Diving Ambon, the Spice Islands | Indonesia

DESTINATION OVERVIEW | In the ever-expanding scuba diving realm that is Indonesia, the island of Ambon is slowly but steadily growing in popularity. It's repuation is building on the growing realisation that there is some outstanding muck diving right beside Ambon city as well as many other spectacular diving sites close by.

Small Nusa Tiga island has exciting wall dives and Nusa Laut is where an underwater promontory hosts enormous schools of resident jacks along with larger animals like bumphead parrotfish, eagle rays and small reef sharks. Ambon also has a great wreck dive, the Pertamina Wreck, which is now covered in healthy corals.

However, the biggest attractions are the famous critter dives at Laha in the channel that leads to Ambon. The diving is not dissimilar to the Lembeh Straits – there may be slightly fewer critters by number, but there are certainly as many species with everything from rhinopias to seahorses to inimicus.

ENVIRONMENT | The Banda Seas have gone in and out of favour as a tourist destination due to localised political unrest. Yet this region is historically one of the world's most important – the location of the famed Spice Islands. The islands in the Banda group, along with neighbouring Ambon, were the sources of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, once the most valuable commodities on the planet.

PROS AND CONS | Popular with divers until the civil unrest that ignited in 1999, Ambon has now settled into an easy calm and divers are paving the way for tourism to return. This is not the easiest part of Indonesia to reach as internal flight schedules change frequently but there are daily flights from Bali. Tourist facilities are improving and the diving is worth the trek.

SCUBA DIVING | The Ambon Channel is best as a muck destination, with critter life that rivals Lembeh. This is where the team at Maluku Divers discovered the new frogfish that hit the news in early 2009. There can be strong currents in the channel and visibility errs on the low side but there is also good wall and reef diving within striking distance.

OPINION | It had long been an ambition to dive the Spice Islands as the mystique of these far flung, historically important islands captivated us. Plans to dive the area had been aborted due to the civil war in the late 1990’s but we finally made it in 2007.

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