Luko
Contributor
Not so much information about Maumere - Flores island, hence I will try to fill a part of the gap with this report of only three days in Maumere (from aug 13th to aug.15th 2010), two of them diving, coming from Labuan Bajo.
We arranged our stay with Seaworld, very nice operation set right on a gorgeous black sand beach 10km east of Maumere town. The operation is run by a german missionary, bungalows range to basic shared bathroom to aircon beach front suites, restaurant is very good and ther’s a dive centre on premises run by Alex the first Indonesian diver on Maumere, diving in the bay from from 86.
Our bungalow in Seaworld.
Most of all, Seaworld will be happy to arrange any transfers from anywhere in Flores, find the best solution for your itinerary and book your car+accoms.
We decided to rent a 4WD+driver and ride slowly across Flores island from Labuan Bajo to Maumere in 4 days with overnight stops in Ruteng (nothing special some tribes), Bajawa (authentic villages around, gorgeous landscapes along the road) and Moni (the famous Kelimutu 3-color lakes, beautiful). :cool2:
For those who do not know anything about Maumere, it was considered as one of SEA diving highlights long ago until the area was struck by an earthquake and a tsunami wave in 1992.1500 people were killed, mostly islanders living on the northwest coast of the islands located inside Maumere bay. :shocked2:
Almost twenty years afterwards, the coral has completely recovered, the place also knows a popularity raise amongst the divers community because of the macro.
Hence I focused my two days diving in Maumere on both sides, the first was dedicated to coral and wall dives, the second was (supposed to be
) focused on macro and muck.
All dives begin about 20km east of Seaworld dive centre, either from the shore for muck or from Nangahale beach, the closest point to the islands to catch a small fishing boat that would be our dive boat.
Maumere bay is known for game fish especially marlins, unfortunately we didn’t see any, and dolphins, which accompanied us on our return trip.
On day 1 : After 45minutes boatride, we began our dive along Pulau Babi wall on the spot named aptky “the crack”. It’s a vertical wall were suddenly the reef splits in halves on 30m depth for about a 50cm wide crack, this is the most visible consequence of the earthquake. The walls and the “crack” are beautifully populated with gorgonians and corals. Visibility was great, up to 25/30m, I reckon the coral coverage could compete on some areas with Komodo, though I found the fish was not so abundant,although we spotted jackfish, napoleons, turtles and whitetips. Alex explained the lack of fish was due to the absence of current at the time we dived.
The second dive was achieved on Panga Batang, south of the bay islands. More a slope than a wall, visibility was lesser to 15/18m, again a very good coral coverage with lots of variety on huge bommies, huge round sponges as well…No current and again the lack of fish was blatant. Nevertheless I was quite content with my reef landscape photography.
On day 2, Alex decided to satisfy my lust for macro as he told me we ou rprogram would be muck diving. That was dandy for me, although either a misunderstanding happened or Alex was mesmerized with my camera equipment, but in the end Alex was waiting for me to show him macro stuff on very uninteresting grounds at Nangalahe beach. :shocked2:
Therefore we only found some blenny & symbiotal shrimp opportunities and a colorful tube anemone on the black volcano ash bottom of this bare site, nothing like Lembeh, probably one of the three less interesting and most boring dives I had ever done.
Alex decided then to move on to Waiterang wreck nearby which is a Japanese landing ship or sort of (nobody knows), the wreck is covered with gorgonians and interesting stuff macrowise, I found three allied cowries apparently laying eggs on a single red gorgonian, topped with a longnose hawkfish, I had to show the scene for 30 seconds before Alex understood what was going on. Unfortunately the wreck is quite deep at 33m hence the dive time is too short to drill into every bunch of coral supposed to host ghostpipefishes, halgerda and other sorts of nudis, well are plentiful on the wreck structures, scorpionfishes as.well. Near the hull, you may come across a jackfish school while on top of the deck, a batfish school hovers around the divers, then the computer beeps for deco : its time to spend 30 minutes on the top of a mucky reef that would deserve a more macro experienced guide. All in all, a very interesting dive that would certainly deserve a second dive on nitrox… which is not available…
As a conclusion for this short trip :
First class accommodation in Seaworld, high quality/price ratio, the place deserves a longer stay than 2 days diving, Ok for corals but Alex should put more efforts and interest into macro stuff. There’s another indo-swiss run resort & dive operation called Happy Dive/Ankermi, where the dive guides are supposed to focus on macro stuff. But as they say “you can’t always get what you want”, the accommodation and the beachside are really not up to Seaworld.
I would probably not recommend Maumere as a final dive destination for the moment but I think its laid back dive spots may well complement high voltage diving areas like Komodo or Alor at the end of a long holiday.
Besides that the landside trip in Flores is beautiful, Kelimutu lakes are worthwhile seeing, so atmospheric at sunrise, t hedrawback being that Moni accommodation and restaurant options utterly suck with the exception of the newly opened Kelimutu Eco Resort.
If you want more details on where to stay & what to do in Flores, don’t hesitate to drop me a PM.
----------------------------------------
More and bigger photos on my pbase gallery : Maumere trip.
We arranged our stay with Seaworld, very nice operation set right on a gorgeous black sand beach 10km east of Maumere town. The operation is run by a german missionary, bungalows range to basic shared bathroom to aircon beach front suites, restaurant is very good and ther’s a dive centre on premises run by Alex the first Indonesian diver on Maumere, diving in the bay from from 86.
Our bungalow in Seaworld.
Most of all, Seaworld will be happy to arrange any transfers from anywhere in Flores, find the best solution for your itinerary and book your car+accoms.
We decided to rent a 4WD+driver and ride slowly across Flores island from Labuan Bajo to Maumere in 4 days with overnight stops in Ruteng (nothing special some tribes), Bajawa (authentic villages around, gorgeous landscapes along the road) and Moni (the famous Kelimutu 3-color lakes, beautiful). :cool2:
For those who do not know anything about Maumere, it was considered as one of SEA diving highlights long ago until the area was struck by an earthquake and a tsunami wave in 1992.1500 people were killed, mostly islanders living on the northwest coast of the islands located inside Maumere bay. :shocked2:
Almost twenty years afterwards, the coral has completely recovered, the place also knows a popularity raise amongst the divers community because of the macro.
Hence I focused my two days diving in Maumere on both sides, the first was dedicated to coral and wall dives, the second was (supposed to be
) focused on macro and muck.All dives begin about 20km east of Seaworld dive centre, either from the shore for muck or from Nangahale beach, the closest point to the islands to catch a small fishing boat that would be our dive boat.
Maumere bay is known for game fish especially marlins, unfortunately we didn’t see any, and dolphins, which accompanied us on our return trip.
On day 1 : After 45minutes boatride, we began our dive along Pulau Babi wall on the spot named aptky “the crack”. It’s a vertical wall were suddenly the reef splits in halves on 30m depth for about a 50cm wide crack, this is the most visible consequence of the earthquake. The walls and the “crack” are beautifully populated with gorgonians and corals. Visibility was great, up to 25/30m, I reckon the coral coverage could compete on some areas with Komodo, though I found the fish was not so abundant,although we spotted jackfish, napoleons, turtles and whitetips. Alex explained the lack of fish was due to the absence of current at the time we dived.
The second dive was achieved on Panga Batang, south of the bay islands. More a slope than a wall, visibility was lesser to 15/18m, again a very good coral coverage with lots of variety on huge bommies, huge round sponges as well…No current and again the lack of fish was blatant. Nevertheless I was quite content with my reef landscape photography.
On day 2, Alex decided to satisfy my lust for macro as he told me we ou rprogram would be muck diving. That was dandy for me, although either a misunderstanding happened or Alex was mesmerized with my camera equipment, but in the end Alex was waiting for me to show him macro stuff on very uninteresting grounds at Nangalahe beach. :shocked2:
Therefore we only found some blenny & symbiotal shrimp opportunities and a colorful tube anemone on the black volcano ash bottom of this bare site, nothing like Lembeh, probably one of the three less interesting and most boring dives I had ever done.
Alex decided then to move on to Waiterang wreck nearby which is a Japanese landing ship or sort of (nobody knows), the wreck is covered with gorgonians and interesting stuff macrowise, I found three allied cowries apparently laying eggs on a single red gorgonian, topped with a longnose hawkfish, I had to show the scene for 30 seconds before Alex understood what was going on. Unfortunately the wreck is quite deep at 33m hence the dive time is too short to drill into every bunch of coral supposed to host ghostpipefishes, halgerda and other sorts of nudis, well are plentiful on the wreck structures, scorpionfishes as.well. Near the hull, you may come across a jackfish school while on top of the deck, a batfish school hovers around the divers, then the computer beeps for deco : its time to spend 30 minutes on the top of a mucky reef that would deserve a more macro experienced guide. All in all, a very interesting dive that would certainly deserve a second dive on nitrox… which is not available…
As a conclusion for this short trip :
First class accommodation in Seaworld, high quality/price ratio, the place deserves a longer stay than 2 days diving, Ok for corals but Alex should put more efforts and interest into macro stuff. There’s another indo-swiss run resort & dive operation called Happy Dive/Ankermi, where the dive guides are supposed to focus on macro stuff. But as they say “you can’t always get what you want”, the accommodation and the beachside are really not up to Seaworld.
I would probably not recommend Maumere as a final dive destination for the moment but I think its laid back dive spots may well complement high voltage diving areas like Komodo or Alor at the end of a long holiday.
Besides that the landside trip in Flores is beautiful, Kelimutu lakes are worthwhile seeing, so atmospheric at sunrise, t hedrawback being that Moni accommodation and restaurant options utterly suck with the exception of the newly opened Kelimutu Eco Resort.
If you want more details on where to stay & what to do in Flores, don’t hesitate to drop me a PM.
----------------------------------------
More and bigger photos on my pbase gallery : Maumere trip.
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Can I ask what camera setup you are using?
