In 1599 a fleet of Dutch ships reached some small islands in the Banda Sea which were then called Maluku. Laden with nutmeg and other spices they made huge profits when they got back to the Netherlands. This created a 'Spice Rush' as Dutch, English and Portuguese ships raced to get to the Spice Islands for their highly profitable cargos. In 1602 the Dutch formed the United East India Company or 'VOC' to finance future expeditions and in 1610 they established their headquarters in Ambon, the biggest port of Maluku. 415 years later we land in Ambon to start a diving cruise on our favourite boat, the Dewi Nusentara.
Our 11 night cruise will take us from Ambon to the Spice Islands of the Banda Sea before heading East to the tip of the large island of Ceram and then north to Misool, one of the '4 kings' of Raja Ampat, famous for spectacular marine life and coral. After 4 days of diving on the small islands off Misool we will finish our trip in Sorong on the northwest coast of West Papua. Two years ago we started a similar trip further north in Halmahera but we have never been to the Spice Islands and are excited to learn more about their interesting history.
Dive cruise route
First evening in Ambon, Frogfish
Weedy scorpionfish, cuttlefish
It takes us two and a half days to get to Ambon from London with overnight stops in Abu Dhabi and Jakarta so we are very relieved to get there with all our equipment and to be able to relax in a rather empty resort hotel. We sit by the beach sipping beer/gin and tonic and chat to an interesting young Indonesian woman who is visiting her Ambon boyfriend and planning to travel to Holland to stay with a relative. Next morning we are picked up by Tamrin, one of the dive guides from the boat who takes us by local taxi to the port where a Dewi tender is waiting to ferry us to the boat. It is very exciting to be back on board. We spend the rest of the day settling in, assembling diving and camera equipment, meeting our fellow guests and catching up with old friends.
The boat only crosses the bay the next morning to get to our dive site. We spend the day diving on a slope near to the Ambon airport. Lata is a 'muck diving site' - no pretty corals but hopefully lots of interesting sea creatures. Over three dives and a night dive we find several octopus, scorpion fish, nudibranchs, little zebra crabs and coleman shrimp, frogfish and seahorses. This is meant to be one of the best night dives of the trip so even Vicky misses out on her cocktail to come along!
Clear water and fine sponges and coral at Nusa Laut
Big cuttlefish
We sail overnight to the island of Nusa Laut at the Eastern end of Ambon. It is a noisy crossing with the boat creaking and doors banging. We wake to grey skies and spend the day diving near to the village of Amel after which the dive sites are named. The diving is very different from the day before with clear blue water, pretty coral heads with big hard corals and large vase sponges. There are lots of schooling fish - fusiliers, butterflyfish and jacks - and a very active shark on our second dive. We like a big cuttlefish hovering over a coral bommie.
That evening we sail through the night to the Banda Islands. We wake to better weather and our first dive site. Suangi is a big lump of limestone covered in vegetation with nesting frigate birds and gulls (?). Underwater there is a very fine wall with sponges, turtles, tuna and sea snakes, and beautiful coral in the shallows. Most spectacular is a huge group of humphead parrotfish (30+?) swimming along the top of the reef.
Suangi Island, huge group of humphead parrotfish
Suangi wall and butterflyfish, coral, anemone fish and porcelain crab
The same afternoon we move the boat closer to the main Spice Islands starting with Nailakka. This small island is next to Pulau Rhun which was famously swapped by the English under the Treaty of Breda in 1667 for the Dutch island of New Amsterdam - now New York. As the Banda Island spice trade had collapsed by the late 1700s I think the English got the better deal! The wall dive at Nailakka was not as spectacular as Suangi but still pretty good.
In the early morning we move again into the natural harbour between Gunung Api and Pulau Naira (see map below). Two Dutch forts on the hillside remind us that this was the heart of the Spice Trade. In 1607 dozens of Dutch traders had been killed in an uprising of the local inhabitants. A few years later there were brutal reprisals when the Dutch hired Japanese Samurai to execute the ringleaders. Many of the inhabitants were driven away to other islands and the locals now are mixture of immigrants from Indonesia and beyond.
