Dan
Contributor
Summary
This is a chartered liveaboard trip crossing from Ambon to Sorong, passing through Banda and Raja Ampat as shown in Figure 1, below. Unfortunately we had to skip Banda due to bad weather. However, the more days to spend in Raja Ampat was pretty much overcame our disappointment for not being able to see the schooling hammerheads in Banda. Dampier Strait & Cape Kri were amazing too at this time of the year, better than Misool, IMHO. The sites were full of schooling fish, better than I have seen before.
Figure 1: Update Nov 20 - Dec 2, 2017 Ambon-Sorong Crossing Trip
Background
The idea of doing the crossing trip came about 3 years ago when our group DM of a trip to Komodo started to talk about massive schooling of hammerheads that you can see in Banda. That drew my interest. I have never been diving in Ambon too. Raja Ampat is always a sure bet for fantastic diving experience. It would also be nice to charter a whole boat for our dive club, as many of us have never been in Raja Ampat. So, the planning and searching for the right liveaboard began.
About 2 years ago, I went on a 12-day ultimate Raja Ampat trip with La Galigo liveaboard, La Galigo Liveaboard Indonesia | Diving Komodo, Raja Ampat, Wakatobi and had a great time. The cruise director (Nick) and owner (Tom) were willing to work with me on setting up the itinerary for such crossing trip. With helps from some DMs who know Ambon & Banda, we came up with the itinerary as shown in Table 1. That is an updated itinerary from the original one due to the passage to Banda was cancelled.
Table 1: Updated Ambon-Sorong Crossing Trip Itinerary
Ambon
La Galigo crew picked us up at Ambon airport and brought us to the boat in a short 20 minute taxi van ride. We spent 2 days diving around Ambon (Rhino City, Wayami, Laha1, Pintu Kota, Hukurila Cave). We saw typical muck diving fish & critters there (nudibranches, crabs, shrimps, eels, puffers, scrorpionfish, razorfish, lizardfish, cornetfish, flounder, conch, cowfish, bobtail squid, gobies, giant clams, lobsters, rays). We sailed on eastward to Haruku island on Day 2 afternoon to save some sail time towards Nusa Laut. We dove in Batu Kapal and Oma Jetty near Haruku Island that afternoon. A couple highlight diving in Ambon were seeing the seahorse and longnose hawkfish (below).
Passage 1
On Day 3 morning we arrived in Nusa Laut and dove in Ameth Jetty & Ameth. Great visibility and lots of very pristine hard corals in Nusa Laut area, but not much big fish, unfortunately. The local DM got so excited and showed me orangutan crab. LOL.
After lunch and with much of anticipation, we embarked on 18-hour sail on passage 1 to Banda. It’s a cloudy day, but the sea seemed calm and weather forecast showed for fairly good day for sailing. As the afternoon went on to evening the weather grew worsen. Rains began to pour. Wind began to gust. Wave began to pick up. I felt that we were heading to a stormy and rough sea.
The boat began to swing like a pendulum back and forth, occasionally a rogue wave passed over the boat and swung the boat to as much as 2-foot. I decided to hunker down in my cabin in the upper deck and started to secure everything that loosed. After getting tossed from my bed to the cabin floor, I dared not to get out of my cabin and put myself in high probability to be tossed out to sea, no matter how hungry I was by that evening. I was hoping the rest of the people in the boat did the same. At one time I heard the engine stop running and the boat swings were worsen. The ordeal seemed to continue all night.
On Day 4 morning, I was glad to wake up at a calm & sunny day in a trashy and wet cabin floor and bed. Looking through the window, we were seemed to anchor in a sandy coast of a sleepy fishing village. I quickly got up and looked for Tom to get an assessment of what happened last night. He said that the boat lost engine power during the storm. Banda harbor authority (BaSARnas?) radioed the boat to turn around as the weather in Banda was worse at 5m (16’) waves and 25 knot winds. The captain managed to manually stirred the boat toward the closest island of Seram island (ironically the word seram means scary).
After damage assessment, we were glad that everyone was accounted for and no one was injured or lost at sea. We discussed plan B right away. That is we would skip Banda and spend a day in Seram for some exploratory divings, while repairing the engine. The repair work involved getting parts in Ambon by taking one of the skiff on 8-hour roundtrip ride to Ambon.
The Seram sleepy fishing village turn out to be a pretty place for muck diving (Explore 1 & 2). We saw long-arm octopus, frogfish, Ambon scorpionfish, crinoid crab, lobsters. Some highlight of what we saw were bumptail mantis & Postlarval spiny lobster (below).
In the afternoon, engine was repaired and we continued on our 17-hour passage to Koon.
