"Ambon in the Spice Islands offers the best muck diving in Indonesia, surpassing Lembeh Straits". I heard those words from an American tourist at a restaurant in Lovina, North Bali few years ago when I was diving Puri Jati. Ever since, it has long been an ambition to dive the Spice Islands but the plan was deterred by the concerns of years of bitter religious turmoil and Malaria. As words of the newly discovered frogfish were out last year, I couldn't resist the lure of this new temptation and finally a week trip was planned for my first splash in 2009.
Ambon, island in eastern Indonesia, is home to the capital of Maluku province that consists of about 1,000 islands formerly known as the Moluccas, or Spice Islands. Ambon Island has an area of about 775 km² of generally mountainous, agricultural terrain that produces nutmeg, coffee, corn, cloves and cloves and cinnamon, among others. It was a center of the European spice trade dating back to the 1500's which saw this region being occupied by the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and English at various times. Ambon has populations, which are split fairly evenly between Muslims and Christians. Ambon became the scene of a conflict which went on from 1999 to 2002, a major clash between the two major religion group known as the Moluccan War. 9,000 people died in this war. Peace has now returned to the island but occasional unexpected small-scale conflicts still go on but they are not too much of a concern for travelers. The main city is also free from Malaria.
The journey to Ambon from Singapore was a long but uneventful one. Flight connections mean a stopover at Jakarta. Arriving at the International airport at 9pm, I was met by Zain from Discover Indonesia and ushered to the domestic airport. The Lion Air flight was delayed for about an hour and departed at 2am. After a 3.5 hours flight, I was met by Jimmy, the translator from Blue Rose Divers (BRD) who helped me to register my visit to the airport police and also collected my return tickets for confirmation. After collecting my baggage, Henrick, a partner at BRD picked me up and another one-hour car ride later; I finally arrived at the Santai Beach Resort, which overlooks a beautiful and sandy beach with crystal clear turquoise waters.
Santai Beach Resort has 11 beach bungalows and my bungalow was just next to the dive center. The air-conditioned room was basic but clean and roomy with 2 single beds, a mirror table, a cupboard with locks and a large bathroom with sitting toilet without flushing system and without hot water shower. Water supply got cut-off sporadically so I took my shower at the dive center twice during my stay. The electricity supply was erratic and it usually ran from 6pm to 6am. The dive center has it's own private generator so I charged my batteries at the dive shop during the day.
The resort does not have a restaurant so it was a bit of a bummer. For most of the days during my stay, I was the only guest staying there so the meals were provided by the dive center. They were generally simple but delicious home-cooked Ambonese food consisting of rice served together with fish, vegetables, chicken and sometimes noodles and soups for lunch and dinner. The samba chilies were absolutely yummy and I usually finished a whole plate of rice just mixing them in. I ate so much rice that I think I have gained a few pounds. Now I need to lose them but with the mouth-watering Chinese New Year goodies at home, how am I going to? Egg sandwiches and fried noodles/rice were served for breakfast.
On the evening of day 2, the dive center prepared a sumptuous Ikan bakar (grilled fish) farewell feast for the group from Jakarta. The crew at the dive center were always eager to please and obliging despite our language barrier. Most of them speak very little English and I have the slightest clue with Bahasa Indonesia. I remember one day I was casually mentioning something about having Mee Bakso (meat balls noodle soup) in Manado and the following evening, they brought me home-cooked Mee Bakso. How sweet! Amusingly, in the town where electricity was erratic and the locals using to drinking warm beers, buying ice-cold Bintang beers was more difficult than finding critters underwater. On days when there was no night dive, I would be riding pillion on the dive masters motorbikes in search of ice-cold Bintang beers.
I guess that not many people know that there are actually two dive centers in Ambon, the well-known Maluku Divers Dive Center and the relatively unknown Blue Rose Divers whom I chose to dive with. It was a local dive center setup just barely a year ago with Augustine managing the office in Surabaya and another 5 partners (Henrick-manager, Johnny boat captain, Wimpe compressor man, Robert and Frankie dive guides) running the dive center. Boat crew also includes two young boys, Ah Dok and Free John who helped with gearing up and handling out towels/refreshments before/after each dive. Toby, the most highly rated dive guide with more than 15 years experience diving in Ambon free-lanced for the shop and we dived together for the first two days.
The dive team is really cooperative and accommodating. Among them, only Robert and Toby speak good English. Despite that, I was always greeted with smiling faces and they try hard to fulfill any of my requests 4 dives a day and each dive no less than 75 minutes. Jokingly, they said that when I (the gila (crazy) Singaporean go home, the dive guide, Robert, whom I did most of the dives with, will mati (die).
Tanks were set-up with BCDs/regulators and taken care by the boat crew throughout my entire stay. BRD has two dive speed boats, both fiberglass made and each can accommodate 8-10 divers. Diving was done via back-roll entry. I did a total of 23 dives covering Kandang Babi, Maluku's House Reef, Pintu Kota, Laha 2, Rhino City, Lehari Cape, Lehari 2, Hikurila cave, Tanjung Hukurila, Tamjung Mahio. I also explored few new dive sites around the muck area and found an excellent site overflowing with abundance of nudibranchs, which I am going to name it after my dive guide, Robert. Water temperature was a constant at 29 deg C and visibility ranged from site to site, with the wall having better visibility ranging from 15-25 meters and the muck diving sites around 8-12 meters. The dive sites that I visited were about 20-30 minutes away from the dive center. The briefings were short and direct.
