Alor was a bit of a break in the diving expedition – with two days in and around Alor – including some land excursions. Alor was waiting for us with a bright yellow ‘happy bus’. Kalabahi town is quite big, with several markets, schools and a university. Our tour guide Ahmad explained these things to us whilst we were driving to one of the traditional villages.
The Abui tribe lives in a village called Takpala about 35 minutes drive away a bit further up the mountain. They dressed in traditional clothing for us and Ahmad explained about their way of living and their traditional houses. The houses are all made from bamboo and not a single nail is being used. They have 4 floors we later found out. One for living, one for cooking, one for storage (corn and rice and other supplies) and one small one for valuables
They make the beautiful Moko Drums that are also used as a dowry. They earn their living by showing people their culture, but they also have jobs as farmers and with the government. They were beautifully dressed and lucky us got to buy some souvenirs as well. Some beautiful sarongs, scarf’s and a machete for the shop! They offered us some betel nut which gives you a very red mouth, some brave hearts tried it out, but not everybody understood that you have to spit the juice out ;-)! After lunch and visiting the houses the rain had stopped and we were ready to watch the traditional dances and singing. A fantastic experience we all very much enjoyed.
It was time to visit the beach for a bit. Eat the first ice cream of this trip and head back to the boat. There we had a very nice evening ahead of us, drinking a beer on the moon deck and preparing the Worm Bowl. The winner of the “Alor Cup” this time was Dastardly Dorothy.
The next day we were up for a fantastic days of diving. The first dive site was a gorgeous reef, very different from the wall dives we had been seeing just before Alor. With very low coral growth, almost plant like sometimes, nudibranchs, scorpionfish, peacock mantis shrimp and lots and lots and lots of clownfish. The visibility was still stunning, the only thing else that had changed was the temperature of the water….brrr. The second dive was a proper black sand muck dive and we found so many critters! Nudibranchs, a snake eel, pipefish, cowfish, zebra crab, Colemans shrimp, razorfish, squid and an eagle ray passed by as well! And the most impressive found so far, Andy found a Rhinopia!
Time for the fourth dive of the day, a dive site at the same site as before…..would we find a rhinopia again?! Yes we did! And tons of nudibranchs, crazycritters and a starry night octopus. A brilliant day of diving!The third dive was an adventure so to say. Flying over a beautiful reef in a crazy fast current. Before we reached the ridge we had time to look at baby sweetlips, scorpionfish, nudibranchs, fusiliers and clownfish. Some groups stayed on that side whilst others flew passed lots of stunning reef and fish without time to stop at all.
The next morning Alor showed us again that the currents can get strong around here. At Carlten Wosley’s Bay the current changed
about every 20 minutes, and went from up to down and left to right. So it was a bit of hard work at times, but then we were completely surrounded by fish (surgeon, damsels, bannerfish) the whole time, the visibility was stunning again and the temperature only dropped to 23 degrees at times……so, yeah, a fresh start of the day;-). We ended our time in Alor with another fantastic wall dive and a slope reef. Fantastic budibranchs, urang utan crabs, scorpionfish, baby sweetlips several types of shrimps and one group even saw a mimic octopus. Alor has been fantastic diving!
That night we moved towards Komba, the active volcano. We got up at 3.45 in the morning. There was a full moon, a few clouds in the sky, some lightening miles away and a huge volcano.
Every 20-30 minutes it erupted, which in the darkness of the night is incredibly impressive. We watched the eruptions, whilst the moon started to sink behind the volcano and the sun started to rise. At day time the colours of the lava were less impressive, but the massive rocks that were spat out were just amazing, especially when they hit the water. Sometimes rolling down the slope, sometimes just straight into the ocean because of the impact of the eruption.
There are massive clouds of ash coming out of the centre at the same time. We took the dinghy out to get close to it and take photo’s of Jaya and us at the volcano. The second run over we had shut down the engine to hear the sounds better. A massive explosion erupted and the look on Martyn’s face when he desperately tried to start the engine and get away was priceless 
And so is the video footage of it. We sped away whilst massive blocks hit the water. Now of course we also dived next to the volcano. Which is funny when you think about it, we are in the water at the base of a volcano calling for it to erupt, then before we went diving down…..mmm….maybe we should have thought our that plan.. ;-).
After the third breakfast it was time for some sleep catching up and of course some games of rummikub, worms and spades. We headed off towards Flores where getting closer to the main land Steve suddenly shouted: “Breaching Sperm Whale!!!!”. Marwan was driving the boat at the time and first thought there was a pinnacle that he had missed on the GPS, after checking he called Steve down and they saw the tail. After that it breached twice, and we could see how enormously big this animal was! We saw the tale coming out a couple of times more and of course attempted a snorkel with it, but she was too fast. By the time we were in, she blew one more breath and went down. We did see them very close and the tail was immense! But then we saw that there were actually quite a few more. It took a fair amount of attempts and about an hour of driving in circles seeing them popping up miles from where we first saw them, but in the end it worked! We managed to snorkel with a sperm whale!!!!
What a day!
Read more on the final leg tomorrow!
Starting November 2014 we are offering 9 and 10 day Diving expeditions around Raja Ampat