Our first dive is 'Lava Flow', just outside the harbour underneath a flow from a relatively recent eruption in 1988. Amazingly the underwater landscape is a mass of staghorn and cabbage coral which has grown back extensively over the past 30 years. A second divesite nearby, 'Lighthouse', has pretty coral bommies and huge numbers of reef fish - schooling butterflyfish, surgeonfish, bream and goatfish. We watch a very tame turtle having his lunch at the end of the dive.
Huge expanse of coral on site of lava flow from 1988, Zebra batfish
Picking nutmeg, The fort at Banda Naira, friendly local spice seller
Map of the Spice Islands, Gunung Api volcano with lava flow on right hand side
In the afternoon we head into Banda Neira for a guided tour. We come ashore at the colonial style Maulana hotel where we meet our guide. The tour starts with the local museum where rather gruesome pictures remind the locals of the brutality of the Dutch colonialists. Then we are off up the hill to a nutmeg plantation where see how nutmeg is picked with a long bamboo tool before sitting down to cinnamon tea and rather garish cakes. Next to the plantation is the fort which gives great views over the harbour. We finish our tour in a fine old colonial building which has been converted into a gift shop - a struggle to stop some of the guests from buying the place out.
After our excursion some of us do a sunset dive off the pier by the Maulana hotel. There used to be many mandarin fish here who came out as the light was fading. We spend 60 minutes studying the rubble in about 4m of water and are eventually rewarded by a few glimpses of these very pretty little dragonets.
Mandarin fish
Banda sunset
Batu Kapal reef and Moray
For our last day's diving in the Banda Sea we move the boat a bit further from the harbour to the small island of Batu Kapal. This is a great slope and wall dive where we cross over to an underwater pinnacle mid dive. We see sharks, a napoleon wrasse, lots of big moray eels and big schools of reef fish. The weather has improved and it is great to see the sun lighting up the reef. As we get back to the boat after the dive a big school of pilot whales swim past us causing great excitement. Our second and third dives are on the slightly larger Pulau Pisang where we fight with currents on the first dive before enjoying some very fine coral on top of the reef.
Humphead parrotfish at 'Too many fish', Pulau Koon
Purple Queen Anthias, Too Many Fish
Koon East
We leave the Spice Islands and sail again overnight to Pulau Koon, a small island at the far eastern end of Ceram (see map above) which is a handy place to stop on the way to the islands of Raja Ampat. Our first dive site was called 'Too Many Fish' by some marine biologists who were presumably struggling to record everything they found. The visibility is still very good and we see more big groups of humphead parrotfish as well as big schools of jacks and rainbow runners, masses of reef fish and fabulous coral. For our second and third dives we dive Koon East, a fine wall with more fabulous reef fish and beautiful coral.
We have another smooth crossing overnight to Misool in the Raja Ampat area. When we come up on deck next morning we are surprised to see that we are the only boat. Raja Ampat is getting increasingly busy but we are at the end of the season in May and perhaps there are fewer cruises. This is our third visit to this area and we are excited to find that the diving is as great as we remember. There is more plankton in the water here so the viz is not as good as the Banda Sea but the marine life is fantastic. We enjoy revisiting familiar dive sites - Magic Mountain, Boo Window, Neptune Fansea, Barracuda Rock, Nudi Rock and others. I have written about diving Raja Ampat several times so will finish the blog with some more pics from our last four days before we end our cruise in Sarong, West Papua. For a photo gallery and more pictures you can click here.
Classic Raja Ampat seascape
Fan corals with lionfish and bigeye
Pigmy seahorses - the size of your fingernail! Denisii and Bargibanti
Anemone fish in orange anemone
Blenny and Crinoid shrimp
