Part of Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province, West Timor, also known as Timor Barat, is home to beautiful reefs, diverse marine life and even an underwater bubbling vent within recreational diving depths. Matthew Meier tells us about an exploratory dive trip there on a liveaboard.
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To paraphrase the immortal words of Star Trek, our mission on this adventure was to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and boldly go where no one has gone before. We embarked on a seven-day exploratory dive trip in the Savu Sea, west of Timor Island, with the goal of finding fascinating and viable dive sites for a new cruise itinerary for future Dive Damai liveaboard guests.
Getting to this remote part of the Indonesian archipelago required a local flight via Lion Air from either Bali or Jakarta, as they were the only airline with service to the arrival and departure port of Kupang. Once on the ground, my wife and dive buddy, Jennifer, and I enjoyed our 45-minute drive through the bustling seaside community, past shoreline walking paths, restaurants and cafes, before reaching the harbor and ultimately motoring out in a skiff to the Damai 2 anchored nearby.
Diving
A few of the other guests were already on board and had just finished an afternoon dive as we settled in, surrendering our shoes for bare feet while afloat. The remaining passengers had an early flight the next morning, so we were able to stay overnight in the harbor and dive under Kupang Pier after breakfast. Despite confused looks from the local fishermen, who do not often see divers, we were excited to encounter the same massive school of silversides pulsing between the pier pilings that our fellow divers had spotted the day before.
The thrill of exploratory diving is that you have no idea what you may find under the surface. You might be the first person ever to dive in a particular area, the first to see a spectacular reef, to discover an underwater geological formation or perhaps even a new species. On the flip side, an entire dive may consist of floating along in the current over a featureless sandy bottom. To be fair, the crew worked really hard to make sure that this latter scenario did not happen, and in fact, I had only one dive over my six days underwater where it was pointless to attempt to create useful images.
We departed Kupang harbor soon after our dive under the pier and traveled north along the coast, stopping to dive at two different sites during the afternoon. The first had a sloping reef with lots of critters hiding in crevices and fabulous gardens of cabbage and staghorn corals that sadly did not fully materialize until we were drifting well above them during our safety stop. Hopefully, with our feedback, future divers will be dropped farther down the reef so they can enjoy these corals up close. Macro was on the agenda for the next dive, with plenty of small coral bommies emerging from a sandy bottom. We came across several species of anemonefish and lionfish, colorful crinoids, dozens of shrimp gobies with bulldozer shrimps excavating burrows, and plentiful small reef fish swimming among the corals.
Batek Island
Overnight, we continued north for another 70 miles (113 km) on gloriously calm seas, with a Cheshire moon on the horizon, brilliant skies and even a few shooting stars overhead, soaking it all in from the upper deck while splayed out on lounge chairs.
We awoke the next morning to find ourselves anchored off Batek Island, and I flew a camera drone up at first light to capture the scene. A small military outpost sits on a bluff atop the sheer cliffs, along with a glowing white lighthouse, while sections of sandy beach down below play host to nesting sea turtles.
An underwater ridge runs east from the island and is home to a stunning reef with scores of large pink barrel sponges, bright orange soft corals, colonies of green sun corals and numerous species of hard corals and reef fish. We made several dives here over the next 24 hours to get a feel for how the currents were affected by the tides, and I will say that the topography definitely lends itself to fast-moving water in the right conditions.
Ours was the second journey the ship’s crew had made to this area, and thus, we were able to investigate some of the dive sites they had located on their original scouting trip. This was helpful for several reasons: the guides knew what to expect underwater, the divers were able to reaffirm the viability of an area at a different time of year, with potentially different currents, tides, etc., and it allowed us photographers to have a better idea of what lens we might want to bring. A third expedition is planned for later this year, where they will attempt to get to an area a bit farther out than we were able to visit due to higher winds and waves while also reaffirming the viability of the sites that looked promising from the first two missions.
Finding dive sites in the first place starts with looking at nautical charts in search of corners, ridges and pinnacles. Places are identified where deeper ocean currents are forced upward, bringing nutrients to support coral reefs and sea life. The depths of these anomalies on the charts are analyzed to make sure a site is within recreational limits, comparing changes in depth to see how quickly the bottom drops out. Wind, weather, waves and tides also play a role in predicting sea conditions and currents. Plus, as mentioned earlier, visits are made at different times of the year, with varying conditions, to determine the reliability and consistency of each site.
After our daily sunrise yoga session on the upper deck, we headed south of Batek Island. After checking the charts, we dropped in to investigate a pinnacle that stretched from the depths up to nearly the surface. It was buffeted by a strong current, so we stayed out of the fray on the backside and came across a bevy of macro subjects. These included a day octopus on the hunt, an intricate colony of leopard anemones, gorgeous crinoids and soft corals, plus multiple species of clownfish tucked into anemones.
Naikliu Village. At Naikliu Village, a few hours further down the coast, we jumped in to see more macro critters under the local pier. The seafloor was littered with impressive encrusting coral heads, which in turn were inundated with huge scorpionfish, abundant lionfish, schools of reef fish and giant clams in an array of colors. On a night dive at the same spot, I discovered a mototi octopus on the reef, a close relative of the blue-ringed octopus, and my guide alerted me to a beautiful brown-lined paper bubble moving across the sand.
Seamau Island. The next afternoon we experienced a very unique and fascinating bubble dive off Semau Island, another of the sites found on the crew’s previous trip. Here, 65ft (20m) below the surface, underwater vents emit a constant stream of bubbles and ash from the top of a mammoth, gradually sloping mound. It is not yet known whether this activity is thermal, volcanic, methane-related or otherwise, but I can say with certainty that the fine silt near the vent openings is easily disturbed. Near the base of the mound was an immense patch of carpet anemones, complete with a multitude of clownfish, schooling anthias, cardinalfish and a gang of well-fed, monstrous lionfish.
At the dive sites that were new to both divers and staff, the guides made a brief scouting dive to assess the current, potential points of interest and the depths where these points could be found. Upon surfacing, a message was relayed back to the liveaboard as to whether we would be getting into the water and, if so, what to expect. As guests, we had to be flexible, patient and, at the same time, poised to jump into action if we needed to get ready to dive before conditions changed. For those of us shooting with interchangeable lens cameras, this also meant potential last-minute lens changes should the macro or wide-angle recommendation differ from the setup currently in our underwater housings.
Rote Island
The last two days of our trip were entirely exploratory, navigating roughly half of the 50 miles (80km) of shoreline along the western edge of Rote Island. The island’s only dive operator is situated at the far southern end, and thus, divers have likely never experienced a majority of Rote’s underwater realm. An added bonus—especially as it related to this portion of our trip—was that we had the pleasure of learning firsthand about the efforts of Thrive Conservation’s Rote Project from the program manager, who was on board and dived with us all week. The project utilizes education, both in the schools and in the villages, as well as collaboration with local fishermen to try and help preserve Rote’s natural resources.
Kambing. At the northwest corner of Rote was the much smaller island of Kambing, where incredible fields of coral reefs were discovered on both the east and west sides of the island. We enjoyed meandering drift dives over expanses of Acropora sp. hard corals, mushroom leather corals, barrel sponges and aggregations of anthias, chromis, damselfish, glassfish, surgeonfish and triggerfish. Extra patience and time were often required for photography to allow the fish to become comfortable enough to emerge from their hard coral hiding places, as they were a bit shy and unaccustomed to divers.
Two imposing pinnacles emerged from the shoreline midway down the western side of Rote, and underwater, the landscape was equally as interesting. Obelisks on a smaller scale were covered with soft corals, sea fans, branching hard corals and carpet anemones, along with a pair of curious cuttlefish that followed me throughout the dive but never ventured close enough for a picture.
Topside attractions and more diving
In keeping with the theme of exploration, I recommend that visitors spend some time immersed in the rich culture, warm hospitality and visual spectacles that can be found on the island of Bali, before or after your liveaboard exploits. We arrived a few days prior to our dive trip to help stave off jet lag and revisit some of our favorite attractions.
The town of Ubud is an artists’ retreat with world-class woodworkers, jewelers, metalsmiths, designers and restaurants. When I first visited over 25 years ago, it was a sleepy little community 45 minutes north of the airport, but with increased popularity, population and traffic, that commute has now more than doubled. Mixed in with the shopping, arts and crafts, and exquisite dining are Indonesian temples, water palaces, rice fields and a monkey forest with very inquisitive macaque monkeys.
Outside the city limits are more temples and palaces, terraced rice paddies, waterfalls, volcanoes, coffee plantations, the Bali Bird Park and the Bali Reptile Park. Rental cars and scooters are available for the adventurous, but if you would rather not navigate the chaotic traffic yourself, it is easy and fairly inexpensive to hire a car with a driver for the day.
Closer to the international airport are the beach towns of Sanur and Jimbaran, if you prefer a slower pace and more of a feet-in-the-sand experience. If nightlife is more to your liking, the Kuta area is well known for its bars and clubs. And for those who cannot get enough time underwater, there is fantastic diving off the coastal villages of Tulamben and Pemuteran.
Final thoughts
If all goes to plan with Dive Damai’s upcoming third excursion, I truly believe there will be an enticing new route for divers in the near future. Additionally, the corridor past Rote Island is reportedly a superhighway for several species of whales, so the possibility of pelagic activity may well be included in subsequent adventures.
We had a great time in the waters west of Timor and thoroughly enjoyed the exploration into the unknown. I hope you get to experience a similar mission one day. Indeed, I look forward to returning to the Savu Sea myself once the full itinerary is put into place. ■
Thanks go to Dive Damai (dive-damai.com) for hosting this adventure and Scubapro (scubapro.com) for their continued support in providing dive gear.
