Diving Flores - Alor - Banda Sea - Irian Jaya with Ondina

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October 27th - November 10th

I was contracted with Ondina to direct an important full boat charter safely through the Banda Sea with no need for too much wasting time with exploratory diving. The group leader had requested someone who knew the area. Plenty of dive sites throughout this area were safe in my GPS and backed up on paper in case of problems. I had spent quite a while before the cruise drafting itineraries, along with a few alternatives should the group decide to want different kind of dives.

My arrival day in Flores Maumere
As I arrived a day earlier than the group I had time to make a check dive on a great critter site here to see just what critters await below. On the one dive here Gabi (Ondina's new dive guide) and I saw:

The group consisted of all Spanish divers except one guy from Croatia, these were to be happy with 2-3 dives per day. Me I wanted more, I did actually get more.... Most days I would get into the water for a check dive in search of new sites, very often I came across new sites too!

Day 1
North Flores - the group arrived all mad keen to be back in Indonesia on Ondina for their 3rd time. I had strongly recommended we make the most of where we were and have our check dive on the critter sites here, the group were not too into critter diving, preferring reef dives, a big shame for this was a great chance to try it! We dived the best wall here for our check dive. This is a very dramatic wall dive with a huge crack from 3m/10' to about 25m/80' excellent coral growth all the way through here. An excellent start showing many of the group their first ever pigmy sea horses, ghost pipefish, twin-spot lionfish and lots of other interesting small marine life. The wall itself is one of the best, it even beats many of those great walls around Wakatobi Dive Resort.

Day 2
Lembata Island -  a site Ricard had been diving previously, an average wall dive to start with though visibility varied with areas with 10n/30' visibility and then to 20m/65' visibility at an area where a deep coral garden being the highlight here. A little too much current to really check it out properly, though the group were happy to see plenty of lion and scorpion fish.
A dive just outside of the Alor region seemed to be OK when checked then Murphys law kicked in and brought in a strong current (tide charts don't work too well in this area) as we entered taking us first along the reef one way than back again, everyone managed fine and though it was a little scary to see whirls of white sand coming up from the depths below. This is the Nusa Tengarra where narrow channels funnel fast flowing water and can sometimes on a few sites create these localized currents.
We arrived late into the Alor region and dived The Caverns, quite a few guests finished early as the light was now very low, here we came across a variety nudibranch species and twin spot lionfish.

Day 3
Alor - It would have been great to head down to Pantar to dive the safe, no current critter sites, though once more the group wanted more reef dives. Valley of the Clowns was the safest site without current on the first morning with clear water over 20m/65 visibility. The current was so strong the boat was unable to cross the channel to dive on my favoured site The Great Wall of Pantar. Though we had a great dive here with endless beds of anemones and anemone fish. This is actually one of the most unique dive sites in Indonesia and a must for first time visitors here, with a mild current divers can drift over a kilometre of reef filled with anemones and their host fish. We also saw plenty of great nudibranchs, over 7 different species on this 1 dive. What I love about Alor is the local people who always love to see divers, they will swim above divers and often free dive down to take a closer look. It is usually possible to see them placing and removing the fish traps they use on these reefs.

Next we dived The Boardroom, again visibility was good, over 20m/65'. In the past I have dived other sites as this usually has too much current for the groups I have been here with. Today there was a slight current and it was against us, some divers pressed on to the corner where reef scenery is at its best, I decided to drop back and stay with my group of divers who were not wanting current at all, we found some blue ribbon eels and marbled dragonets.

A night dive in Kalabahi Bay was a great dive for this group not too mucky with good enough visibility and plenty of interesting marine life. The highlight being when I got the whole group together in one small spot all looking at what they thought to be only the sand and then slowly moved my pointer under the sand to reveal a box crab (Calapa calapa) their faces were a treat. Other things like nudibranchs and plenty of crustaceans made this one of their favourites, though it was only an average dive as far as top Indonesian critter dives go!

