Luko
Contributor
I’d like to point out that what follows is entirely Scubaboard’s fault, your honor. 
Most guilty are members Wahlaoeh, Kilili, Silent Running, Jake11, Wisnu & Kevster : after reading their own reports on the destination, I couldn’t help but drool at the idea of diving Ambon and Maluku.
It took me only a few months to decide that Central Maluku was going to be my next dive destination. It is not very easy to get information or how, when and where to dive or stay but with the help of these members whom I am very thankful for replying my questions, and with a little bit of search on remote travel forums, my arrangements where set almost seamlessly. :cool2:
From Europe, I chose getting to Ambon on transit through Singapore then Jakarta. I stopovered one night at the convenient though quite gloomy Jakarta airport hotel, to take a Batavia flight early morning to Ambon, transiting through Surabaya. Courageous people would have flown directly from Jakarta with LionAir 1AM flight arriving early morning n Ambon, but we already had a 13 hours flights and cramped legs, hence we decided to play easy.
The good news is that you can book and pay directly through Paypal on Batavia airlines website, it was also possible to pay online for Lion Air tickets. Indonesian airlines network is truly stepping into 21st century net economy.
As I reckoned it was not far enough, I had to go beyond Ambon to go to where the diving frontier finishes. Hence we decided to give Saparua and Molana the chance of a report on SB : fortunately, I read somewhere a local dive centre had re-opened a month ago on Saparua and was ready to service Nusa Laut and Molana islands.
There's already a ridiculously expensive Swiss dive centre operating in Saparua, but I certainly wasn’t ready to shell out 300USD for one night stay and 50USD per dive (I mean, come on, we’re in Indonesia! A good meal doesn’t cost more than 8USD.)
Topside, I was also willing to see the legendary spice islands and Bandanaira, despite all warnings I received for the chances of getting stranded on the island, due to often cancellation of flights and poor ferry service.
I can now claim that the information I received from various travel sources regarding the Banda islands was mostly untrue, including a dive op who told me there was no more dive operation in Banda, being there, I can now state there are at least three ops that allow diving around Banda, Hatta or Ai, not of course a PADI 5 star type, although providing full diving genuine equipment and skilled guides.
1-Ambon muck diving
Ambon diving was on top of my expectations, I must say it lived up. My only regret is that I cannot return in august since it will be monsoon, white water time, “air putih” as they say.
I dived with Blue Rose which was recommended to me by one member (thanks so much Jovin!). Robert a young local guide, speaks fair English, certainly better than any other operational staff I BRD, he is a die hard PASSIONATE diver about muck diving. I enjoyed having the whole boat and his services for myself three days out of five, and that was amazing. Blue rose is set on the southern side of the island on Santai beach so it can cater bay diving as well as southern coral reef diving.
It's probably a good choice to select Collin beach bungalows nearby, which are in the medium range accoms, nothing fancy though more comfortable than the run down Santai beach resort. 30 USD per night for aircon bungalows. On our side we chose to stay at the "luxurious" (well...
) Aston Natsepa hotel, with the only pool in town, but it is a pain in the neck as it is 1hr ride from the dive center, I had to hire my own driver Mr Lexi each day, for the ride as well as for the dinners in town.
Ambon really has to do something for tourism comfort.
Ambon is firstly muck diving within its incredibly large bay (Ambon island shape is a like cartoon sperm whale, mouth open, the muck dive happens inside the mouth). It takes not more than 20 minutes to get to the most prestigious muck sites like Laha 2, which is the famous fishing harbor site. I was already prepared for extreme muck, noticing rainbow colored petrol and all sorts of stuff floating on the surface, but once I was 5m deep, I was struck by the unusually good visibility which reached 20-25 meters some days even in the muckiest areas.
These sites are black sand and small rocks slope with a slight downcurrent, some parts are covered with fire urchins, it’s like picking easter eggs to find zebra crabs or Coleman shrimps, up to 5-6 on one dive. On some other parts rubbish is used by ghost pipefish to hide, its moray eel galore too, I have never seen so many snowflake morays, you may also find snake eels, loads of seahorse (is an average of 10 per dive loads enough?), lots of crustacia like bumblebee shrimps hiding behind needle urchins, arrow spider crabs, decorator spider crabs, porcelain crabs, small inquisitive cuttlefish always in couple etc.
Robert was of course looking for Ambon’s main attractions : the psychedelic frogfish and Rhinopias. We could find any of those, he thinks the frogfish was eaten by a moray, as for the rhinopias as February waters are too warm they are now in the depth of the bay. Nevertheless we shifted to small Painted frogfish hunt. We also missed the most interesting octopi kind like mimic or blue ringed, which according to Robert, can be found during the colder water months.
The south side of the bay offers different muck diving although more colorful. Sites like Nudi Kingdom or Robert’s point (Yes, that’s his spot) provides small walls of colorful sponges, with nudibranches, sometimes as many as 4 or 5 frogfishes, plenty of cleaning blennies photo ops, interesting shrimps or coral crab life.
