Banda Sea- Triton Bay

This 12 days / 11 nights multi destination trip visits the Banda Sea and Triton Bay. It offers outstanding diving and is a perfect itinerary for both fish life and critters.

Our adventure begins in Ambon in the heart of the Mollucas islands, and ends in Kaimana on the coast of West Papua.

We organize your pick and drop off at the airport or at your hotel in those cities. Check in and check out can be done anytime before noon.

THE DIVING:

The triton Bay area combines fantastic corals cover, especially soft and black corals and an intense fish life with a great abundance of critters.

The Banda Sea is one of the best Indonesian dive destinations. It offers a great variety of dive sites among beautiful tiny islands and large reefs. Many of the dive sites are steep drop off with impressive hard corals, huge sponges of all kinds, pastel black corals bushes and an intense fish life. Tunas, Spanish mackerel, giant trevallies, schools of barracudas and other pelagic fish are part of the show, together with the occurrence of the hammerheads, either in small groups or in big shoals. Some other dives sites inside bays or on fringing reefs are more critters oriented.

The hammerheads are in the Banda Sea from September to end November. Their presence is related to the upwellings that cool the upper layers of the Banda sea. Those upwellings themselves depends on the SE winds that occur in Indonesia from June to September. Therefore the best chances to see the Hammerheads is when the water is the coolest, Mid- September to Mid-November.

A minimum of 33 dives (3 dives per day) is offered during the trip, including at least 5 night dives.

SNORKELING:

Our trips are open to snorkelers. Most of the dive sites offer great snorkeling opportunities with a lot to see in shallow waters, and we offer specific guidance for snorkelers.

 ACTIVITIES.

Besides the diving, this trip offers plenty of discoveries on land.

Banda islands were at the centre of the spices trades during the XVI century. They were the original Spice Islands and the most coveted destination on earth, particularly by the Dutch and Portuguese who colonized the islands and exported the indigenous nutmeg and cloves. We will stop on the island of Banda Neira and visit the village, the fort and the museum for a glimpse of the Banda history.

In Momong, on the coast of Papua, we take the time to enjoy the waterfall that flows directly into the sea and for a short afternoon trek in the rain forest where, if we are (very) lucky, we may sight some tree kangaroos.

In Triton bay, we propose an early morning ride with the dinghies into the lagoons. The bay offers a labyrinth of shallow lagoons

between quartz islets covered with rainforest, where inhabits thousands of birds. Turn off the boat engine and listening to the bird songs in the early morning is a truly moving experience.

We will also visit some other small villages on the islands. The guests are always welcome to use the dinghies (with a boatman) to go on shore at any time, as long as the schedule allows it.

Our four complementary kayaks are also available to go on shore or in the lagoons whenever the boat is anchored. All these activities are subject to weather conditions as well as the planned daily schedule and itinerary.

WEATHER

The weather is variable, with some sunny days and a few showers. The sea is generally calm, with eventually a bit of wind under the showers. Temperatures are around 27-30 °C.

VISIBILITY

Generally good to excellent in Banda Sea, average in Triton Bay.

TEMPERATURE

The sea water temperature is between 27° and 30°C (80°-84°C)

CURRENTS

Some of the dives can have consistent currents. However Wallacea Dive Cruises has a long experience diving these sites and we pay close attention to diving in the right places at the right time, to avoid difficult or dangerous currents.

Before each dive, our guides conduct current checks so that our briefings will always inform you about the up-to-the-minute diving conditions. If the currents are too strong on a site, we wait or shift to an alternative dive site

ITINERARY AND NAVIGATION. BANDA ISLANDS :

On the arrival day, a check dive is proposed in the bay of Ambon before the overnight navigation to Suanggi, our first destination in the group of the Banda islands. This island offer great diving and is a hotspot for hammerheads shark. Another highlight is a dive along the lava flow of the “Gunung Api” (the fire mountain) on Banda Neira; the last eruption was in 1988 and we can see how the corals and huge sponges did grow back since then. Other spots are on the islands of Banda Neira, Aie and Hatta’s reef with fantastic wall diving. We will stop in Banda Neira for a land visit.

An overnight navigation brings us to Manuk island, a small volcanic island where many seabirds comes for nesting. Underwater we can see the sulphur traces of the volcanic activity. The diving signature is the abundance of sea snakes, both Aipysurus and Laticauda. Hammerheads are also

roaming around, but generally only individuals or small groups.

From Manuk to Triton bay, we will stop on Kurkap, Koon (the famous wall of the site “too many fish”) and Momong.

TRITON BAY :

The development of soft corals here has little equivalent in the world. On most of the dives we generally find the soft corals in the shallows (0-5m) on rock and boomies,

then deeper are the black corals with lot of sweetlips and snappers. Below 12-15m the

bottom is mostly sandy or rubble with interesting critters (nudibranches, frogfish...). Some spots can have a lot of baitfish, eventually attracting devil rays and other predators. The “bagans” are platforms for baitfish fishing at night, eventually attracting

the whale sharks. We dive there in the morning, in small groups of 4 guests turning on 30 minutes shifts.