Day 4
Alor - we dived Babylon this is one of my favourite walls in this area, for it's just full of grottos, crevices and beautiful scenery in between all these, and generally not much current either. The reef top too is excellent and a must for wide angle photography, fish life here today was also excellent with schools of various small fish off reef.

The Caverns being another good, easy dive, not so many fish as usual though great scenery with some large overhangs filled with soft corals and looking closely there were a few nudibranchs and flatworms. Visibility on these last 2 dives was very good over 25m/80'.

Day 5
Gunung Api - with the current behind us all the way we arrived much earlier than thought. I had been here a few times now and was getting to know this strange little island quite well. Not just for the snakes either, I managed to locate what I think are the two best reefs on this small island. One a great classic fish dive with vast amount of  schooling fish life and some huge tuna going by, all this over beds of sea fans. A few divers managed to see a group of sharks here as well, we named this "Sulphur Ridge".

My favoured dive here though is what is simply named "Polo". Here a coral ridge descends with sometimes good fish life, arriving towards the end, the first few divers will generally see a large school of giant trevally these usually descend into the abyss below. This area is where the hole is, I like to swim through the hole, turn and descend down again into the next overhanging reef, this is the best area on this small island for soft corals, they line the overhang and the hole itself too! Some large sea fans and sponges down below here and of course more snakes!

A short trek - the divers were more into a siesta so we never really got to see the snakes in the late afternoon when I have seen them in much larger numbers than on earlier dives. Still the group saw plenty and had their fill. I was still wanting something more after lots of check diving so we never had any strong currents. I managed to convince a few adventurous people to trek up the top of this island. I had never done this and hadn't spoke with anyone who had, it looked wicked and had to be tried. Just the start was incredible. Instantly realising just how how many birds must live in this tiny island. We came across 3 different species of booby bird, frigates and more. It was leading the way and nearly jumped out of my skin a  few times, nearly falling back at the sound of a chick screaming at me. I must of scared it on it's nest. AS we approached the top the sight as the sun set was incredible, looking out west as the sun descended through a cloud of sea birds....ahhhhhh!

Day 6
The Lucipara Island group - we first dived a guaranteed great wall dive with good soft coral cover in the deeper area, some large tuna cruising by, a school of bump head parrotfish and towards the end a small school of blue lined barracuda, all the while with hundreds of neon fusiliers flashing by. Visibility was unusually low in this area though still about 20m/65'.

Being here before helped me a lot, I knew a few really bad areas from previous cruises. When I first came through we only really found one good site at the end of the day. On each cruise through this area now I have dived better sites each time. Now I had my eye on a new area to check out.

Checking along the wall of a small island I came across what instantly looked like it could be a top site, I snorkelled over the reef crest dived down to see what the deeper areas looked like, I then moved over and found it had all the right ingredients. On entry - excellent clear water with about 40m/130' visibility. Looking around us, a great reef slope to start with some giant barrel sponges looking like the twin towers in KL, an overhanging reef with giant back coral bushes, a few reef sharks cruising the deeper waters at the drop-off from the sloping reef at 30-35m/100-115'. A very small pinnacle juts up from crest of the deep drop off with gorgeous deep purple soft corals all around, in fact the whole area was a sloping reef area is like a bowl, the deeper area from 20m/65 and below is covered with soft corals, 3 or 4 Napoleon wrasse looked like resident to this area as they cruised back and forth. Then comes the highlight, the most gorgeous soft coral covered overhanging wall I have seen, every colour of soft coral exists here. As I approached a small reef shark resting below on a deep plateau beneath got up and swam off, all the while a large school of unicorns, large tuna, rainbow runners and many fish schooling off reef from this amazing wall.
One thing I did notice though were some very old shark fishing lines. I knew I would be coming back to this spot so I spent some time removing what I could. Now it will look a little better for the next group of lucky divers to dive this very little known area of Indonesia. If I get my way I may even try and do 2 days here it is so good.

