Next stop was the bird and snake island of Gunung Api. Our first site "Sulphur Ridge"  and the whole day here, snake action was the best I have ever seen here. It was Dwi that gave us all the giggles, she was not as sure of the snakes and could be seen about 20m off reef while we were surrounded by these curious only seen on one of two very small islands in the middle of the Banda Sea. Going on land here is a must, close up views of all these frigate birds, tropic birds, boobie birds and their chicks is not really something you can do every day and here they really easy to get close too, but watch they can at times startle you if don't notice them before they notice you....

Another very calm crossing, this time the longest of any legs in Indonesia. On arrival in Alor we were as usual welcomed by the locals paddling out to see us and have their photo's taken. With an adventurous group I thought it may be a good idea to dive "Kal's Dream", the well known pinnacle dive in the Alor Strait. Tide was slack on entry though changed while we down, today as many times, not so much of a dream, though we did see a big school of batfish, a few large pelagic fish though nothing like it should be when it's hot! "Valley of the Clowns" was the next veyr unique dive site that Indonesia has. Here we dropped onto beds of anemones, operators diving here can dive very different area's I try to keep away fro current and dive an area where there are also plenty of anthias and other fish around too. As usual another highlight here were the local people above when we finished our dive. Then it was down to the "Black Velvet" of Pantar, here we had lots of frogfish, ghost pipefish, bob tail squids, mating long tail dragonets, white 'V' mimic octopus and allsorts of different waspfish. We made a few dives here and a few dives on the "Blu Ribbon Run", yep blue ribbon eels galore, plenty of sea slugs, small red frogfish, juvenile spotted sweetlips and the deep rock covered in reef fish. Night dives here were as usual great with a whole array of wicked night time critters.

Now moving east with everyone happy for more exploring, this time on the southern end of the Pantar Strait, lots of small islands where for sure it would be real upwelling reef systems with different marine life. It was, after a while taking a quick look. I came upon and area with a small pinnacle and a very interesting reef system,, the reef topography looked more like that of which I had seen in Australia, though with better coral life here of course... The long rolling swell on the south here makes it usually impossible to dive, we were having great conditions. Dropping in atop the pinnacle was all adventure, it reminded me off "3 Sisters" on Padar though with crystal clear water. We moved over a sandy bottom to the next reef, here we came across a long reef spur coming from the island that rose above. In the middle we found a large swim-through, most of us went through here watching the fish move away as we entered, they were not so bothered by us and seem to just to one side slowly. We were then met by a giant grouper, it seemed this was his territory as he came in very close. When I went back towards the swim-through this huge grouper came right at me at if it really was his domain. As we started to ascend we noticed what looked like a huge fallen rock creating a huge crevice we could swim through, here the coral scenery was great obviously created by the swift currents passing through. The shallow area near the island was not so easy to stay close to with the swells coming in we were lifted and dropped, the visibility suddenly started to change so I signaled that we move over towards the shallow reef to make our safety stop.

Still heading east we were now on northern Flores, we stopped to dive Tanjung Pau, a reef slope to wall to wall, today not so impressive as the clouds had just came in which made our scenic dive not as good as it can be, though still we had a great dive.

A scary story turns funny! - we often have inquiries asking about piracy in these waters, this is closest I have ever came to anything that could be seen as alarming... It was already starting to turn dark when we were heading into the large bay on northern Flores. I wanted to overnight here and give the crew a rest too. It's usually best to go into new areas in daylight and we maybe should have looked at anchoring a little nearer the mouth of the bay. Just as we started to lower the anchor we noticed a fast approached vessel, the crew looked a little concerned though the guests up on top weren't bothered in the slightest. The boat was now close and we could hear load voices shouting, then the voice came over a very crackled loudspeaker, know Indonesian but this too broken up for me to hear. The crew all suddenly put their hands into the air, this started to have me thinking, then a slow clicking noise followed by a boom, it was a gunshot, the crew dropped like flies to the ground, then told someone needed to go to their vessel. I agreed, it was my charter and I have total faith in the poeple of Indonesia. I told everyone aboard it would be fine and went over over to their boat with one of the crew. As we approached the people on the boat saw I was a white fella and before we had even got to them they were literally all over me shaking my hand and apologising for the alarming they had caused us. They thought we were illegal fisherman coming in to steal pearls from the local pearl farm, it is simply their usual policy, after having their pearls stolen so many times to fire a warning shot before going to near any boats. I sent over for the boats papers and then asked them to get rid of the gun and come aboard to reassure the others too, with this they came aboard and had a few cool soda's and a chat about the area.

We moved to the mouth of the bay, the crew found an anchorage and only Josie was now keen for diving, the other had the bar open with Ajrun working hard as usual making Mojito's and other cool drinks. Josie and I headed off to dive, within minutes we had come across tiny juvenile clown frogfish, then a  a small group of reef squid, bob tail squid, flatheads and plenty of cool sea slugs made another excellent night dive. After this the crew told me they would prefer to move on out of the bay...

We were still on the northern shores of Flores today to dive Tanjung Gedong, a small bay with a great little wall dive. This is an area that has indeed been impacted, huge boulders look like they have recently fallen, maybe this was impact from an eruption or even the tsunami. The wall section though is excellent with great coral scenery and plenty of soft corals. It is best for critters with ghost pipefish, pigmy sea horses, soft coral crabs and cowry shells, lot so elegant dart gobies and other small benthic fishes, in the deeper areas here there are nearly alwasy black tip sharks and today was no exception either though we also saw huge groupers which I haven't seen here before. Another exploring dive as the group were enjoying the thrill of new places. This time "Umbrella Rock", a fairly baron reef top dropping down to a pristine wall dive, not too many fish though there seemed to be more deeper below us! Them came Maumere, this is critter central with mimic octopus action like you've never seen, they are usually very common here. Our dusk dive was no different than usual, a few different mimic octopus, and another animal that comes out in abundance here - bobbit worms, yes as we were on the right moon phase there were lots!

In the morning we dived the wreck for a change of scenery, it's not my favourite kind of dive though it still made for an interesting search, the rest of the our last dives were at Ankermi finding at cool critters, before the bar opened for the last time for our departure party!

Conclusion
Perfect sea conditions all the way, with food that was comparable maybe even better than many of Indonesia's finest restaurants, though the bar just didn't last - boohoo! The diving was excellent, with only Koon island not living up to it's usual reputation. This route will only continue to get better with more and more better dive sites being found and more knowledge going into the grey matter to make sure the itineraries also get better, in my mind everything can improved upon!

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