Ambon Trip Report Jan 2009

[bill22]

Great report, thanks for sharing. I'm planning a trip to Lembeh later this year, but have a friend who is trying to talk me into Ambon instead. Nice to get some perspective.

Nice photos too

 

[NAUI6606]

We saw lots of pelagics in the channel between one of the Tigas and the west coast, some very big dogtooth tuna and a huge giant trevally. Also saw some good sized GT off Seram, which is about 2 hrs away by speed boat.

A B-17 aircraft crashed somewhere in the Tigas, probably on the back side of the channel between 2nd and 3rd islands, possibly in water too deep for recreational diving. Nobody has found it yet and we got blown out into blue water looking for it. It was a very short dive in a 3knt current, but I saw the biggest marble ray I've ever seen, bigger than me. I was moving over him so fast that he didn't even move from his sandy ramp on the bottom. Amazing viz in the Tigas, well over 100' most dives.

Oh, and the night dive right off the beach of Maluku Divers was excellent, cockatoo wasp fish, ghost pipefish of the hairy and leafy varieties, slipper lobsters, big decorator crabs with huge sponges growing on them...Ambon is all that. -Andy

Should be in the water next week... cant wait!!

 

[NAUI6606]

Great report, thanks for sharing. I'm planning a trip to Lembeh later this year, but have a friend who is trying to talk me into Ambon instead. Nice to get some perspective.

Nice photos too

Follow your heart... ^0^

 

[Wayan]

It depends on what do you want to see, mainly critters or a excellent mixture of both.

Both are excellent in their own right. If you want muck and more muck then Lemebeh.

 

[wahlaoeh]

Just got an email from Jakarta's travel agent saying that BRD has built a new restaurant. Now, we can have ice cold beers .. Yeah!!

I'm planning a return trip this Oct ... will let you know how does this new restaurant holds ;-)

Happy bubbles,
Jovin-

 

[David Bali]

Hi Wahlaoeh,
thanks for the report. I've always wanted to dive in ambon
but I have tried to contact blue rose diver for quite a while now
with emails and even phone calls but never get a reply
can you shed some light on how o get in touch with them?
thanks a million!

 

[wahlaoeh]

Just got back & some update ...
There is no restaurant but the food prepared by Henrick's wife was delicious. The dive shop also has a new refrigerator so we had cold Bintang beers, no complain there

Water temperature was very cold .. dive computer logged 27~29 deg C but we felt that we were diving in freezing cold waters on some dives. I dived with my 3mm Scubapro with 3mm Henderson hooded vest & still felt cold.

Interesting, the critters that we found were different from my Jan trip. The abundance of xeno & zanzibar crabs were absence but we saw so many different frogfish. We also dived some new sites that Robert discovered and found many species of nudibranchs and a blue-ringed octopus. The coleman's shrimps and zebra crabs also migrated to a new site. The yellow and white Rhinopias were still at Rhino City but slightly deeper.

@ David: Do contact Zain from Discover Indonesia @ "Discover Indonesia" <discover_indo@indosat.net.id> for BRD booking. Mention that Jovin send you and you might get a good offer ;-)

Happy bubbles,
Jovin-

 

[wahlaoeh]

For reservation with BRD: pls contact Irien @ Irien JR <irien_jr@yahoo.com>.

 

[gee13]

Thanks for the useful post Jovin, do you know if there are direct flights to Ambon from Bali?

 

[wahlaoeh]

Thanks for the useful post Jovin, do you know if there are direct flights to Ambon from Bali?

I think there is no direct flight. Flights are via Makassar. I flew with the followings .. hope this helps ..
Ambon - Makassar using Wings Air or Wings Air
JT 0791 AMQ – UPG 07.45 – 08.20 using Lion Air
JT 8786 AMQ – UPG 15.30 – 16.10 using Wings Air

Makassar – Denpasar
JT 0741 UPG – DPS 09.00 – 10.15 using Lion Air
GA 621 UPG – DPS 16.45 – 18.00 using Garuda Indonesia