 | | Family photo at old Dutch fort on Banda Niera |
|  | | Bill and Kimberly with Cheng Ho in background |
|  | | Leafy scorpion fish |
|  | | Our boat crew |
|  | | Beautiful Banda Sea sunset |
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 In March 2009 we took a family dive vacation to Ambon Indonesia. We sailed on the Cheng Ho which is a traditionally built 49 meter wooden pinisi operated by Kararu Dive Voyages (www.kararu.com) based in Bali. This is Bill's third trip sailing (2nd time for Anette and Kimberly) with this operator however both other trips were on another vessel. (Read about our May 2003 Komodo trip here and April 2005 Raja Ampat trip here).
Everyone had a fantastic time on this trip. The boat can accommodate up to 18 paying passengers and our trip only had 5 paying passengers so we had plenty of room. The diving was fantastic (see photos and videos below), the boat was roomy and comfortable, the food was delicious and the scenery was wonderful. In addition to spending 10 days onboard diving on our arrival day we had an opportunity to do a little sightseeing around Ambon. While in Ambon we had a chance to see the sacred eels at The Waiselaka Freshwater Pond. The local villagers believe the eels are sacred and therefore don't eat them. As such the eels grow to a very large size. In addition, another interesting point was that the eels are fed raw eggs (not sure this is healthy or part of their natural diet but it was interesting enough to see the eels slurp up the eggs) by the local villagers.
We had intended to visit an old Dutch fort outside Ambon but didn't have time to drive there before our boat was ready to depart. We did see some of the surrounding scenery and had a chance to purchase some fresh nutmeg (see photos of fresh nutmeg in below topside slideshow).
One of the islands we stopped at during our trip was Banda Niara where we visited Fort Beglica an old Dutch Fort. It was in surprising good condition considering its age. You can see some photos from the fort in the below topside photo slideshow.
Overall a fantastic trip!! |
|  | | Location map |
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 An Overview of Ambon and Maluku | | Maluku or the Moluccas Province consists of thousands of small islands. The capital is Ambon. This province is well-known as "The Spice Islands," since it produces cloves and nutmegs. The major ethnic group and the indigenous people is the Ambonese. They are predominantly Catholics and Protestants, while a few are Muslims. Other ethnic groups are the Javanese and the Buginese who migrated to this island as traders or businessmen. (read more here.......) |
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Our Trip Route | I've routed our trip on Google Maps. You can click on the below to see a large version of the map. See the above map to get a reference point on where Ambon and the Banda Sea is geographically located.
View March 2009 Ambon Dive Trip in a larger map |
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 Slideshow of topside photos | | |
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|  Slideshow of underwater photos (photos provided courtesy of Bruce Leibowitz) | | |
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 Video of mating mandarin fish (Kimberly's first night dive)
(4 minutes/20 megabytes)
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|  Eels of the Banda Sea
(15 minutes/76 megabytes)
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| Stay tuned for an overall underwater video which I am still working on..... |
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| Last Update: 16 May 2009 Copyright © 2009 All Rights Reserved William Deertz - www.wdeertz.net |
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