Suggestions for our third (land based) Indonesian dive holiday?

[afieldofblue]

Hello all,

My wife and I are off to Indonesia again for two months in July-August. It's our third visit.

So far we've been diving in the Gili Islands, Bunaken, the Togians, Bira, Pulau Weh and last February central Raja Ampat.

This is what we've go planned so far:

This time we'll be entering Indonesia in Bali (from KL), and will spend a few days (roughly one week) there to dive Tulamben / Amed, Lembongan, Menjangan and maybe, Nusa Penida (we have some current experience from Bira and Raja Ampat, but the number of accidents reported there is slightly worrying).

From there, we'll fly to Labuan Bajo and stay for 10/15 days or so doing land based diving of sites in the Komodo National Park, maybe throwing in a couple of nights on expensive Kanawa Island or Seraya island for snorkelling as well.

We've ruled out LOBs because of the price but also mostly because we enjoy being on land in the evening.
We have more time than money, so can rest for a day if one of us is feeling tired, and also like the freedom to walk around, relax, choose our food instead of staying on a boat.
We're planning on doing at least 10 dives in the area (Batu Bolong, Crystal + Castle Rock are high on our wish list), and spacing them out to make up for the long boat rides to the sites.

Bajo Diver Club seems to have one of the largest boats around, good prices and were recommended to us so we'll probably go with them, or Divine Divers.
I'm sure it will be fine, we've seen a lot of mantas on Kri last February so don't really need a manta fix just now, just lots of fish!
I'm more worried about the prices and availability of accommodation in Labuan Bajo, to be honest.

We both really enjoyed Pulau Weh, (stayed at Pak Tua's) so will probably spend a week or so there on the tail end of our trip before catching a flight back from Banda Aceh to KL and grey ol' Europe.

So this has the first three weeks and the last week of our 2 month trip sorted out.
But we still have roughly than a month to fill, and were wondering what you wise people would recommend diving wise.


Would you recommend going to some other sites on Flores? Alor? Lombok? Kalimantan?
Mollukus / Banda Neira look great but it's not the right season apparently.
We've already spent a lot of time in Sulawessi and would like to see something else.
We'll be staying in Indonesia this time, no Mabul/Sipadan/PomPom on this trip, saving this for another time.

Central Raja Ampat in August?
We're seriously considering going back to a homestay on Kri island, even though it's the windy / rough seas season, because we absolutely loved it there.
We already did 20 dives in the dampiers strait, so we'd do less this time, and also snorkel some.

But it's a lot of airfare to get to Sorong, and we don't really know what to expect in August.
So far we're thinking along the lines of saving our money for our next trip to R4 this European winter.
But it's still very tempting, 3 weeks in a quiet off-season homestay... Is diving really that rough in August? I've heard the viz was great, but no mantas which is fine with us.


About us:
we're freshish divers with 60+ dives. We enjoy both big and small stuff, and love it when there's lots of life around us on dives. Which is why we loved the Dampier Straits more than anything we've dived so far...
We've just started getting into UW photography. We like critters but are not ready for low viz muck diving sites yet. We actually like current.

We're diving on a budget, and used to cold water mandi / repetitive fish and rice homestay type of basic accommodation.
This is difficult in high season, but we try to avoid crowds and closed-in resorts. We have our own equipment, suits including safety gear (SMB's etc), everything except BCD's and regs, and enjoy land based, good diving with local dive guides.

Thanks in advance for your help!

ben

 

[Luko]

Would suggest Alor, (even though if I compare with your experience I didn't like Weh at all).
Probably La petite Kepa would be within your budget in Alor, personally I like Alor Eco divers but that would be too expensive for you.
Central Maluku is completely out of season, forget it.
There is no reason to worry for nusa penida if you're diving with serious local centers like 2fish, Bigfish, LDC or WorldDiving, would be rather circumspect for some dive centres on the cheap in Lembongan (one of which had a loss record).
Availability of cheap accoms is indeed an issue in LBJ, you have to book early beforehand, only pricey accoms are now abundant with the new resorts open the last 4 years.

 

[afieldofblue]

Hi Luko, and thanks.

Alor is indeed high on our list. I'll look into it some more. I've read about La Petite Kepa a while (including some pretty weird stories about secret phone numbers and whatnot, but I'm a little wary of internet rumors), and will look into it some more. Their rates are in our price range.

In Pulau Weh we had bad viz.
Plankton bloom / change of tides, but the diving was still really nice, as well as the snorkelling on the house reef. We didn't stay in Iboh, but at Stephen's / Pak Tua's, very nice budget operation, no one around. It was in September, so the low season had just begun.
We went to Iboh once to get to an ATM and couldn't really imagine staying there though.

We did something like 10 boat dives, with surface time back at the homestay. It was very pleasant despite the viz, and I figured it would be a nice place to end the trip, and maybe get good viz this time. And the air asia flight to KL is also very convenient...

So budget accommodation in LBJ is really a problem... I don't really booking accommodation in advance in Indonesia, as it means fixing a firm arrival date and most of the time it doesn't work anyway, but I'll look into it as soon as we set a date for the Bali / LBJ flight.

