Diving Banda, the Spice Islands and Lucipara Atoll | Indonesia

DESTINATION OVERVIEW | At the heart of the world spice trade, scuba diving in this once famous and vital part of Indonesia is quite an experience as it is still little explored.

Liveaboard routes vary but many start in Ambon then sail overnight to remote Lucipara Atoll. This exposed atoll is utterly pristine with virtually no damage and possibly the best soft corals in Indonesia. Walls are lush with brightly coloured fans, corals and sponges, all mobbed by schooling fish that often obliterate the views of the reef.

Back at the tiny Banda Islands, the diving includes a variety of styles from fabulous, up-tempo muck right below Banda Neira pier to the newest of new coral slopes – thick staghorn and table corals have covered the scar created by Gunung Api’s last explosion. Nearby, Batu Kapal has got to be one of the most impressive deep dives anyone is likely to see with fan corals that have grown to over five metres high.

PROS AND CONS | 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. There are no land-based dive reorts on Banda but there is one on Ambon.To see the whole area, a liveaboard is best.

SCUBA DIVING | Visibility – stunning; currents – very few; rough water – only on the crossing to Lucipara. Big stuff, little stuff. Fantastic corals. As a comparison to better known Irian Jaya, there are perhaps slightly fewer species (although who will know that until the same levels of research are done?) and the topography isn't as varied, however, the conditions of the reefs are excellent and the muck diving is definitely superior.

OPINION | It had long been an ambition to dive the Spice Islands as the mystique of these far flung, historically important islands captivated us. Previous 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. We dived from the delightful Archipelago Adventurer, at the time, the only vessel to consistently ply this route. Archipelago sadly is no more, but several others have started going this direction. Routes tend to be seasonal.

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