Ambon, island in eastern Indonesia, is home to the capital of Maluku province that consists of about 1,000 islands formerly known as the Moluccas, or Spice Islands. Ambon Island has an area of about 775 km² of generally mountainous, agricultural terrain that produces nutmeg, coffee, corn, cloves and cloves and cinnamon, among others. It was a center of the European spice trade dating back to the 1500's which saw this region being occupied by the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and English at various times. Ambon has populations, which are split fairly evenly between Muslims and Christians. Ambon became the scene of a conflict which went on from 1999 to 2002, a major clash between the two major religion group known as the Moluccan War. 9,000 people died in this war. Peace has now returned to the island but occasional unexpected small-scale conflicts still go on but they are not too much of a concern for travelers. The main city is also free from Malaria.
The journey to Ambon from Singapore was a long but uneventful one. Flight connections mean a stopover at Jakarta. Arriving at the International airport at 9pm, I was met by Zain from Discover Indonesia and ushered to the domestic airport. The Lion Air flight was delayed for about an hour and departed at 2am. After a 3.5 hours flight, I was met by Jimmy, the translator from Blue Rose Divers (BRD) who helped me to register my visit to the airport police and also collected my return tickets for confirmation. After collecting my baggage, Henrick, a partner at BRD picked me up and another one-hour car ride later; I finally arrived at the Santai Beach Resort, which overlooks a beautiful and sandy beach with crystal clear turquoise waters.
Santai Beach Resort has 11 beach bungalows and my bungalow was just next to the dive center. The air-conditioned room was basic but clean and roomy with 2 single beds, a mirror table, a cupboard with locks and a large bathroom with sitting toilet without flushing system and without hot water shower. Water supply got cut-off sporadically so I took my shower at the dive center twice during my stay. The electricity supply was erratic and it usually ran from 6pm to 6am. The dive center has it's own private generator so I charged my batteries at the dive shop during the day.
The resort does not have a restaurant so it was a bit of a bummer. For most of the days during my stay, I was the only guest staying there so the meals were provided by the dive center. They were generally simple but delicious home-cooked Ambonese food consisting of rice served together with fish, vegetables, chicken and sometimes noodles and soups for lunch and dinner. The samba chilies were absolutely yummy and I usually finished a whole plate of rice just mixing them in. I ate so much rice that I think I have gained a few pounds. Now I need to lose them but with the mouth-watering Chinese New Year goodies at home, how am I going to? Egg sandwiches and fried noodles/rice were served for breakfast.
On the evening of day 2, the dive center prepared a sumptuous Ikan bakar (grilled fish) farewell feast for the group from Jakarta. The crew at the dive center were always eager to please and obliging despite our language barrier. Most of them speak very little English and I have the slightest clue with Bahasa Indonesia. I remember one day I was casually mentioning something about having Mee Bakso (meat balls noodle soup) in Manado and the following evening, they brought me home-cooked Mee Bakso. How sweet! Amusingly, in the town where electricity was erratic and the locals using to drinking warm beers, buying ice-cold Bintang beers was more difficult than finding critters underwater. On days when there was no night dive, I would be riding pillion on the dive masters motorbikes in search of ice-cold Bintang beers.
I guess that not many people know that there are actually two dive centers in Ambon, the well-known Maluku Divers Dive Center and the relatively unknown Blue Rose Divers whom I chose to dive with. It was a local dive center setup just barely a year ago with Augustine managing the office in Surabaya and another 5 partners (Henrick-manager, Johnny boat captain, Wimpe compressor man, Robert and Frankie dive guides) running the dive center. Boat crew also includes two young boys, Ah Dok and Free John who helped with gearing up and handling out towels/refreshments before/after each dive. Toby, the most highly rated dive guide with more than 15 years experience diving in Ambon free-lanced for the shop and we dived together for the first two days.
The dive team is really cooperative and accommodating. Among them, only Robert and Toby speak good English. Despite that, I was always greeted with smiling faces and they try hard to fulfill any of my requests 4 dives a day and each dive no less than 75 minutes. Jokingly, they said that when I (the gila (crazy) Singaporean go home, the dive guide, Robert, whom I did most of the dives with, will mati (die).
Tanks were set-up with BCDs/regulators and taken care by the boat crew throughout my entire stay. BRD has two dive speed boats, both fiberglass made and each can accommodate 8-10 divers. Diving was done via back-roll entry. I did a total of 23 dives covering Kandang Babi, Maluku's House Reef, Pintu Kota, Laha 2, Rhino City, Lehari Cape, Lehari 2, Hikurila cave, Tanjung Hukurila, Tamjung Mahio. I also explored few new dive sites around the muck area and found an excellent site overflowing with abundance of nudibranchs, which I am going to name it after my dive guide, Robert. Water temperature was a constant at 29 deg C and visibility ranged from site to site, with the wall having better visibility ranging from 15-25 meters and the muck diving sites around 8-12 meters. The dive sites that I visited were about 20-30 minutes away from the dive center. The briefings were short and direct.
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