Day-by-day dairy of our Dive Adventure in search of Hammerhead sharks in the Banda Sea. Dive sites, inland activities and special notes from Alor to Ambon.
Alor, September 8
Here we are in Alor, the most eastern part of wonderful East Nusa Tenggara Province. It might not be as famous as Flores but this place really has its own charisma. Entering the area, you can see islands in their exotic colour surrounded by crystal clear ocean.
The diving day will start tomorrow so it’s the right time to look around the main land. We decided to go to Takpala Village, the only one traditional village that still exists in Alor. It takes 40 minutes by car from the harbour.
We already had a good feeling about this village and it’s true. The village is up on the hill so they really have a nice view of the ocean. Entering the village, a man in traditional clothes was welcoming us. We sat with him and he told the general things about the village. A family invited us to their house and we got a chance to look around their traditional house. It was made by bamboo and atap ijuk, looks small from outside but apparently, it has 4 floors and can accommodate 50 people at the same time! They’re so nice and also made coffee for us, freshly made from their backyard. In front of the village, they have a small market selling their hand-made fabric and accessories.
Big group of tourists usually come regularly here so they usually do the welcoming dance for them. Unfortunately, we missed it but they’re still playing nice music for us. It’s such a lovely afternoon.
Today is really a great day to start the adventure!
So start from today, we will have 14 days adventure crossing the Banda Sea. It will start from here, Alor, and end up in Ambon. We have one big mission: a hammerhead shark.
Wish us luck!
Alor, September 9
If you’re tired to dive in crowded places where you always see more diver than marine creatures, Alor might be a perfect place for you. We didn’t see any other diver when we’re diving today, even though our friend said that the dive resort where he stayed the other day is fully booked. Maybe it’s because each parts of the ocean around Alor are diveable, so people have so many options on where to dive. Each site offers different experiences, from drifting through the wall to shallow muck dive. The plan for us today was to see macro creatures; we’re going to do 3 muck dives!
It was a calm morning when Ferrari, one of the speedboats, took us to a diving site called Mini Wall. We saw some macro animals but the highlight of this dive was the candy crab. In the afternoon, we went to Kebun Kelapa (which means coconut tree garden) and of course, the site’s literally located in front of the villager’s garden. Velvet ghost pipefish was the first thing that we saw. We also meet sea mouth and some nudibranchs such as gloomy tambja and chromodoris. On the third dive in Pussy Galore, we saw ribbon eel, both male and female but the most exciting thing from today’s dive was mushroom coral pipefish.
Alor, September 10
Today we’re going to explore the western part of Alor, Pura Island. The boat was getting stuck on the current when we’re heading to Pura from Alor Besar. It made us have time to admire the view of the island. Colourful houses on the cliff surrounding by the green nature made the island looks so interesting.
To start today’s diving, we’re going to a site called Neverland. The name described it well because for me, Neverland has to be an exciting place to be explored, and this place really does. We’re exploring this beautiful coral reef for almost an hour and different kinds of reef fishes were just swimming everywhere. Surprisingly, Neverland had something for us. Who wouldn’t have thought that we could find a Wobbegong hide under table coral here? What a nice surprise! There were couple traditional fishing materials, made from bamboo, which looked like underwater pieces of art. On the second dive, we experienced Alor’s freezing dive, which people always talk about. The temperature went down to 18°C. Even a 5mm wetsuit was not warm enough! The place was called Shark Galore, but unfortunately, the shark didn’t really feel like playing in cold water today. Still, it’s a nice dive with abundant fish life. Feeling enough with cold diving, we went to Mucky Mosque for the third dive. This muck dive site’s located in front of a Mosque – sometimes people had a really creative idea to name a dive site indeed. The cockatoo leaf fish and banded shrimp ended up today’s dive nicely.
Today was our last day in this middle part of Indonesia. Tonight we’re heading to the (north) east and by tomorrow, we would already be in the Banda Sea. Already feel so excited to start exploring the islands and its underwater garden around the area. First stop would be Wetar Island.
Wetar Island, September 11
We thought that we would arrive in the morning but the sea condition made the boat had to go slowly. Finally, at around 2pm, we could see the island and anchor the boat. The journey through the rough ocean felt really worth it once we experienced the dive around the island.
At the first 5 minutes of the first dive, a dogtooth tuna was welcoming us to this site called Reaong Wall. From the blue, came a white tip reef shark and then no longer after that, a grey reef shark was passing by. The structure of the wall itself was interesting, so many small caves which were surrounded by abundant soft corals. A huge nurse shark was sleeping peacefully inside one of the caves. Such an amazing dive with three different species of sharks around! Just before we did our safety stop, schooling barracuda was swimming and circling around us to say goodbye.