The adventure continue to post 2
This is a chartered liveaboard trip crossing from Ambon to Sorong, passing through Banda and Raja Ampat as shown in Figure 1, below. Unfortunately we had to skip Banda due to bad weather. However, the more days to spend in Raja Ampat was pretty much overcame our disappointment for not being able to see the schooling hammerheads in Banda. Dampier Strait & Cape Kri were amazing too at this time of the year, better than Misool, IMHO. The sites were full of schooling fish, better than I have seen before.
Figure 1: Update Nov 20 - Dec 2, 2017 Ambon-Sorong Crossing Trip
Background
The idea of doing the crossing trip came about 3 years ago when our group DM of a trip to Komodo started to talk about massive schooling of hammerheads that you can see in Banda. That drew my interest. I have never been diving in Ambon too. Raja Ampat is always a sure bet for fantastic diving experience. It would also be nice to charter a whole boat for our dive club, as many of us have never been in Raja Ampat. So, the planning and searching for the right liveaboard began.
About 2 years ago, I went on a 12-day ultimate Raja Ampat trip with La Galigo liveaboard, La Galigo Liveaboard Indonesia | Diving Komodo, Raja Ampat, Wakatobi and had a great time. The cruise director (Nick) and owner (Tom) were willing to work with me on setting up the itinerary for such crossing trip. With helps from some DMs who know Ambon & Banda, we came up with the itinerary as shown in Table 1. That is an updated itinerary from the original one due to the passage to Banda was cancelled.
Table 1: Updated Ambon-Sorong Crossing Trip Itinerary
Ambon
La Galigo crew picked us up at Ambon airport and brought us to the boat in a short 20 minute taxi van ride. We spent 2 days diving around Ambon (Rhino City, Wayami, Laha1, Pintu Kota, Hukurila Cave). We saw typical muck diving fish & critters there (nudibranches, crabs, shrimps, eels, puffers, scrorpionfish, razorfish, lizardfish, cornetfish, flounder, conch, cowfish, bobtail squid, gobies, giant clams, lobsters, rays). We sailed on eastward to Haruku island on Day 2 afternoon to save some sail time towards Nusa Laut. We dove in Batu Kapal and Oma Jetty near Haruku Island that afternoon. A couple highlight diving in Ambon were seeing the seahorse and longnose hawkfish (below).
Passage 1
On Day 3 morning we arrived in Nusa Laut and dove in Ameth Jetty & Ameth. Great visibility and lots of very pristine hard corals in Nusa Laut area, but not much big fish, unfortunately. The local DM got so excited and showed me orangutan crab. LOL.
After lunch and with much of anticipation, we embarked on 18-hour sail on passage 1 to Banda. It’s a cloudy day, but the sea seemed calm and weather forecast showed for fairly good day for sailing. As the afternoon went on to evening the weather grew worsen. Rains began to pour. Wind began to gust. Wave began to pick up. I felt that we were heading to a stormy and rough sea.
The boat began to swing like a pendulum back and forth, occasionally a rogue wave passed over the boat and swung the boat to as much as 2-foot. I decided to hunker down in my cabin in the upper deck and started to secure everything that loosed. After getting tossed from my bed to the cabin floor, I dared not to get out of my cabin and put myself in high probability to be tossed out to sea, no matter how hungry I was by that evening. I was hoping the rest of the people in the boat did the same. At one time I heard the engine stop running and the boat swings were worsen. The ordeal seemed to continue all night.
On Day 4 morning, I was glad to wake up at a calm & sunny day in a trashy and wet cabin floor and bed. Looking through the window, we were seemed to anchor in a sandy coast of a sleepy fishing village. I quickly got up and looked for Tom to get an assessment of what happened last night. He said that the boat lost engine power during the storm. Banda harbor authority (BaSARnas?) radioed the boat to turn around as the weather in Banda was worse at 5m (16’) waves and 25 knot winds. The captain managed to manually stirred the boat toward the closest island of Seram island (ironically the word seram means scary).
After damage assessment, we were glad that everyone was accounted for and no one was injured or lost at sea. We discussed plan B right away. That is we would skip Banda and spend a day in Seram for some exploratory divings, while repairing the engine. The repair work involved getting parts in Ambon by taking one of the skiff on 8-hour roundtrip ride to Ambon.
The Seram sleepy fishing village turn out to be a pretty place for muck diving (Explore 1 & 2). We saw long-arm octopus, frogfish, Ambon scorpionfish, crinoid crab, lobsters. Some highlight of what we saw were bumptail mantis & Postlarval spiny lobster (below).
In the afternoon, engine was repaired and we continued on our 17-hour passage to Koon.
The adventure continue to post 2
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