Next dive in this area, another guaranteed great wall dive with excellent visbility like before. The group loved this too with large school of dogtooth tuna, a school of over 20 slowly cruising back forth across the reef. Gabriel, oh you! Went and saw a mola mola towards the corner of this reef, me I am still waiting for my encounter. This guy comes out and has seen 4 different individual in only 2 months of diving, yep' he rubbed it in alright. Still I was very happy to know that these weird animals are out here too, I'll keep looking!

Day 7
Banda Islands - the best thing about Banda is the natural harbour we sleep in every evening. With great views looking up to Gunung Api this had to be one of, if not, The most gorgeous natural harbour in Indonesia for sure. Land tours here are great, visiting the old forts and the old homes of the those who fought wars here. Shops open their doors to sell antique porcelain, canons and allsorts of historical wares. The old fort on Banda Besar has great views through the trees to Gunung Api, this is also where we can view the old well where lots of local people were killed, now the locals hold  a ceremony each year, the well is cleansed with a very long ceremonial sarong.

Visibility varied throughout here and we often had to opt for alternative sites to go for better visibility. The first being on Ai island, in the past I had seen lots of large Napoleon wrasse and quite a few large barracuda on this site, today it was not to be, with some good scenery a few large barracuda cruising by and small school of fusiliers.

Batu Kapal next and after the usual siesta a changing current it made it quite difficult to dive, though everyone managed to see some of the good fish life here and a few got see the great scenery too. There were giant moray eels on the wall and leaf scorpion fish on the reef top with plenty of small nudibranchs.

Our night dive was at the best critter dive in this area, right in the bay, even though we were very late on entry nearly 8pm, we still saw the Mandarin fish here. A few tiny juvenile pinnate batfish, a few large platydoris opistobranchs, sea hares and other small nudi's, though for me the highlight was the boxer crab and a small halimeda crab.

Day 8
Banda Islands - a great site on Banda Besar we had some large Napoleon wrasse, a small school of blue lined barracuda, unicorns, fusiliers and some interesting small marine life like allied cowries, xeno crabs in sea fans, plenty of blennies and gobies on the reef top too. The highlight of this site though is the huge swim through from about 20m/65' to 30m/100' filled with great coral life and good fish life nearby. Kraka Island for our next dive with lots of different leaf scorpion fish, giant morays, a few barracuda and some nesting trigger fish we avoided.

We couldn't fill the tanks in time to see the Mandarin fish mating, we dived again at night and had another good dive like the night before though with no boxer crab, the halimeda crab was still there though it took a long time to find it.

Day 9
Banda Islands - the group never managed to get into the water early enough to see the full effect of the Mandarin fish ritual in the morning. Everyone managed to get a very close look at may of these little beauties and there was plenty of other interesting marine life as on the night dives though this time moving a little further over and seeing small groups of sand divers (trichonotus elegans) and unusual filefishes.

Moving over to Hatta Island our first dive here was nothing too special as all fish seemed to be elsewhere though there was a good wall starting at 10-15m/30-50' with large soft corals in areas, a few Napoleon wrasse and some unicorn fish.

The next dive was much better as we dived an excellent topographic wall with huge swim throughs, crevices, small caverns and overhanging reefs, that make you want to go up and down to see all the best parts, we had to watch out for deco here it was so good. A few large Napoleon wrasse hung around though fish life seemed to be fairly low.

We visited the small and very friendly village here where the children came out to see the white tourists that I am very sure rarely visited this area.
We dived the same dive site we dived earlier for our night dive, plenty of small crustaceans came out of hiding with their coral decorated shells. A few very large pleurobranchs and some unusual doto sp. opistobranchs living within the hydroids.

