Luko
Contributor
Had a little less than 2 weeks to spend on holidays for Xmas and was wondering whether I could spend them in Bali or for the 2nd time in the year go back to Ambon and Maluku, which is easily becoming my fav place in Indonesia.
For two years I have been dreaming of diving both Banda islands and Nusa Laut in Maluku. This was something that became like an alarm device, ready to blow a horn whenever any dive opportunity would pop up.
I had focused first on a nice and relax stay in Lembongan, nearly booked a room with TwoFish when I received a mail from my favorite guesthouse, Mutiara in Bandaneira saying that NBA would increase the number of flight rotations at the end of the year. The alarm horn blew loudly, therefore we jumped on the occasion and booked our flights to Ambon, forgot Bali (sorry Laurent), arranged bookings to Bandaneira for a week and also for a mini safari trip to the Lease islands with Blue Rose Divers Ambon.
As soon as I had booked and paid my flight tickets, other news scripted on my mail client: NBA on the verge of bankruptcy was cancelling all their flight Ambon Bandaneira for the end of the year. My Bandanese dreams sank again.
Anyway, I had to find a substitute to Banda, so like many people I met on premises, we traded a week on Bandaneira against a few days in Southern Maluku’s Kei Kecil to witness what was buzzing on the travellers trail like the most beautiful beach on earth : Oiderlihir.
Despite efforts from Bob who's managing Coaster Cottages in Kei, we couldn’t find any compressor nor any dive master to provide me with a few dives around, hence I can’t say what’s diving like around Kei.
But I still can show the beach pictures, though… you go with 3km like this, Okay?
So that's the place where on Xmas day we popped up and shared a Ruinart champagne bottle we brought back from France with 10 other travelers. It probably felt too little in the glass but at least we could say we had a toast on Xmas.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sidenote : I’ll skip the many difficulties to arrange something clear going through various Indonesian intermediates… Guys, don’t try this by yourself at home if you’re not ready to cope with the famous Indonesian “jam karet” perception (elastic time).
I was even surprised many things would fail after a mail, another confirmation mail, a third mail, a phone call on the day before and a SMS on the morning… but what can you do, the power of “Jam Karet” is strong as the Indonesian Throughflow.
Ok I may sound harsh, some local people are highly reliable and recommendable (Bob from Coaster cottages, Abba from Mutiara, Pak Agust from Molana, etc.), some simply aren’t. It would be a great improvement if Jam Karet afficionados would wear a badge, a distinctive cap, a bumper sticker saying “I believe in Jam Karet”. Will make thing easier. Thanks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 1 : Ambon diving :
Ambon is becoming a second dive home for me after 3 stays over the past two years : as usual I booked dives with Blue Rose Divers.
I also had the chance to meet and dive with Jovin a regular of the board and CC from Penang, we dived altogether in Ambon and Molana. It was great fun and very nice moments which hopefully will be resumed in the future.
Divewise it seems Ambon got severely hit by august floods that silted many of the top sites in Ambon bay. The famous Twilight Zone, which is considered as the jewel of the crown, got nastily affected with silt coming from the land floods, I hardly recognized the fantastic sites I dived in the two past years.
It seemed the diving hotspots moved to the south of the bay, Maluku Divers boats which I would seldom see a year before were also regularly diving this part at the time I was there.
Since a bad thing is always balanced with a good one, the south bay sites were even better than what I remember.
One of the sites especially hosted more than 5 or 6 frogfish specimen including a hairy one, a dozen ornate ghost pipefish -some of them carrying an egg full pouch-, a juvenile mimic octopus, a couple of Coleman shrimps and miscellaneous critters I don’t even remember. Not bad for a single 80 minutes dive!
A hairy frogfish :
One of the many frogfish spotted in Ambon :
Ornate ghost pipefish couple :
Ornate ghost pipefish egg pouch detail :
Harlequin shrimp snacking on a starfish :
On the last day I decided to move on and try the new Blue Motion dive centre which is located right in front of Laha fishing boat pier, the heart of the famous “Twilight zone”. German owned Blue Motion runs a dive operation in Bandaneira, my initial dive plan, and also has a base in Ambon.
I had some very good and reliable communication coming from Blue Motion, which is not surprising from a german managed centre. They have thought about all aspects and carefully selected their marketing : they’re positioned on budget side of diving, the cheapest in Ambon while renting excellent equipment (Wings and Apeks regs). Unlike other dive centres in Ambon, they will advise for guesthouses rather than provide their own accommodations.
The downside is that for the moment they’re the newbies in Ambon and have little experience on the dive sites and the critters, but they plan in the future to hire local experienced guides. Yet, I could spot one of the critters I expected to tick off my list : the ugly and devilish looking crocodile snake eel.
