November 16: Banda Sea – Day 6

Today when we woke up we were located just off the west coast of Ambon next to a small group of islands. Our last dive of the trip was going to be around Lain Island, whisc is one of the small islands, on a site called Pulau Tiga. There was a pretty strong current for most of the dive so I didn't take nearly as many pictures as some of the other dives. 

We saw a few large moray eels and some nudibranchs, but we were moving by so fast it was hard to see a lot of the little stuff. Charlotte found a turtle and swam around with it for a little while and then towards the end of the dive she found some small lobsters or large shrimp under a rock.

When we were done with the dive and back onboard the boat we had our second breakfast and then lounged around for a while. Since we aren't supposed to dive within 24 hours of a plane flight we cruised back to the city of Ambon and some people went into the city to run some errands and stuff. The rest of the day was spent packing all our dive gear and clothes. For dinner they had a barbecue out on the deck, which was nice.

Since today was Brent's birthday (yes, I remembered to wish him a happy birthday this morning) they made a birthday cake for him and the whole crew came out and sang and danced the night away, it was a riot!

November 15: Banda Sea – Day 5

This morning we are anchored off Nusa Laut Island, which is northwest of the Banda Islands and very close to Ambon (where we flew to). After having breakfast someone from the crew spotted a whale so we sat around a few minutes and waited for it to get some more air.

Our first dive of the day was at a site called Akon. When we got dropped off we immediately swam down through a large arch and then started following a big wall. A couple of minutes into the dive our guide, Marcel, pointed out a blue spotted stingray that was resting at about 115 feet. 

The rest of the dive was quite leisurely and we drifted along with a gentle current. Along the way we saw a ton of nudibranchs that were brilliantly colored.

Towards the end of the dive we rose to the top of the wall and up onto a coral shelf that was between ten and thirty feet deep and spent about 15 to 20 minutes wandering around up there looking at all the coral formations and small fish.

When we got back on the boat we had second breakfast and then waited for our second dive to come along. The second dive was at a spot called Amet and once we jumped in and went under there was a little bit of a current to take us along. The landscape/seascape was totally different from any of our other dives. There were various sizes of coral outcroppings surrounded by sand here and there.

It was really fun because you could find a lot of unique things hiding in the sand under the coral. Once again Marcel found a blue spotted stingray, but this time it was under some coral so it was harder to get a picture of.

As we were swimming around I had to constantly remind myself to look into open water because they told us there might be some larger fish that would swim by, but unfortunately none did. I did see a really nice bluefin trevally and when I went to take a picture of some Clark's anemonefish there was a lionfish under some coral right behind them.

When we came back to the boat we were taking our stuff off and cleaning it when a little fishing boat drifted into us and got their net caught on our boat. That provided several minutes of entertainment as the fishermen were shouting at each other in Indonesian.

When things had calmed down we headed upstairs for lunch and then we waited for our next dive. Our third dive of the day was at the same site as the second dive, but we took a slightly different route. Instead of taking the current the whole way we drifted for a bit then went shallower where the current was nonexistent and circled back towards where we started. 

This time by some fluke I saw a ribbon eel and quickly got Uncle Allen's attention. I had really been hoping to see one of these, although I hoped it would be the blue variation, but beggars can't be choosers.

Later in the dive I was finally able to get a good picture of a clown triggerfish. The whole trip they have been keeping their distance, but for some reason this one came in fairly close. We also saw a Spanish mackerel out in the the open water.

When our dive was through we came back to the boat and ended up watching a DVD about muck diving, which is basically diving in silty or sandy areas where you might find really small animals, and a DVD about shark finning. Then it was time for us to get ready for our night dive. The dive started out slow, just shining our flashlights on a lot of silt and sand. About halfway through things got a little more interesting. We were around a coral head and someone saw a juvenile African pompano swimming around above us. They have a diamond shaped body with long streamer-like filaments coming off both their dorsal and anal fins. Unfortunately I couldn't get a very good picture of it.

Right after we saw the pompano our guide, Made, found an ornate ghost pipefish hanging out in some coral. Thank God he saw it otherwise I probably never would have seen one in my life. It was an incredible animal to see and amazing how well it blended in to its surroundings.

After that Uncle Allen found a big cuttlefish, which we ended up following around for a little while. When we got back to the boat it was time for dinner so we cleaned up and ate and then everyone kinda called it a night.

November 14: Banda Sea – Day 4

This morning I woke up feeling quite a bit better, I was even able to have a little bit of breakfast. Instead of diving in the morning we ended up taking a tour of Banda Naira Island. We first visited a small museum and while we were there my mom was out of it and ended up throwing up in the building, so she ended up going back to the boat with my dad and Kristen. After the museum we walked through town past the house where the Dutch and English signed the treaty trading Run Island for Manhattan, New Jersey  and Delaware.

Then we stopped at someone's house and our guide showed us a nutmeg tree and opened up an immature fruit for us. 

After that we headed up to Fort Belgica and looked around there for a while. There were some very nice views from the top of the towers.

After the fort we walked through the market area of town where they were making candy out of the nutmeg fruit, drying the mace and nutmeg seeds and selling it all plus much more.

When we were done in Banda Naira we were going to cruise over and visit a nutmeg plantation on Banda Besar, but it started to rain so we ended up turning around and heading back to the boat.