I looks like it's going to be a choice between:

Alor / Maratua and Kri Island / Central Raja Ampat in August...

 

[Luko]

Hmmh... dunno whether Maratua is worth the tedious trip divingwise.
Just wondering : you say you spent a lot of time in N/Sulawesi but I only see Bunaken mentioned in your dive credentials, so you missed out Bangka, ie. the best diving in North Sulawesi? Gotta go back urgently if that is the case, before the ongoing land mining ruins the place.

 

[afieldofblue]

Hi,
Yes, missed out on Bangka and Lembeh.

Knowing how difficult such a question might be, would you recommend Bangka over Alor?
I think we'd ruled out Bangka for price reasons at the time. Flights from Bali to Manado are cheap, but I'll have to look into accommodation+diving. From what I remember it wasn't exactly cheap / in the budget homestay range.

I've been reading up on Maratua, and as attractive as the massive school of barracudas + relative isolation sounds, it doesn't really sound like a good idea for this trip. Probably save it for another trip including Semporna (we haven't been to Sipadan yet and have friends on Pom Pom).

You would rule out Kri island in July?
Simply getting to Sorong after Labuan Bajo adds an extra 1000 euros, so we might not be able to handle that and still have enough dive money left, really depends on what the gods of freelancing have in store for us the next 3 months, but it's still tempting...


Love your photos, by the way

cheers

ben

 

[Luko]

How fun...I did a Komodo-Flores-Bali-KL-Sipadan trip in 2010 and a KL-Weh-Bangka-Bali trip in 2011. I'd reckon only one geographical split but not two is feasible in a single trip, Bangka+Komodo+Weh seems quite ambitious in terms of traveling and flights, since it implies 3 different regional hubs.
Bangka+Raja ampat makes sense, flying from Manado to Sorong is easy and cheap, btw why not slip Ternate/Jailolo in between, never been there but it looks interesting in terms of adventure level.
KOmodo + Alor +Bali does also make sense.
I think you could also add Weh on top of any of these alternatives.
re- alor over Bangka, depends also on your diving abilities : Alor can be very very challenging, as much as Komodo.

 

[afieldofblue]

Flightwise, our first trip was a KL-Lombok-Bali-Makassar-Manado-Gorontalo-Makassar-KL-Kuching-KL-Weh-KL and our second KL-Makassar-Sorong-Makassar-Jakarta-KL

We already have the KL-Bali flight, and plan on getting a round trip from Bali to Labuan Bajo and back to Bali, on Garuda or Lion Air, they're roughly the same price.

Then back in Bali there's a Garuda or Lion to Manado...

Diving abilities... Hard to tell, we're still relatively inexperienced at only 60+ dives, but have had rather strong current in Bira and Raja Ampat and had no major difficulties, actually enjoyed it. I'd see we're solid, and keeping fit. My wife still has problems with efficient negative entries though.
We'll see how it goes in Komodo. But it would probably make more sense to plan some slightly more relaxed diving after Komodo.

I'm still not quite sure how diveable the Dampier Strait is in August. In say 3 weeks, we'd have time to give it a rest when the weather calls for it, but if we can only reach a couple of sites because of the waves it might be a little frustrating as well.

Ideally Bali-LB-Bali-Manado (Bangka?)-Sorong-Manado - KL or via Jakarta to Banda Aceh could be great. Might be a little ambitious financially though.
We could also skip Weh and hang out in a budget place in Bunaken instead. I guess I really need to find out if Bangka can be done on a budget and what diving Kri would be like August first.

 

[Wingy]

Dived Jailolo and Dampier Strait in September and weather and viz were fantastic. I certainly second Luko with Bangka - get there as quick as you can and yes, Bangka can definitely be done on a budget - Murex dive resort have a good deal on Bunaken, Bangka and Lembeh at the moment or you could just do Bangka and Lembeh then head onto Ternate (love the place from a historical viewpoint) or Sorong. From Sorong you have many options.

 

[Manneca]

I've dived twice with 2Fish on Lembongan. They do Nusa Penida a lot, but they are very, very safety conscious and will not go unless the conditions are decent. That said, the currents can be quite fast and can change rapidly. I like staying there. It's cheap. There are lots of places to walk and there is a good variety of places to have dinner. (tho if you dive, lunch is included at 2Fish, I much prefer to eat lunch out.)

 

[Luko]

Murex dive resort have a good deal on Bunaken, Bangka and Lembeh at the moment

Unfortunately this operation I used to like very much though have raised their prices significantly over the last year, I wouldn't say it's as interesting as it was (I was in Murex last week) and it looks also they are cutting down on the number of dive guides in Bangka, which means more expensive for less dive guides, not really the way customer value should be driven if you ask me... if budget is one of the main criteria, Murex cannot come at first rank anymore. Nomad divers or Coral eyes would come before.

As for Lembeh resort, I don't think I would come back again, really not my type of operation, lots of overage/retiree patronage, prices are insane, I paid 72USD for a night dive, how about that? ... add on top of that 25USD for a private guide.. 97USD for a single dive... wow... and on top of that they suggest a 15USD per day per guest tip.. some people have not realized they are not in the US or the Caribbean anymore.