papua, malucu, sorong, ambon, banda, etc ....

[funscuba]

I am perhaps planning to go over there from beginning of next february, do you know if it would be a better idea to fly straight (from makassar) to sorong area and do all it's area, or straight to ambon to start from there and do all the islands in it's area ? And then later to sorong and do the rest and continue to west papua ?
And does anybody know if there are any good dive spots, resorts in west papua ?

Thanks for the help !

 

[ocdiver1]

I've done the route Makassar to Sorong to Ambon to Makassar.... There are non stop flights covering this routing, and a great connection Ambon to Bali via Makassar if Bali is where you are consdering going to Banda Aceh from. I want to say it was Merpati Makassar-Sorong then Lion Sorong-Ambon and Ambon-Makassar, although I remember a couple of airlines flew Ambon-Makassar. I'd assume it would work in reverse, but all I can vouch for is the way I did it...all non stop flights with early-midmorning departures and arrivals so no overnights needed along the way with odd times or anything

 

[funscuba]

Thanks for the infos, I meant banda islands in the title, not banda aceh ( I couldn't find the tool to edit the first post, where do you find that ? )
I also would like to Biak, jayapura and halmahera, do you have any recents infos for those ? I hope the weather is good from february.

 

[ocdiver1]

For Banda Islands I really think you can only do those on a LOB. When I stayed at Maluku Divers in Ambon, they said there was no organized diving there and one would have to get a boat and take tanks etc. Since they would be who you would be diving with in Ambon, since there's no one else there, you could shoot them an email..they're nice people and I'm sure would be happy to give you info. There is one other dive op further out of Ambon called Cape Paperu, I believe..don't know anything about it, but Maluku Divers is right where the famous muck sites are in Ambon (Twilight Zone etc.). I've never been to Biak, Jayapura, Halmahera, only have info via friends I've met. I know Biak and Jayapura have quite a few flights. There's supposed to be good diving and several operators on Biak. I've been told Halmahera didn't have any organized diving ops but that might have changed. It's on some LOB itineraries and I have a friend who works on one who did a lot of exploratory diving there.

 

[Luko]

When I stayed at Maluku Divers in Ambon, they said there was no organized diving there.

...you could shoot them an email..they're nice people and I'm sure would be happy to give you info.

Hahahahaha...

 

[funscuba]

Thanks guys, always so difficult to get infos on these small remote places. You always get the main infos on the most structured ones, question of marketing, but very few if not on the smaller ones, which usually do exist most of the times.

 

[Bali Diver]

Not long back from West Papua east coast.Ahe Island most beautiful little island i have been on and whalesharks.Wonderful.Full report very soon

 

[funscuba]

Ahe island on my wish list actually, only waiting that they improve their logistics of what I read a while ago about their situation. Hope they did:blinking: