Route Description - Alor
Embark on an unforgettable diving adventure aboard the Mermaid from Maumere Harbour, Flores. Over ten days, you'll explore Indonesia's stunning underwater landscapes and vibrant marine life. Starting with a welcome and safety briefing, you'll dive in Lewaling Bay's volcanic scenery, then the diverse Pantar Strait, known for its fringing reefs and black sandy slopes rich in critters and pelagic fish. Enjoy a cultural excursion on Alor Island before diving at Beang Abang, Treweg Island, Lamalera, Suangi, and the Solar Strait. Conclude with spectacular wall dives at Serbete Island before returning to Maumere. This adaptable itinerary ensures safe, thrilling dives every day.
DAY 1
It's time to set sail on the incredible MV Mermaid! Check-in between 12:00-15:00 hours in Maumere Harbour, Flores. After the boat and safety briefing, we'll set up all the equipment and you can settle into your cabin. Dinner will be served at 19:00 hours as we cruise into the sunset on our overnight journey to Kawula Island, east of Flores.
DAY 2
We're going to kick off our trip with a day at the incredible Lewaling Bay, in the north of Kawula Island. The bay is home to two stunning volcanoes on either side, and the scenery is simply breathtaking. We'll be doing four dives here, and the diving at Lewaling Bay is as diverse as it is amazing. You'll find everything from walls, slopes and muck dives here. We'll be diving with a great variety of creatures, from huge barracudas and schools of fish to tiny pygmy seahorses. We'll finish the day with a muck dive as a night dive in front of the village of Watu Warawutun, which stands at the bottom of one of the volcanos. After dinner, we'll cruise overnight to the Alor Islands, which are about 7 to 8 hours away.
DAYS 3-5
The next two days are going to be absolutely amazing! We're going to be diving around the Pantar Strait, which is the strait between the two major islands of Alor and Pantar Island. There are four islands in the Pantar Strait: Ternate in the north, Reta and Pura in the middle and Treweg in the south. Between these four islands and the islands of Pantar and Alor, there are several dozen dive sites with an incredible variety of diving scenery: walls with huge overhangs and hard coral gardens in the shallows, fringing reefs covered with pristine hard and soft corals and all kind of sponges surrounded by zillions of anthias and damsels, black sandy slopes covered with thousands of anemones, and muck dives where we can find rhinophias, fire sea urchins with coleman’s shrimps and zebra crabs, channels between the islands where you just drift with some strong currents and look out for pelagic fish passing by. The water temperature can vary greatly in this area. In the northern and middle area, the temperature is usually around 27 C. And in the south, it can vary from 21C to 25C. Currents can be extremely strong in the Pantar Strait, which usually makes for 30m-plus visibility.
DAY 6
On the fifth day of our incredible trip, we'll be skipping the two morning dives to explore a traditional village on Alor Island. Get ready for a cultural experience like no other! The locals will be performing a traditional dance, and you'll have the chance to buy some locally made handicrafts. Then, we'll be heading back to Mermaid for lunch and two more dives at the Pantar Strait.
DAY 7
Today we're going to start cruising early in the morning to get to a small bay at the south tip of the Pantar Strait called Beang Abang. We'll be spending the whole day there! Alternatively, we could do one or two dives at Treweg Island and then move to Beang Abang. The dive sites at Treweg Island are absolutely amazing! They consist of rocky slopes covered in all sorts of soft corals, and you can just drift looking for all kinds of pelagic fish such as dogtooth tunas and giant trevallies. The diving at Beang Abang Bay and village is very different from the rest of Alor. The sand is consists mainly of blackish and grayish colour, which is the perfect environment to find all kinds of different critters such as frogfish, ghost pipefish and different species of octopi. There is also a jetty at the village with large schools of scads and batfish. And it is also a great place to find more critters and all kinds of nudis. The water temperature in the south of the Alor Islands can vary from 21C to 25C. After dinner, we'll set sail on an overnight cruise to the village of Lamalera, in the south of Kawula Island.
DAY 8
We kick off the day with a dive at a fringing reef in front of the whaling village of Lamalera. Then, we're off to the small island of Suangi, in the south of Kawula Island, for one more dive. The waters surrounding Suangi are teeming with schooling fish, including pelagic fish, and it's also a place where sharks are usually spotted. After our third dive, we'll move the boat again to finish the day in the Solar Strait, south of Adonara Island. We'll do a muck dive as a night dive, which is always exciting!
DAY 9
The last day of diving will be at the small island of Serbete, just northwest of Adonara island, where we will finish with two dives. The walls are spectacular, covered in soft corals and sponges. You can spend time looking for tiny critters among the soft corals and sponges, or just drift along the wall looking at the spectacular views of the walls. After the second dive we'll be heading back to Maumere, which is only about six hours away.
DAY 10
It's time to disembark after breakfast at 8 am! This is a sample itinerary and is subject to changes beyond the operator’s control. The exact itinerary, route and amount of dives for your cruise may be adapted to best suit the weather conditions, tides and currents, season and other prevailing events