Diving Flores – Alor

Dive Flores, Alor Area information

Dive Flores, dive Maumere and dive the Alor region, best by dive liveaboard to get the most unique dive sites. Though for diving the Maumere region alone you can dive with with Ankermi at http://www.ankermi-happydive.com/.

Flores, Maumere & Alor diving information
With both clear water wall diving, great variety and diversity and amazing muck dives, this cruise takes us into areas that are not so often visited by tourists. It is not just the diving in Alor that makes this a special place, here the locals guard the reefs for their future, keeping all reefs in pristine condition. This area is also becoming one of my tip areas for its outstanding critter diving. A few small bays are consistently  surprising groups I have taken here with lots of very rare, unique and unusual marine life. Different species of mimic octopus, weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondosa), frogfishes and also some chances to see some larger marine life here too! Click here to view a photo gallery from one trip.

The Essence or Alor
Many operators go to Alor in search of the so called BIG FISH DIVES, at times a few reefs here can be very good for big fish sightings. However, these are certainly not so good for serious photographers wanting to get images of the big fish. Alor is quickly becoming one of if not my favourite cruises for critters, Komodo yes, it’s great, it’s also becoming busy, we now have a new itinerary for Komodo to get away from other dive boats who do not follow common courtesy and drop their divers on top of other groups of divers! The critter diving is consistently excellent for rare and unique animals on the Flores – Alor route. Alor also has the friendliest and most welcoming people in all of Indonesia. Where else can you have children swimming above you on dives wanting you to take their picture, this is what also makes Alor such a special place!

Northern Flores
Following the tsunami of December 1992 certain reefs here were very heavily impacted. However there are still world-class dives in front of the bay of Maumere. Outstanding walls covered in sea fans, soft corals and invertebrate covered overhangs along with some pristine hard coral gardens. The deeper areas can be home to some larger fish while in the shallows many small fish and critters are to be seen when taking a closer look. Reef tops here are also outstanding in places with huge hard coral formations and large bommies, of course plenty of great small things to go in search as well. For those really into critters, right in the heart of the bay of Maumere lies plenty of really excellent muck dives too!

NOTE: Be careful when arriving in Maumere, some drivers may want to take you to operators who may give large commissions. If you want a great diving, with comfortable, basic accommodation dive with Ankermi at http://www.ankermi-happydive.com/.

Adunara and Lembata Islands
a few fantastic wall dives here lined with many sea fans, sponges, soft corals, overhangs and crevices. Great fish life too with schooling bannerfish, jobfish, tuna, jacks, batfish and many more colourful reef fish, we had the joy on one dive here to have a whale shark swim by and then circle around us for what seemed like a life time. One great wall dive in this region has consistently been one of the best big fish dives I have seen, small groups of grey and black tip sharks along with schooling eagle rays on the right tide! There is a great black sand critter site in this region and one of our latest findings was a site with lots of great critters including 2 different coloured (Rhinopias frondosa)!

Alor and Pantar Islands
The variety of sites here range from excellent topographical shear drop offs with the most amazing coral reef scenery and great fish life. Coral spurs jut out from the shore with giant pinnacles in-between, all covered in the most beautiful corals. Shallows here are filled with thousands of colourful anthias and damsels. On occasions the may be surprise sightings of larger animals here too. One of the most famous sites here is renowned for it being a large pelagic fish site. This site is however fairly temperamental and it needs to be dived during the right tide, the fish life can often be very minimal here at times as well. When it is good it has to be one of the best dives in all of Indonesia for big fish “I thought so” once! Of the other many sites to check out, there are amazing sites for macro with allsorts of weird and wonderful critters that are very rare throughout most of the world. On one black sand site here we can often find many frogfish, at times rhinopias, nudibranchs galore, snake eels, leaf scorpion fish, ribbon eels in all colour phases, groups of pegasus sea moths, sand divers and many other cool critters. Night dives here are just amazing with many different creatures you may not have thought existed.

Conclusion
In all this area offers great diversity of dive sites and marine life, ranging from beautiful coral reef scenery, great critters to larger fish life and the chance of experiencing one of Indonesia’s best big fish sites. The topography in this area also makes it an outstanding destination. This is one of, if not my favourite cruise destination for critters, it has much more to offer than the usual Bali to Komodo cruise.

Interested? Mail us for more information about this region!