For two years I have been dreaming of diving both Banda islands and Nusa Laut in Maluku. This was something that became like an alarm device, ready to blow a horn whenever any dive opportunity would pop up.
I had focused first on a nice and relax stay in Lembongan, nearly booked a room with TwoFish when I received a mail from my favorite guesthouse, Mutiara in Bandaneira saying that NBA would increase the number of flight rotations at the end of the year. The alarm horn blew loudly, therefore we jumped on the occasion and booked our flights to Ambon, forgot Bali (sorry Laurent), arranged bookings to Bandaneira for a week and also for a mini safari trip to the Lease islands with Blue Rose Divers Ambon.
As soon as I had booked and paid my flight tickets, other news scripted on my mail client: NBA on the verge of bankruptcy was cancelling all their flight Ambon Bandaneira for the end of the year. My Bandanese dreams sank again.
Anyway, I had to find a substitute to Banda, so like many people I met on premises, we traded a week on Bandaneira against a few days in Southern Maluku’s Kei Kecil to witness what was buzzing on the travellers trail like the most beautiful beach on earth : Oiderlihir.
Despite efforts from Bob who's managing Coaster Cottages in Kei, we couldn’t find any compressor nor any dive master to provide me with a few dives around, hence I can’t say what’s diving like around Kei.
But I still can show the beach pictures, though… you go with 3km like this, Okay?
So that's the place where on Xmas day we popped up and shared a Ruinart champagne bottle we brought back from France with 10 other travelers. It probably felt too little in the glass but at least we could say we had a toast on Xmas.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sidenote : I’ll skip the many difficulties to arrange something clear going through various Indonesian intermediates… Guys, don’t try this by yourself at home if you’re not ready to cope with the famous Indonesian “jam karet” perception (elastic time).
I was even surprised many things would fail after a mail, another confirmation mail, a third mail, a phone call on the day before and a SMS on the morning… but what can you do, the power of “Jam Karet” is strong as the Indonesian Throughflow.
Ok I may sound harsh, some local people are highly reliable and recommendable (Bob from Coaster cottages, Abba from Mutiara, Pak Agust from Molana, etc.), some simply aren’t. It would be a great improvement if Jam Karet afficionados would wear a badge, a distinctive cap, a bumper sticker saying “I believe in Jam Karet”. Will make thing easier. Thanks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 1 : Ambon diving :
Ambon is becoming a second dive home for me after 3 stays over the past two years : as usual I booked dives with Blue Rose Divers.
I also had the chance to meet and dive with Jovin a regular of the board and CC from Penang, we dived altogether in Ambon and Molana. It was great fun and very nice moments which hopefully will be resumed in the future.
Divewise it seems Ambon got severely hit by august floods that silted many of the top sites in Ambon bay. The famous Twilight Zone, which is considered as the jewel of the crown, got nastily affected with silt coming from the land floods, I hardly recognized the fantastic sites I dived in the two past years.
It seemed the diving hotspots moved to the south of the bay, Maluku Divers boats which I would seldom see a year before were also regularly diving this part at the time I was there.
Since a bad thing is always balanced with a good one, the south bay sites were even better than what I remember.
One of the sites especially hosted more than 5 or 6 frogfish specimen including a hairy one, a dozen ornate ghost pipefish -some of them carrying an egg full pouch-, a juvenile mimic octopus, a couple of Coleman shrimps and miscellaneous critters I don’t even remember. Not bad for a single 80 minutes dive!
A hairy frogfish :
One of the many frogfish spotted in Ambon :
Ornate ghost pipefish couple :
Ornate ghost pipefish egg pouch detail :
Harlequin shrimp snacking on a starfish :
On the last day I decided to move on and try the new Blue Motion dive centre which is located right in front of Laha fishing boat pier, the heart of the famous “Twilight zone”. German owned Blue Motion runs a dive operation in Bandaneira, my initial dive plan, and also has a base in Ambon.
I had some very good and reliable communication coming from Blue Motion, which is not surprising from a german managed centre. They have thought about all aspects and carefully selected their marketing : they’re positioned on budget side of diving, the cheapest in Ambon while renting excellent equipment (Wings and Apeks regs). Unlike other dive centres in Ambon, they will advise for guesthouses rather than provide their own accommodations.
The downside is that for the moment they’re the newbies in Ambon and have little experience on the dive sites and the critters, but they plan in the future to hire local experienced guides. Yet, I could spot one of the critters I expected to tick off my list : the ugly and devilish looking crocodile snake eel.
Last edited:
