Alor:
Vis: 5 (during my dives - approx 50 during 5 visits - always > 20 meters)
Corals: 5 (all intact, huge coral gardens)
Marine Life: 5 (both, small and large in huge quantities)
Lombok (the Gilis):
Vis: 3 (around 10 to 15m)
Corals: 1.5 (most of them broken due to dynamite fishing and natural causes)
Marine Life: 3 (apart of large quantities of turtles not much)
Lombok (South, "Magnet"):
Vis: 2 (< 10m)
Corals: 2 (it's a rock, therefore not many corals)
Marine Life: 2 (but Hammerhead Sharks ;-) )
Flores (Labuan Bajo towards Rinca):
Vis: 4 (15 to 20m)
Corals: 3.5 (some places good, some with less corals)
Marine Life: 3.5 (lots of Mantas)
HTH,
Andy
Hello Andy, on a 0-5 rating system, I second your Alor rating:
Viz: 5, best I've ever seen, well over 100ft most sites, except in the bay, which can't be helped.
Corals: 5, fantastic hard coral and soft corals, huge variety, as healthy as any I've seen, including Papua New Guinea.
Marine life: 5, big and small, plenty of sharks, big tuna, dolphins, frog fishes, mandarin fish, coconut octupus, rhinopias, etc...
Komodo
Viz: 4, some bad viz down south on both trips, in both seasons, 2 trips.
Corals: 4.5, not quite as much variety of hard and soft corals as Alor.
Marine life: 4.25, not as many big apex predators as Alor and not as much variety of small life as Alor or Ambon, but more mantas than Alor, Ambon or Bali.
Ambon
Viz: 4.5, mostly very good, but some inshore viz was not so great, probably because of the rainfall runoff and mountainous nature of the island.
Corals: 4.5, healthy and good variety. But way too much trash in the water.
Marine life: 4.75, plenty of sharks, lots of giant trevally, large schools of fish, even saw a dead whale in the harbor, but not as much variety as Alor. Small stuff was amazing, best I've seen in Indonesia-rhinopias, cockatoo waspfish, inimicus, many types ghost pipe fishes and scorpian fishes, some huge decorator crabs, excellent night diving right off the resort.
Bali
Viz: 3.5, the farther from Bali, the better it got, with farthest point of Nusa Penida being excellent.
Corals: 3, a substantial amount of bad, silted, dead areas near shore and on the near side of Nusa Penida, but over all, some good variety and some very healthy areas on the far side of Nusa Penida.
Marine Life: 3.75, some really nice big stuff-Big mantas at Manta Point, saw dolphins underwater there too. Good small stuff at some sights, plenty of fish, especially in the far side of Nusa Penida.
Lombok, Trawangan
Viz: 4, mostly very good
Corals: 2, near shore, mostly silt covered and broken, and not much variety, some healthy stuff farther from shore. Probably related to the high number of divers going there.
Marine life: 2.5, not terrible in terms of numbers of fish, but nothing big and not much variety.
Always nice to take a trip down dive memory lane, -Andy