After warming ourselves, we went to the other side of the wall for the second dive. The wall was still amusing. It looked like sea fans garden with angelfishes and butterflyfishes as its citizen. Apparently, the sharks were not around anymore but we saw a huge Spanish mackerel, swimming alone heading to the blue. A hawksbill turtle was munching, enjoying his food between Acropora tabulate and coral submassive when we’re diving on the shallow part. The dive ended up peacefully as we’re floating in the middle of ocean, watching sunset while feeling grateful for today’s experience.
Nyata Island, September 12
Crossing overnight again, arrived at Nyata Island in the morning. The islands on the Banda Sea really looked like the scene from Jurassic Park the movie. All over the island is covered by greens, undiscovered jungle the ith beautiful virgin white sandy beach.
On the first dive, we’re going to explore the island’s wall. The wall was nicely decorated by huge barrel sponges. They are everywhere, accompanied by sea fans with feather stars hanging on it. As we’re swimming along the wall, a sight of shark came closer from the blue. Surprisingly, it’s oceanic white tip shark! We saw not just one, but two of them. What a lucky day.
The second dive was located in the slope part. The combination of the layers of tabulate corals with acropora submassive, surrounding by a different type of soft corals made this site looks like an artsy underwater garden. A cool black tip reef shark was passing by and apparently, the two oceanic white tip sharks were still curious about us because we saw them again. The schooling of bluestreak fusilier was accompanying us until the end of the dive, they made the site looked so busy.
Teluk Zwaan was the last destination for today. It was misty down there, felt like winter was coming to this dive site. Its sandy bottom was dominated with acropora branching coral, made it a perfect house for the butterflyfishes and damsels. Schooling Moorish idol was passing by many times. As we’re going to the surface, the magnificent sunset was waiting for us.
Damar Island, September 13
The sun was perfectly rising when we arrived at another astonishing island called Damar. Sunrise always brings good energy that makes me optimist that the day would be full of happiness. The first dive proved the theory so well.
As we dived along the wall of Nusleur North East, we’re not bothered anymore to expect something coming out of the blue because the pristine coral reefs already hypnotized us with its beauty. The visibility was amazing. Soft corals were dancing, following the rhythm of current that drift us nice and slowly. The pretty colors of giant sea fans really matched with the dark color of feather stars on it. Different species of anemone and its cute fishes were everywhere. As we went to the slope, there’s no empty space as acropora and non-acropora hard corals were growing nicely. Looking around, schooling damselfishes and butterflyfishes were dominating this underwater garden.
On the second dive, we’re exploring Nusleur North West. The wall was still as beautiful as the North East one. There were more nudibranchs on this site, from the common dorids to the graceful flabellina. We also saw an orang-utan crab, who was chilling on the bubble coral, and blue spotted stingray swimming out from under the tabulate coral.
We still had time before we’re going to move to another island, so we went for an exploration dive on the other side of the island. Of course, it’s another astonishing underwater garden with loads of reef fishes swimming around.
Nila Island, September 14
Today was supposed to be the hammerhead time but unfortunately, the hammerhead shark wasn’t around. In the morning, we went to Hammertime, a dive site in Karang (Coral) Duborough, which was located in the open ocean. We’re swimming deep to almost 40m out of the blue. The visibility wasn’t good on the whole dive. The shallower part was nicely decorated by soft corals. A hawksbill turtle was swimming around at the end of our dive. On the next dive, we’re trying to go to the other site called Drop Off but the result was still the same.
We’re moving to the front of Nila Island and went diving on its plateau for the third dive. There’s a unique part of this site where the Acropora tabulate looked like woven to each other so it became huge. It also looked like the animals were playing hide and seek with each other because the fishes were busily swimming around while the lobsters and eels hide under the rocks.
Nila Island has seven villages inside but there are some people who live there seasonally just to harvest their spices and collect fishes. At the end of the season, they’ll sell it to the nearby city. That afternoon, a canoe came to the boat and asked if we had medicine for their baby who got an infection on his arm. As a thankful gift, they gave their chicken who still alive for the boat! Lately, we knew that the families who live seasonally there don’t have any medical supplies and the nearest clinic can be reached 3 hours by boat. After the dive, we went to the beach, visited the families, talking about their general living and gave them the medical supplies that they needed. It’s always nice to meet the local people, getting to know their way of living and got a chance to help them.
Serua Island, September 15
The sea was rough again when we’re moving to Serua Island. We arrived there in the afternoon and went diving in Italian Mayhem. We would try our luck again for the hammerhead shark. We’re going deep to almost 40m, swimming to the blue then finally, we saw them!! Too bad the visibility wasn’t good enough and they’re swimming away fastly. But still, it couldn’t beat the excitement of seeing hammerhead shark with your own eyes.
