Guests trip report By Wayne & Danie Warren :

We went for one trip and stayed for two!

In late September 2009, we boarded the MSY Seahorse for a crossing from Maumere, Flores across the Banda Sea to Ambon.  It very was pleasurable to be greeted back by the staff and their wonderful smiles! 

We had been on the MSY Seahorse before, so we were familiar with the boat – 6 cabins with two single beds each and two double cabins in the stern – all with private bathrooms and individually controlled A/C.  The salon doubles as the dining room.  The partially shaded sundeck over the salon is a wonderful place to spend the surface intervals, and the dive deck is spacious.  Nitrox is available on the  trip.

One of the owners, or their manager, Cici, is always on board to make sure the trips run smoothly.  Cruise Director, Cedric, is great at choosing dive sites and pointing things out under water.  The Indonesian crew is phenomenal!  They carried the tanks and fins back and forth from the Seahorse to the tenders, and they were always extremely helpful. 

The three course meals are served at the table, instead of buffet style, and they are a delicious combination of western and Indonesian cuisine!  We were impressed to have green salad in such a remote area.  Those who had special needs or wants were accommodated with special meals.    

Diving is done from tenders.  The main speed boat is an aluminum boat with space for 12 divers and the other one is a hard bottom inflatable.  With two tenders, divers who come up early can be shuttled back to the Seahorse instead of having to wait for other divers to finish up, yet there is always a boat available when divers surface. 

We delighted with the dives off the islands of Flores and Alor – so many colors and unusual animals – and then headed out to cross the Banda Sea.  The area of the Banda Sea is comprised of many volcanoes and reefs rising from the deep ocean floor. 

Our first stop was Gunung Api, which lived up to it’s nickname of Snake Island.  We dove with hundreds of turtle-head sea snakes!  It was disconcerting to look you’re your shoulder and see a snake swimming by and occasionally rubbing against your legs.  It must have been really amazing years ago, before so many snakes were collected for their skins, when there were thousands of snakes on a dive instead of just hundreds.

At Desperandum Reef we had the exhilarating experience of diving with a school of hammerhead sharks.  At first it looked like mantas in the distance.  As the school came closer, we were able to make out that they were sharks, and then the got really close, and we saw that they were hammerheads – at least 40 in the school!  They let us keep up with them for several minutes.

The rest of the diving was extraordinary, too.  We saw eagle, marble, and mobula rays, huge tunas, napoleon wrasse, and barracuda and massive schools of trevally, anthias, and various kinds of baitfish.  Enormous sponges littered the reefs, and we were treated to some beautiful topography.

The trip wasn’t all diving.  The Banda Islands were famous in the early colonial times as this was the only area where nutmeg grew.  Nutmeg was worth more per ounce than gold, and many wars were fought over these islands.  The English and Dutch swapped Run Island for Manhattan in 1667 as they were then considered equally valuable.  It’s interesting to contemplate how different places have grown in such diverse ways.  Run Island remains a quiet tropical paradise, while Manhattan is anything but.

When we arrived in Ambon, we discovered that there was a last minute cancellation on the next trip, Ambon to Sorong, Papua, so we decided to stay on for another 12 days.  We back tracked to The Banda Islands, and then headed north to Raja Ampat.  The diving here is an amazing assortment of life and color, from pigmy seahorses to manta rays, woebegone sharks, blue-ring octopus and amazing hard and soft corals.  We were really glad that we had the opportunity to dive this area again.

Mariano Crespo Ruiz :

Estimados amigos del Sea Horse

Mostrar nuestro agradecimiento por el viaje realizado entre Maumere y Ambon realizado entre el 26 de septiembre y el 8 de octubre del 2009, el cual ha sido magnifico, no solo por la gran profesionalidad de los Dive Master, y el servicio del resto de la tripulación (Capitán, marinería y sobre todo el cocinero que era un fenómeno), trasmitirle la felicitación y agradecimiento de los 14 miembros de Club que hemos estado en el viaje.

Los buceos en general han sido bastante buenos y algunos excepcionales, para que vuestros clientes se imaginen, podemos citar que hemos visto a lo largo de estos doce días y 600 millas náuticas navegadas entre el mar de Flores y Banda:

1. Tiburones martillos en Desperandum, más de 40, algo realmente difícil de ver en toda Indonesia, pero también tiburones de punta blanca y de punta negra.
2. El macro…que podemos decir, es fabuloso ya que logramos filmar y fotografiar a los Mandarines, además de muchísimas de las increíbles criaturas que pueblan estas aguas del Mar de Banda, peces ranas, gambas simbióticas, nudibranquios, peces pipa…
3. Las inmersiones de la Isla de Run, han sido fantásticas, sobre toda la nocturna con los peces loros jorobados gigantes durmiendo en el arrecife, y en las dos de día, atunes de dientes de perro, meros, palometas de aletas azules, palometas gigantes, palometas franjeadas, y mileeeeees de peces fucileros tanto de franja azul, de manchas amarillas, el dorsigualdo, el robusto, estriado…
4. En el resto de buceos hemos visto: mantas diablo (Mobula), águilas marinas, morenas de todo tipo y tamaño (incluido la morena cinta), tortugas varias, barracudas, chuchos de manchas negras, serpientes marinas a montones, peces escorpión, peces león de aletas moteadas y de aletas claras, peces piedra, napoleones, peces escórpora, pez cocodrilo, sepias, langostas, calamares….. y una ballena, muchos delfines y un cachalote durante las travesías.

En fin necesitaríamos muchas folios para describir todas las maravillas de esta zona, y ya tenemos bastante experiencia de buceo, ya que la media de años buceando del grupo es de 14 años, y algunos de los buceadores tienen más de 30 años de buceo y 10.000 inmersiones, por lo que podemos asegurar que es un viaje a recomendar tanto a expertos como no, que la mayoría de las inmersiones no tenían dificultad, ya que la conservación del coral es general muy buena.

Una última nota sobre la excursión a la Isla de Banda Neira, con la visita al pueblo y al fuerte Holandés, muy instructiva sobre la guerra de las especies y la conquista de los mares por Españoles, Portugueses, Holandeses E ingleses. También es espectacular la visita a los volcanes, todavía humeantes, con sus emanaciones de azufre.

Para terminar os escribo una cita de Gandhi

Un país, una civilización se puede juzgar por la forma en que trata a sus animales.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Político y pensador indio.

Es una pena como el ser humano trata a los animales, los pescadores de tiburones, y las redes que atrapan tortugas son una de las amenazas más grandes que tienen los ecosistemas de Indonesia, así como los vertidos de plásticos y basuras al mar, si el gobierno Indones no protege sus mares pronto se quedara sin recursos que poder enseñar a sus turistas.

Un saludo en nombre de todo el grupo (Juan Carlos, Julia, Roberto, Fabio, Joelle, Mariano, Belén, Nano, Rafael, Mª Noel, Manuel, Natalia, Olivier y Luis.

Manuel Crespo Ruiz (Instructor tres estrellas CMAS, video submarino)
Presidente de Fed. Andaluza de
Actividades Subacuáticas.

Mariano Crespo Ruiz (Instructor tres estrellas CMAS, fotógrafo submarino)
Vicepresidente Fed. Española de Actividades Subacuáticas.