Dive Review of Spice Island Divers in
Indonesia/Ambon

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Spice Island Divers: "Muck Diving Heaven", Feb, 2020, by David E Reubush, VA, US ( Top Contributor 68 reports with 35 Helpful votes). Report 11441.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	After our trip to Misool my wife and I and my dive buddy flew to Ambon and spent 5 days at Spice Island Divers. I had been to Ambon twice before on the start of two liveaboard trips, but had never spent an extended period of time there and was anxious to see if the diving was as good as I remembered from my two brief exposures. My buddy had been there a number of times and was anxious to see how things were with Spice Island Divers which had reopened on the site of what was formerly Maluku Dive Resort that closed a few years ago. We were both very pleased with the resort, the staff, the very good food, and, above all, the diving. Spice Island Divers is a relatively small resort with 10 cottages which overlook the water and an additional 4 cottages in a garden setting. The cottages are spacious, the beds comfortable, and the air conditioning works great. Internet was available in our cottage, although I had to have the iPad and iPhone near the front before they would connect. The computer had no issue connecting anywhere in the cottage. They have 4 boats, none have heads, but unless you were visiting one of the sites across the bay all the dive sites were less than a 10 minute boat ride from the resort. At this point in time the resort has only had a “soft” opening as much of the staff are new. The first day there were only the two of us and another American in the dive boat. The other American had hired a private dive guide so we ended up with a guide for the two of us. In addition, there was an American instructor who was taking her winter vacation there and swapping English instruction and dive master training for a free room. The second day we added a couple who managed a resort in Komodo and were taking their off season to dive around Indonesia. The third day it was back to just the three of us. On the fourth day a group of Japanese arrived and took up the rest of the ocean view rooms. They stayed together in two of the boats and we continued diving with three divers and two guides as well as the American instructor. There was plenty of room in the dive shop area for all of us to gear up with no crowding. I will note that there was no competition for dive sites. We only saw one other dive boat on one occasion only. One day when we went across the bay we did have to wait until the second dive to get to Ponte Nama Slope as the local villagers who control access to the site were fishing there. I will also note that the government is subsidizing the cleanup of the bottom. All the resorts are cooperating and going out at least once a week and removing trash. While there was still a bit of trash around it was nothing like the debris strewn bottom that I remembered from my previous two visits. If you are a muck diver Ambon is heaven, about equal to Lembeh, but with a slightly different cast of characters. I saw two weedy rhinopias, only the second paddle-flap rhinopias I have ever seen (The first was also there.), the namesake Ambon scorpionfish, cockatoo waspfish, longspine waspfish, numerous frogfish (including a number of the hairy variety), lots of seahorses, pipefish, a number of harlequin shrimp, cuttlefish (including several flamboyant), Pegasus sea moths, finger dragonets, jawfish, a number of nudibranchs (including a solar powered), mantis shrimp (both peacock and spearing), various crabs and hermit crabs etc. etc. We even had a walking shark out in the daytime. There were a host of eels of various varieties, including a number that I had never seen before. On the night dive lots of the eels were out and about, plus the dive guides found a number of stargazers. At one spot there were 4 napoleon snake eels together. We also did my first black water dive in deep water. We saw numerous translucent creatures, including a number of small translucent squid that put out lots of ink for their small size. Near the end of the dive we saw what we assumed was a deep water octopus that no one had ever seen before and is definitely not in any of the reference books. While the site called Twilight Zone was my favorite, to use a military analogy, Ambon was a target rich environment. All the sites had an abundance of interesting creatures to discover. The water was warm and visibility averaged about 30 feet, which is pretty good for a muck area. We were originally booked on a Garuda flight back to Jakarta. For divers, Garuda is the airline to use in Indonesia as they do not charge excess baggage for “sports equipment.” Just before we left home we got notice that they had cancelled the flight. Fortunately, we were able to get rebooked on Batik, which has a 20 kg. baggage limit before excess baggage fees apply. The three of us were traveling with about 30 kg. each so we were worried about what we would have to pay. Spice Island got our reservation information from us and took our bags early to the airport. When we got to the airport we received a very pleasant surprise as they handed us our boarding passes and bag check receipts with no excess baggage charge and no need to wait in a check-in line. This alone saved us a bunch of time and money. I definitely plan on returning to Spice Island Divers in the future.
Websites	Spice Island Divers
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Australia, Belize, Bimini, Bonaire, Caymans, Curacao, Fiji, Galapagos, Indonesia (Wakatobi, Raja Ampat, Komodo, Lembeh, Bali, Banda Sea, Ambon), Philippines, Red Sea, Solomon Islands, Southern Bahamas, St. Thomas, Turks & Caicos
Closest Airport	Ambon	Getting There	We were coming from Sorong so we just caught a Wings flight from Sorong to Ambon.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	choppy, currents
Water Temp	83-85°F / 28-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	25-30 Ft/ 8-9 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Nominal 1 hour bottom time, but we often went over.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish	N/A
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Great camera room with lots of space, lighting, and air conditioning. Several camera rinse tanks. The boat crew carried the cameras to the boat, handed them to you when you surfaced from the back roll, and carried them back and put them in the rinse tank after the dive. No rinse tank on the boat, but cameras were handled carefully.

Subscriber's Comments

By Steven R. Fisher in WA, US at Mar 13, 2023 22:53 EST

I will be looking forward to diving/UW-photographing out of this resort!

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Dive Review of Spice Island Divers in Indonesia/Ambon

Spice Island Divers: "Muck Diving Heaven", Feb, 2020,

Photos Submitted with this Report

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subscriber's Comments

Dive Review of Spice Island Divers in
Indonesia/Ambon