Because we almost reach our deco time, we slowly went up and stay at around 14m depth to explore the wall. When someone just pointed to a nudibranch, we realized that something passed by on the top of us. We looked up and I myself couldn’t believe my own eyes with this scenery; 4 hammerheads swimming together in the shallower part of the site! Never expect that we could see them around that depth. Luckily the visibility was getting better so we could see these ones clearer than before.
Finally!
Hatta Island, September 16
The wind and sea conditions weren’t allowing us to go to the other hammerhead site so the boat went straight to Hatta Island. We went to Hatta’s Wall for the morning dive. The wall was covered with nice and healthy corals. Parrotfishes, snappers, and surgeonfishes were everywhere. After half an hour driving, we saw a hammerhead shark swimming, again, shallower than us. He’s swimming alone and went to the blue after a while. So cool that we could see a hammerhead again! Not only that, in the end of the dive, we met a mobula. She’s heading to another direction and just swimming against the current.
After a nice morning dive, the boat was moving to the bay in front of Banda Neira and Banda Besar. Banda Naira was a glorious place back then in Dutch’s era. It’s all because of its spices.
The second dive was located in front of Banda Besar, a site called Pohon Miring. It’s like a fish soup when we’re diving. So many schooling fishes, from fusiliers to sweetlips, were swimming around us. For the last dive of the day, we’re going for a muck dive at Lava Flow. This dive site was exactly located under the volcano. We dove in the area that is burned by the lava when it’s erupted, it made the topography of the site looks unique. We saw a skeleton shrimp, leaf fishes, porcelain crab, and other macro creatures.
Banda Neira, September 17
Today we went to the main island, Banda Neira, and had a really nice tour around the island. Once we stepped in, we could feel already the Dutch’s ambiance. Banda Naira was a historical place. Back then, it was famous for its spices especially because it’s the only place in the world that produced nutmeg. That’s the biggest reason why Dutch invaded Indonesia and had a base on the island. Until now we still can see the Dutch’s influences in the area.
First, we went to Belgica fort that was built in 17th century. It was located in the middle of the island so if we’re standing on the top of it, we would have a great view to the entire island, Banda Besar and Gunung Api (the volcano). It’s really interesting to explore the fort. After that, we went to the museum of history that explains everything that was happening on the island. We stopped by at the market, bought nutmeg products such as jam and sweets, cinnamon and some spices before we’re heading back to the boat.
We went for afternoon muck dive on the northern side of the lighthouse. The big schooling of Barracuda was circling around us for quite a long time. We also see banded shrimps and some of the nice nudibranchs. Then we went night diving in the place called Old Pier and saw a big crocodile fish, octopus, and so many cool shrimps.
Banda Neira, September 18
Today we’re still exploring around Banda Neira area and had four nice dives. The first site was called Batu Kapal. It’s a nice wall with healthy coral reefs. Schooling reef fishes were everywhere and the cutest one was the schooling of Moorish idol. The second dive site was located in front of Pulau Pisang. Then we went to the southern part of the lighthouse for an afternoon muck dive. The dive site had an interesting wall structure because it was made out of black rocks. The schooling barracuda was there again, probably this site was their residence. We saw skeleton shrimp and leaf frogfish as well.
Some of us went for a mandarin fish snorkeling at dusk time. There were so many mandarin fishes in front of the port, we probably saw 30 of them. It’s low tide so we really could see them on 1m depth. Usually, the mandarin fish would be so shy but not for those ones. They’re swimming around and some of them were mating. Their beautiful bright color really made our day ended up nicely.
September 19, Pulau Rhun
Today we left Banda Neira and went to two nice islands outside the area called Pulau Ay and Pulau Rhun. Pulau Ay is a beautiful tiny island that’s connected to Rhun when it’s low tide. Pulau Rhun itself had an interesting history. This island was being traded with Manhattan, back then when Dutch and British were fighting for the spices.
Today’s diving was so nice and had good visibility. At Run’s Slope, we saw seven spotted eagle rays in the blue. They’re nicely swimming quite close to us. Then after that, we’re diving in Run’s Wall where we saw a hawksbill turtle, some huge tuna and so many crocodile fishes. We also went for a night dive in a site called Labuhan and found decorator crab, a really huge bumphead parrotfish that was hiding inside a cave and a green octopus.
September 20, Ambon
Today was our last day of the trip. Now we’re already around Ambon area and was doing two farewell dives.
Ameth was a dive site located in Nusa Laut. This dive site was so beautiful! The corals were so healthy and it looked like we’re swimming around an underwater garden. Schooling pyramid butterfly fish was everywhere, made the view even more beautiful and colorful. We saw a hawksbill turtle hiding under the submassive coral, seriously munching his food. The last one was located in Pulau Molana. We saw a black tip reef shark that says hello at the beginning of the dive and three lobsters in the end.
Plan your diving holiday in Banda Sea with calico Jack! See here for more detail!
