In November 2022 I sailed the classic Banda Sea crossing, from Ambon to Sorong via the Banda Islands, Koon and Misool, on the Scubaspa Zen. This is the day-by-day log of that 10-night trip: every dive site, what we saw and what we did not, and the small things, a lunar eclipse from the top deck, a family of blue whales at sunset, that make this route one of my favorites in Indonesia.
October and November are special in the Banda Sea: this is when the schooling hammerheads and the whales pass through. If you are deciding whether this route is for you, or which boat to do it on, read this alongside my full Scubaspa Zen review, which covers the boat, the cabins, the food, the spa and my second trip on the same route in October 2026, and my guide to the best luxury liveaboards in Indonesia. Traveling with a non-diver? My guide to Scubaspa Zen for snorkelers and non-divers covers the same route from the surface.
Day 1: Arriving in Ambon
I arrived a day early to dive the macro sites of Laha Bay, and because flights to Ambon get cancelled. For where to dive and stay, read my guide to diving in Ambon. On departure day the Scubaspa team collected me from my hotel at 10 am. I was welcomed on board by the cruise director and about ten crew, handed a fresh coconut and a cold towel, and was in my cabin within ten minutes. A buffet breakfast was waiting for those who were hungry after their flights, lunch was at 12.30, and at 15.30 we did the first dive at Laha Bay, one of my favorite critter sites in the world: pipefish, nudibranchs, crabs and scorpionfish within the first hour. Macro photographers will be in heaven here, and it is worth spending a few days in Ambon before the cruise if that is your thing.
November 2022
Day 2: Pintu Kota and a spa afternoon
We moved early to Pintu Kota, a wall below a cliff with a scenic arch on land and a second arch underwater that starts at about seven meters and slopes to thirty. The inside of the arch is full of gorgonians and sea fans, some of the fish swim upside down to follow the ceiling, and the soft corals come in purples, pinks, greens and oranges. Two more dives were offered, but I spent the afternoon at the spa instead, which on this boat is a perfectly respectable thing for a diver to do. The massage in the sea-view spa room was exactly what a body tired from the flight and the first dives needed, and I spent the evening on deck watching the sunset.
Day 3: First hammerheads at Nusa Laut
Nusa Laut is the last island before the crossing to Banda. We dived the north-east side: a sloping reef off the jetty that becomes a wall, with good hard coral. Hammerheads sometimes hang around the corner, so we spent most of the first dive in the blue, on air so we could go deep, and saw one hammerhead at about forty meters, plus a huge school of jacks and a school of juvenile barracuda. One shark was a good sign: it told us the hammerheads were still in the Banda Sea in mid-November. And the way a school of jacks reflects the sun is always a show. The second dive stayed on the reef and wall, which is lovely. In the afternoon the crew set up chairs and umbrellas on the white beach of Molana Island for a sunset party, and we ate dinner on the top deck watching a lunar eclipse. Molana is picture-perfect: white sand, crystal-clear water, and the sunset with the mountains behind.
November 2022
Day 4: Boiled Egg, Pombo Island and the crossing
Waiting for a late passenger, we dived another day near Ambon. Boiled Egg is a volcanic site near Tulehu where the sand is warm enough to cook an egg: bury it at the start of the dive and dig it up at the end. The second dive was a gentle shallow drift along the wall of Pombo Island. I had a reflexology foot massage and watched the Banda Sea from a lounger. We began the 13-hour crossing to Suanggi around midday, in flat seas, with pilot whales and dolphins alongside and a spectacular moonrise once we were away from any light. By sunset most of the guests had gathered on the top deck to watch the sun go down.
November 2022
Day 5: Hammerheads at Suanggi
Suanggi, “ghost island”, is a small uninhabited volcanic island between Ambon and Banda, home to seabirds and, in October and November, to schooling hammerheads. Five or six pinnacles surround the island, starting at about fifteen meters and sloping into steep walls, and the hammerheads patrol the pinnacles rather than the island itself. The Scubaspa team scheduled a dawn dive so we were first in the water at 6 am. We saw two hammerheads from a distance at about 40 meters, a few barracuda and small schools, in 30°C water with surprisingly little current the day after a full moon. 2022 was a poor year for hammerheads in the Banda Sea, and I had never seen the pinnacles with so few fish. Even without the sharks, Suanggi is one of the great dive sites of the world: vibrant coral, nudibranchs for those who look, and enormous sponges on the ridges. I had dived these pinnacles six times before this trip and had never seen them so quiet. After the third dive we sailed for Banda Neira with the sunset and more dolphins alongside, and the evening was movie night for anyone who wanted it.
November 2022
Day 6: The history of Banda Neira
The Banda Islands were, for centuries, the only place on earth where nutmeg grew, which made these tiny islands the most fought-over real estate of the 17th century. The Dutch built Fort Nassau on Banda Neira in 1609 and Fort Belgica above it in 1611. In 1621 the Dutch East India Company under Jan Pieterszoon Coen took the islands by force: forty Bandanese leaders were executed, and of a population of perhaps 13,000 to 15,000, only about a thousand are thought to have remained, as forced labor on the nutmeg plantations. The English held out on the island of Run until the Treaty of Breda in 1667, when they gave it to the Dutch and kept a trading post called New Amsterdam, now Manhattan. Three centuries later the Dutch exiled two future leaders of independent Indonesia, Mohammad Hatta and Sutan Sjahrir, to Banda Neira; Hatta’s house is now a small museum.
On my first trip we spent the morning ashore: the colonial houses, the museum, the Chinese temple, the church, both forts, and a nutmeg plantation where we touched, smelled and tasted nutmeg in every form. Buy nutmeg here; it is grown a few hundred meters from the shops near the port.
Back in the water, the Lava Flow site is a gently sloping reef below the volcano’s 1988 lava flow, where the nutrients have produced one of the densest hard-coral gardens I have seen, rivalling Raja Ampat. No big fish, but a stunning diversity of small ones, and a huge tuna head on which hundreds of fish were feeding. The night dive in the bay between the Maulana and Nutmeg Tree hotels is for mandarinfish.
November 2022
Day 7: Hatta Island
We were in the water at 6.15 am at Tanjung Buton, where hammerheads pass at sunrise in season. It is a wall that slopes gently to 10 meters and then drops steeply, with a coral garden at 5 meters for the safety stop, some of the biggest sea fans I have seen, sponges and tunicates in every color. No hammerheads that morning, but barracuda, a blacktip shark, turtles, bumphead parrotfish and yellow snapper on the ascent. The second dive, at the other corner of Hatta, was another deep search without luck; the third, Hatta Cave, is a steep wall with a swim-through and a mix of bright hard and soft corals. On the crossing to Koon we spent fifteen minutes alongside a family of blue whales at sunset, and the crew laid on cocktails at the bar, where everyone gathered to swap stories from the first days of diving.
November 2022
Day 8: Koon Island
Koon sits off the south-east corner of Seram, between the Banda and Seram seas. A few tropical-looking islands lost in the middle of the ocean, with a handful of fishing villages. We did two dives at Too Many Fish, on the south-east slope: a shallow coral garden at 2 to 8 meters that turns into a slope and then a deep wall. This was the first real current of the trip. We hooked in at several spots to watch huge giant trevallies, schools of barracuda, a blacktip hunting the reef and a school of batfish that followed us around. The shallow area is enchanting too, with bright corals and thousands of small fish. Watch for down-currents along the wall: we were caught in one, inflated a little, kept swimming along the wall and it let go. Around lunch we left for Raja Ampat, a 16-hour crossing that I spent mostly reading on the top deck, with a few hours of good 4G off the east coast of Seram, dolphins on the horizon and the Milky Way overhead.
November 2022
Day 9: Misool
A thunderstorm welcomed us to Raja Ampat and lightning struck the boat in the night without damage; the Zen handles rough water well. Misool is, for many divers, the best of Raja Ampat, thanks to the no-take zone created by Misool Resort with the local communities, which by 2019 had seen fish life increase by an average of 250 per cent. On this trip, my seventh to Misool, I saw more local fishing boats in the area than before and the sites felt less fishy; I am not a marine biologist, but warm water and fishing pressure together are not good news for a reef. That day we counted six fishing boats around Yuliet island, where the ranger station is, and another six or seven had set up what looked like a semi-permanent camp, with wives and children, on a nearby island. The Misool Eco Resort itself was built on an old shark-finning factory, which tells you how far the area had come.
Still, two days here are among the best diving anywhere. Four Kings at 6 am: four pinnacles stretching into the sea, jacks and barracuda hunting anchovies, yellow snapper on the reef, and nudibranchs, shrimps and rainbow tunicates on the pinnacles (and a lot of stinging jellyfish; wear a full wetsuit). Gorgonian Passage: a wall to thirty meters covered in huge gorgonians, with the best color between 10 and 16 meters. And Magic Mountain, Raja Ampat’s most famous site, which liveaboards may dive only once per trip: two underwater peninsulas joined by a ridge, the first starting at 5 meters and the second at 20, famous for reef and oceanic mantas on the same site. No mantas for us that day, but a huge school of batfish, giant trevallies, napoleons and barracuda on the current-exposed side. Bring a reef hook. If you are a confident diver, look for the side of the site exposed to the current: that is where the schools and the hunting are.
November 2022
Day 10: Oceanic mantas and dolphins
Eagle Nest, under the lighthouse, is a ridge dropping to forty meters with several pinnacles that serve as manta cleaning stations. Three sharks hunting, a turtle, barracuda, and then a shout from the dhoni crew: an oceanic manta nearby. We went back in and got a glimpse before it dived. Boo Window, another of Raja Ampat’s best, was quieter than usual for big fish, so we spent the dive on the reef: nudibranchs, shrimps, flatworms, five pygmy seahorses on one gorgonian, and a school of yellow snapper and a school of batfish by the window. The last dive, Puri Pinnacle, is a plateau at 5 meters sloping to forty, covered in soft coral, and famous for its anchovy bait balls. That day there were only a few anchovies, but a school of barracuda, a big napoleon and a potato grouper, and we found a nudibranch nursery, about ten egg ribbons on a single coral. Halfway through we heard dolphins singing, loud, and the big fish vanished and hid until they had passed; back on the dhoni the crew told us the pod was about a hundred strong and that a few had swum right over the site. The surface was thick with jellyfish, which made the return to the dhoni interesting. In 2022 the port and park fees were paid in cash on the boat and came to 400 USD for the ten nights. Then it was time to head to Sorong for the flight home.
November 2022
Booking this route
Scubaspa Zen runs the Banda Sea crossings in April and October. Check the dates and current rates on Scubaspa’s own website, or compare availability and prices on Liveaboard.com. For the hammerhead season, which boats run it and how to dive it, see my guide to hammerhead shark diving and my Sea Safari 6 review, the trip on which I saw schools of around 200 hammerheads at Suanggi.
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