Getting there (Ex SIN to Ambon):
Flew from Singapore to Bali via SQ, 2hr 15 mins flight, overnight at Bali. Next morning met at Denpasar Domestic Terminal at 7.45am to catch the domestic flight to Makassar via Garuda. 1hr flight with a 2hr wait at Makassar for our Lion Air flight to Ambon. We had another 1½ hr flight on the tiny Lion Air plane, before we finally reached our destination Ambon. Met by Archipelago crew at Ambon airport. A 15 mins car ride to the “beach” to hop on to the tenders to get us to our boat, Archipelago II.
Archipelago Adventurer II
Accommodation: There were only 11 guests onboard so I had my own cabin with a double bed & a single bed on top...with lots of extra pillows for me to hug!
The room was fully air-conditioned with en-suite bathroom. Clean towels & warm blankets provided.
Staff: Very friendly, helpful & accommodating
Food: Light breakfast of cornflakes, bread with homemade jams, cakes before 1st dive, followed by proper breakfast order of eggs but our favourite…special request of either instant noodle soup, mee goring or nasi goring! Yum yum… Buffet style lunch comprising a mixture of local & Western dishes. Tea break in the afternoon is usually a dessert or some local cakes or instant noodles again for some of us! Last meal of the day is a sit down 3-course dinner. Free-flow of non-alcoholic drinks but for those who live on diet coke, please bring your own! We had lots of sashimi on the last few days, thanks to our fisherman Stefan! Verdict: Don’t even dream of losing weight, food is simply too good to resist!
Diving/ Sea Conditions:
Each diver given a crate to keep our loose items and it is placed below the slot allocated to us for our tank & BCD, labeled with our name…very organized. DMs will go out to check out the condition of dive site before giving us a short dive briefing. We get to our dive site by the 2 tenders and entry by back-roll. Water temp range from 25-27°C throughout the whole trip, would recommend at least a 3mm full-suit if you’re afraid of the cold.
Our 1st dive was a sunset check-out dive at the shipwreck. Vis was not fantastic but the wreck was interesting. There was already lots of soft coral growth on the wreck with lots of fish life and interesting critters. Would love to dive this wreck again with my camera! After the wreck dive, we started our cruise to Molana. We were told that Molana is good for pelagics but I only saw some critters on the reef, the big guys were not home.
After that we were off to Nusa Laut, which has a good mixture of fish action, nice soft corals at the reef and hard corals at the shallow end. Saw some Napoleons, Morays, huge school of Jacks, some critters on the reef and quite a few nudis. The visibility was about 10-20m & water temperature at 26°C.
Into the 2nd day on the cruise and we were at Seram, supposed to do exploration dives today. In the end we were only able to do 1 dive because the other sites were all just sand according to our DM Nus. A bit of current during descend but was manageable. Saw Dogtooth Tunas, Marble Ray, some Spanish Mackerel and Rainbow Runners. Visibility was about 15-20m and temperature at 26°C.
3rd day and we were at the famous Koon Island, also known as Too Many Fish so you should know what to expect! Lots of big & small fish action and of course I checked out the reef and found some critters too! Found a fishing net with a dead leopard shark and bumphead parrotfish trapped in it on the 3rd dive so we decided to return to the site to remove the net to prevent it from causing more harm the our friends underwater. We managed to get most of it up after lots of finning against the current to get to the net and getting the net all over ourselves when surfacing. Surge on was quite high so it was really quite a challenge to get the net onto the tender! Tough job but we all felt good afterwards…but I was still sad for the leopard shark. Visibility about 10-20m and water temperature 25-28°C.
We were off to Banda Islands after our adventure with the fishing net. Beautiful corals, overhangs with big sponges and sea fans are the highlights of the wall dives here. We had many sittings of devil rays, morays, giant groupers, lionfishes and scorpion fishes. A must do dive at Banda would be the Mandarin Fish dive at the jetty. We did a twilight dive and the big fat mandarins are not shy like the ones I’ve seen at Mabul or Malapascua. These fellows here are big show offs, swimming up to mate in the spotlight of all our torches! Another must see here would be the wonderful garden of hard corals at the Lava Tubes (not sure if I got the dive site name correctly), it was simply amazing. Visibility ranges from 10-20m and water temperature 25-27°C.
After spending 2 days at Banda Islands we were off the Pulau Ai and Run. Highlight of the day…HAMMERHEADS up close and personal with our group of divers! That dive started with a beautiful eagle ray swimming gracefully pass us, followed by devil rays…and then we saw 1 lone hammerhead above our group! Thought that was enough to excite us but shortly after that 5 of them came close to us and while we were all still watching those guys swimming around right below us, the one above was still cruising around…awesome! Of course the other big guys were around too…napoleons, giant barracudas, dogtooth tunas, turtles…and many more. Visibility about 15-20m and water temperature 27-28°C.
Finally we were on the last leg of our cruise, to the Lucipara Islands…the world class walls! Lots of dogtooth tunas, giant barracudas, turtles of course, else there wouldn’t be a group of islands named Turtle Islands or Pulau Penyu. Lots of critters on the reef as well if you bother to pay some attention to the reef instead of just looking out into the blue for the pelagics. We went for a nice quiet walk on one of the little islands when the crew went to drop the buoy for night dive. Found lots of left over turtles nests on the white sandy beach. Finally had chance to do a night dive on this trip at Pulau Penyu. If the think the walls here are lovely in the day with the beautiful soft corals and over-hangs, they were magnificent at night! I found Saron shrimps, loads of coral shrimps & crabs, the sleeping gobbies & hawkfishes on the corals were so cute! The yellow soft corals made the wall look like a beautiful flower wall…thank you Buck…again, for asking me to go for the dive. Visibility about 20-30m and water temperature was warmer here, 27-28°C.
We had another adventure at the Lucipara Islands after one of our dive…our DM Nus thought he saw 2 turtles on the surface mating, so we went over in the tender to watch. It turned out to be 2 turtles trapped in a fishing net, struggling on the surface! Our hero Nick jumped into the water & pulled the net close to the tender so the rest helped to cut them loose. Managed to free another unicorn fish and even a cute little algae frogfish from the net!
Last night on the boat and the whole crew came out to sing for us after dinner. After that all of us joined in the party to dance! When the music died down, it was really nice just sit at the top deck and watch the stars…was nice & calm when we sail back to Ambon.
I had a wonderful time on the Archipelago Adventurer II and we were already planning when to come back for another cruise before we even step off the boat. Thank you once again the crew onboard for making our stay so unforgettable…special thanks to Nus, Buck, Jimmy & Robert for taking such good care of us underwater and making the diving so fun! Thank you Nick, Michelle, Ai Lin, Vince, Agent Glenn, Jonathan, Rainer, Agatha and Stefan for being such good company on the trip.
Useful Links:
http://www.archipelago-fleet.com
http://www.unexploredadventures.com
Till the next bubbles….
Your beloved Evil Witch!
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