Day 10
Eastern Seram - Larry Smith and one of his old groups here named this site "Too Many Fish", today it really did live up to the name as well, with hundreds of schooling fish, some whopper sized groupers. All this with really beautiful coral reef scenery of soft corals, sea fans, cuts and crevices. A few divers opted to dive on the wall further over, as there was fairly string current towards the corner they wanted to avoid. This is "Too Many Fish" and is worth the effort, they missed this great dive site in all it's glory, the second dive here with a slack tide was still great though not as good as the second time round. This is definitely one of Indonesia's best fish dives!

We checked out a few areas away from Koon as the swell had picked up, most of these were not too good, though there was a fairly decent wall Ricard came across, though diving this after Too Many Fish really done it no justice!

Day 11
Western Misool - We arrived and wanted to go straight away, we dived a top site here with excellent coral growth and some outstanding shallow coral bommies filled with allsorts of coral life and small fish. A spur down to about 40m/130' is filled with large sea fans and some great soft coral scenery around here too! Critters here were great too with a beautiful ghost pipefish, the shallowest ever pigmy sea horses at only 6m deep and plenty of nudibranchs, flatworms and areas with some large lobsters.

Oh it just gets better each time I visit these new areas. After checking out a few sites in this area I knew what was good and what was OK. Searching for better sites pays big dividends and the new site here was a major highlight of the 2 cruises on Ondina. One site here rewarded us with a spur of reef that juts out at 20m/65'. Reef scenery here is probably the best I have ever came across and what is more amazing is the fish life matches the site - lots of pelagic fish, Napoleon wrasse.... all divers in both groups saw 4 and also 4 mobula rays that were seen on my check out dive here too, they must be resident to this site. The dive is not finished here, moving back along the reef, it then becomes a mass of the most amazing soft coral cover I have ever seen in my life. A wall, then to a slope all filled with colours that I never knew existed on reefs, small marine life here is also great with some very interesting nudibranch species, gobies, blennies and small crustaceans. This was the one main dive I never wanted to finish!!!!

The night dive here was on a wall that looked great on the day, at night it also proved to be a real winner too with ghost pipefish, plenty of cool crustaceans in soft corals, long armed spider crabs, lots of unusual flatworms, twin-spot lionfish and a few places were just stunning to look at with soft corals on the reef crest and hard corals on the reef top creating beautiful scenery.

This is also one of the best areas I have came across in Irian Jaya (Raja Ampat) for critters, we found a few ghost pipefish and this was just one area of Misool, there was more.... 

Day 12
Eastern Misool - way before the cruise was to leave work had been done to find out a little about this area. We had a few good pointers as to where would be good. Our first site to check out was between to small rocks. I went in to check out what it was like, this was a top site for sure. I checked all I could and never really needed to don my scuba either. The guests were thoroughly briefed and sure enough a great reef started straight away on entry. Daisy corals (tubastraea) lined the shallower walls that dropped below us way out of our sight. We slowly moved along a coral filled ridge. Reef scenery here was incredible with huge sea fans and a whole array of different coral cover in a multitude of colours, lots of pigmy sea horse fans (muricella) all over the reef, though looking for pigmies here was not my main aim as this was great for it's fish life with swarms of fusiliers and endless schools of unicorns that just kept sweeping by. Some larger fish cruised by here too along with a small school of barracuda. This was another excellent dive site I'll be visiting again in the near future!

Our next area to check out was in search of caves we had heard about. I had checked one area, currents were strong, so I tried another area and found a great little site with a few channels between a small island. Current was much less here on checkout, guests were briefed and off we went. Between the island within the channel the current had picked up, so I urged my group to follow me up through the channel. A passage only about 2.5m/7' wide lined with soft corals, sea fans, whip bushes. The scenery all over the reef was excellent all the way to the surface with colourful soft corals, while in the channels small groups of fish hung in the current flowing through. The divers who followed had an easy dive though a few who tried to go another way other than through the channel were caught up in some current and aborted the dive early. After checking the site with the caverns we realised this is a place that only really diveable during the right tides.