Most guilty are members Wahlaoeh, Kilili, Silent Running, Jake11, Wisnu & Kevster : after reading their own reports on the destination, I couldn’t help but drool at the idea of diving Ambon and Maluku.
It took me only a few months to decide that Central Maluku was going to be my next dive destination. It is not very easy to get information or how, when and where to dive or stay but with the help of these members whom I am very thankful for replying my questions, and with a little bit of search on remote travel forums, my arrangements where set almost seamlessly. :cool2:
From Europe, I chose getting to Ambon on transit through Singapore then Jakarta. I stopovered one night at the convenient though quite gloomy Jakarta airport hotel, to take a Batavia flight early morning to Ambon, transiting through Surabaya. Courageous people would have flown directly from Jakarta with LionAir 1AM flight arriving early morning n Ambon, but we already had a 13 hours flights and cramped legs, hence we decided to play easy.
The good news is that you can book and pay directly through Paypal on Batavia airlines website, it was also possible to pay online for Lion Air tickets. Indonesian airlines network is truly stepping into 21st century net economy.
As I reckoned it was not far enough, I had to go beyond Ambon to go to where the diving frontier finishes. Hence we decided to give Saparua and Molana the chance of a report on SB : fortunately, I read somewhere a local dive centre had re-opened a month ago on Saparua and was ready to service Nusa Laut and Molana islands.
There's already a ridiculously expensive Swiss dive centre operating in Saparua, but I certainly wasn’t ready to shell out 300USD for one night stay and 50USD per dive (I mean, come on, we’re in Indonesia! A good meal doesn’t cost more than 8USD.)
Topside, I was also willing to see the legendary spice islands and Bandanaira, despite all warnings I received for the chances of getting stranded on the island, due to often cancellation of flights and poor ferry service.
I can now claim that the information I received from various travel sources regarding the Banda islands was mostly untrue, including a dive op who told me there was no more dive operation in Banda, being there, I can now state there are at least three ops that allow diving around Banda, Hatta or Ai, not of course a PADI 5 star type, although providing full diving genuine equipment and skilled guides.
1-Ambon muck diving
Ambon diving was on top of my expectations, I must say it lived up. My only regret is that I cannot return in august since it will be monsoon, white water time, “air putih” as they say.
I dived with Blue Rose which was recommended to me by one member (thanks so much Jovin!). Robert a young local guide, speaks fair English, certainly better than any other operational staff I BRD, he is a die hard PASSIONATE diver about muck diving. I enjoyed having the whole boat and his services for myself three days out of five, and that was amazing. Blue rose is set on the southern side of the island on Santai beach so it can cater bay diving as well as southern coral reef diving.
It's probably a good choice to select Collin beach bungalows nearby, which are in the medium range accoms, nothing fancy though more comfortable than the run down Santai beach resort. 30 USD per night for aircon bungalows. On our side we chose to stay at the "luxurious" (well...
) Aston Natsepa hotel, with the only pool in town, but it is a pain in the neck as it is 1hr ride from the dive center, I had to hire my own driver Mr Lexi each day, for the ride as well as for the dinners in town. Ambon really has to do something for tourism comfort.
Ambon is firstly muck diving within its incredibly large bay (Ambon island shape is a like cartoon sperm whale, mouth open, the muck dive happens inside the mouth). It takes not more than 20 minutes to get to the most prestigious muck sites like Laha 2, which is the famous fishing harbor site. I was already prepared for extreme muck, noticing rainbow colored petrol and all sorts of stuff floating on the surface, but once I was 5m deep, I was struck by the unusually good visibility which reached 20-25 meters some days even in the muckiest areas.
These sites are black sand and small rocks slope with a slight downcurrent, some parts are covered with fire urchins, it’s like picking easter eggs to find zebra crabs or Coleman shrimps, up to 5-6 on one dive. On some other parts rubbish is used by ghost pipefish to hide, its moray eel galore too, I have never seen so many snowflake morays, you may also find snake eels, loads of seahorse (is an average of 10 per dive loads enough?), lots of crustacia like bumblebee shrimps hiding behind needle urchins, arrow spider crabs, decorator spider crabs, porcelain crabs, small inquisitive cuttlefish always in couple etc.
Robert was of course looking for Ambon’s main attractions : the psychedelic frogfish and Rhinopias. We could find any of those, he thinks the frogfish was eaten by a moray, as for the rhinopias as February waters are too warm they are now in the depth of the bay. Nevertheless we shifted to small Painted frogfish hunt. We also missed the most interesting octopi kind like mimic or blue ringed, which according to Robert, can be found during the colder water months.
The south side of the bay offers different muck diving although more colorful. Sites like Nudi Kingdom or Robert’s point (Yes, that’s his spot) provides small walls of colorful sponges, with nudibranches, sometimes as many as 4 or 5 frogfishes, plenty of cleaning blennies photo ops, interesting shrimps or coral crab life.
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