After we had lunch we started to get ready for our first dive, which would be around a little island called Batu Kapal. The island itself was probably about 1,500 square feet. The dive was a really fun dive with a lot of eels, some huge sea fans and the fish seemed a little less skittish than some of our other dives.

When we entered the water we dove down a wall to about 100 feet and swam around a little coral outcropping away from the island that had some nice sea fans. Then we came back to the island and rose to about 60 feet and continued around the island.

Eventually the reef we followed took us to about 30 feet and by that time my air was running low so I had to take my safety stop and got in the boat with Uncle Vic.

Our second and last dive of the day was off the coast of Banda Besara Island and it was called Pohon Miring. There was a little bit of a current, although not as strong as it could have been according to our dive guides, so this dive was a drift dive that ran along a large wall.

When we first jumped in there wasn't a lot of stuff to see, just a bunch of small fish that were hard to photograph. As we followed the wall there were more sea fans and some soft corals to see. After we had been in the water for five or ten minutes we went through a short cave that was fairly spacious and it had some corals growing throughout. After the swim through it seemed like the current picked up a little bit and eventually Uncle Vic and my dad got split up from our gourp and went with the other dive group.

As we kept drifting along we started to see more soft corals that looked like heads of broccoli or cauliflower. Eventually there were so many of them that it looked like an underwater cauliflower farm.

Somehow Stacy went through her air really quickly and so she had to go up and do her safety stop early and just before she started going up Marcel pointed out a couple of fish that seemed to be fighting. They would swim around a little bit and then all of a sudden ram each other and stay together for a second or two and they did this several times while we were watching. When we got tired of watching them we followed Stacy up to the surface and got back on the boat.

Since we weren't going to do any more dives today or tonight everybody showered up and lounged around as we waited for the spectacular sunset to arrive.

November 13: Banda Sea – Day 3

I spoke too soon. The Bali Belly finally caught up to me and at about 2:30 in the morning I woke up feeling nauseous and had diarrhea, so I spent the next couple of hours on the pot and when I finally thought it was done I ended up hurling into the sink. After vomiting I felt a lot better and was hopeful that I wouldn't miss any dives today. The first dive was called Lava Flow and it was next to the volcanic island Gunungapi. The volcano last erupted in 1988 and devastated the reef, but for some reason the hard corals were able to grow back in about one-fifth the time it takes them to normally grow. In just twenty years the table corals and staghorn corals have grown to enormous sizes to the point where they get too heavy and break off and then more coral grows on top of them, so it creates a terrace effect under the water.

Even though I wasn't feeling 100% the dive was still incredible and unlike any other place in the world.

When we got back to the boat from the dive I laid out on a couch and tried to take a nap while everyone ate second breakfast. I started to feel nauseous again and Charlotte gave me a pill for it, but right when I stuck it in my mouth I ended up throwing it up over the side of the boat. Needless to say, I didn't go on any more of the dives today, and I ended up taking about a five or six hour nap, which I needed. Once evening rolled around almost half the boat was sick and even our dive guides Marcel, Made and Ali got sick.

November 12: Banda Sea – Day 2

Today I woke up around 7:30 and met everyone for breakfast. After breakfast we had a dive orientation and then we got ready for our first dive of the trip. We anchored just off of Run Island and Nailaka Island, which are connected to each other at low tide.

When we jumped into the water for our first dive things were going good and then somehow Uncle Vic's weights fell off and he shot up to the top after about two minutes under the water. Uncle Allen stayed with Uncle Vic as the rest of us went on our dive. The amount of sea life and coral here is amazing and it is so much healthier than anywhere else I have dived. We dove down to about 70 or 80 feet and our total dive time was about 45 to 50 minutes. There were a lot of really colorful small fish on this dive. 

After our first dive we got back on the boat and had a second breakfast. While we were eating we cruised over to Ai Island where our next dive was.

This dive was called Batu Payung and we went down to about 68 feet for about 53 minutes. The coral on this dive seemed even more vibrant and colorful than the first dive and it seemed like I saw a wider variety of fish.

Some of the highlights of this dive were seeing a clown triggerfish, a giant clam, some anemonefish, and a ray, but unfortunately the ray was out in the distance and I barely saw it. Luckily Uncle Vic was able to keep his weights attached to his body this dive, so I think he enjoyed it a little more.

After we came back to the boat we had lunch and headed to our next dive spot, which was around Krakka Island between Gunungapi Island (where the volcano is) and Banda Naira Island.

This dive was very different from the previous two dives. The terrain was rockier and there was far less coral, but the rocks were covered in orange and blue sea squirts.

We saw a few different kinds of nudibranchs and I was able to spot one that was about half an inch long with green stripes and bright orange on the tips.

I think we ended up diving down to a depth of 70 feet and we stayed down for about 45 to 50 minutes.

When that dive was over we only had about an hour and a half until our night dive, which was at the Maulana Pier on Banda Naira Island. The main attraction for this dive was seeing mandarinfish. They are usually very shy and stay hidden in the rocks, but every day at dusk they come out to mate so it's much easier to see them.

As well as the mandarinfish we saw several lionfish, a couple of gurnards, a flounder and a thorny seahorse.

Toward the end of the dive the water became pretty murky since the bottom was sandy, but other than that this was probably the best night dive I've been on. When we got back on the boat we cleaned up and had dinner and then went to bed. I think this trip is basically gonna be eat, dive, sleep for five straight days.....WOO HOO!!!