Our dive in the cave/cavern was incredible, the scenery from the inside of the cavern looking out to a mass of large coral covered boulders. This was also a great area for nudibranchs, lots of them! Everyone was enjoying exploring the cave that even has a small cave off from the main cavern, this was very narrow and only a few ventured inside, those that did found a turtles head lying inside. I decided to move over and see if I could check out the second cavern. This wasn't too far away, along the way the scenery stayed great all the way with smaller caverns and ledges. I made it to the next area, this was a huge opening from 25m/80' up to 40m/130'. Entering this cavern was incredible sea line the edges and more caves lie to the sides. The upper roof of the cavern is covered with small scleronepthya soft corals and invertebrates, shallow sea fans lay in the middle of the cavern hidden from the currents by overhanging boulders. More pigmy sea horses at only 9m deep this time.

At present I have only spent a little time in Misool, though already it is one place I plan to spend much more time exploring. With only 2 cruises into this area I have already dived what can only be described as "very special dive sites", maybe even some of Indonesia's finest!

Day 13
Mansuar Region (near the base camp of Irian Diving) - Sardine Reef, a few photographers were now after pigmy sea horses. Each time I have dived this site we have seen them, plenty of them.... not today! I must have searched every sea fan along this site, even fans that pigmy sea horses rarely inhabit I checked just in case. What everyone else saw was vast amounts of schooling fish in a huge variety of species, this area is usually great for some large Wahoo and barracuda, they were still here, along with a school of coral munching, sand making hump head parrotfish. Even though the reef scenery is great here too it is the fish show we come to see on this dive site and it certainly didn't disappoint our group of divers today.

Currents were to strong at Cape Kri so we opted for a dive for a guaranteed wobbiegong shark dive, no one had ever seen these. When diving in this area everybody should see one of these marvellous sharks, often called carpet sharks as this is truly what they look. I had checked out Mios Khon and found one though it wasn't in the best area of reef. We dived the best part of this site where huge schools yellow lined snappers drifted over the reef and mid water. A small school of yellow tail barracuda and some large Wahoo cruised by along with the usual schools of unicorns and fusiliers seen here. The group had been briefed so if they never saw a wobbiegong on this dive they should save some air so I could take them to the other area and show them a wobbiegong, satisfaction guaranteed with Diving 4 Images, everyone got to see a wobbiegong shark!

A few people had still not seen the pigmy sea horses either. I knew they should be on Cape Kri and the current was now going the right way. Cape Kri is renowned for it's schooling fish that at times can block out the sun they are so dense, being in the right place n these sites is the most important thing, if the entry point is wrong the dive can be boring as the fish all congregate in one place near what I call the Koteka (Irian penis gourd) formation. Sure enough as we approached this formation this life started to appear becoming more and more dense as we closed in. I had seen this show and was in search for a smaller critter so everyone could go away happy after seeing a pigmy sea horse, sure enough a small fan was home to 3 of these tiny much loved and sought after creatures. It is so great to the eyes sparkle when people actually see them for the first time and often it can take a lot of patience and a magnifying lens to ensure everyone actually sees them properly. As the current had totally dropped so had the soft corals making the dive not as beautiful as it can be at times when a mild current runs.

Day 14
Wai Island Lagoon - our final dive in the lagoon for safe and easy last dive, a few divers had already started to pack as they were quite content. The lagoon is usually good for critter, unusual nudibranchs, flatworms, gobies and often the odd rare critter too. Today the site was not on it's true form, a few nudibranchs, flatworms and some partner gobies and the giant clams that lay in the deeper part of the lagoon here. It worked out well as the group loved the searching and seemed to have the bug for critters. It was great to see this, especially as they started totally against diving on anything other than great reefs. A few more converted critter divers amongst this group.

Day 15
Guests departure - tears as usual!

Conclusion - an incredible cruise all through with great weather and sea conditions. The new dive sites we came across along the way made it even more special. The most important issue of course ---- the guests loved it!

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