August in Indonesia : 5th trip to Alor

[Luko]

Alor can be a PITA to get since it takes at least 2 domestic flights from Jakarta or Bali, the flight connexions times are not optimalat all  -undesrtatement-. it will most of the time force you to an overnight in the dull city of Kupang, add on top the indonesian carriers enjoy canceling their flights on last minute (happened to me twice in a year with the same airline group that I’ll shame here ; LionAir, WIngsAir or BatikAir ).

 

At least the newer seafront Sotis Hotel provides occasions to see local life at sunset time :

 

 

Alor Divers is located on the island of Pantar which is one hour mixed car and  speedboat ride from Alor. Once you get there you’ll be beached on a  fantastic white sand beach then  greeted by the resort and dive managers who will set the tune and success of your stay (this year dutch couple Koen and Melissa made everything easy ).

The 9 Bungalows are all facing the beach, 30m for the most from the sea, deluxe bungalows have a large shaded terrasse with sofas, an entrance to the outdoor bathroom, two large tables for the photographers need and all the electrical sockets you need. The bungalows are spacious wiith mosquito netted queen beds, no AC but 2 fans on top and on the side of the bed. In august it was cool and breezy enough at night to sleep with double sheets on.

 

View at sunrise from Alor Divers bungalows :

 

The place is quite well known to me : It was my 5th stay at Alor Divers over the past 10 years, so I could focus on what I was looking forward to. Luckily, we were only 5 divers and sometimes 2 snorkelers, hence I could discuss with the managers to plan dives I wanted for the days after. Once this said, mother Nature wasn't fully cooperative with my major target : the famous hammerheads. Although the party had seen them on the day I checked in, another operation consistently spotting up to 15 HH on the two days before we dived the site… yes, before... of course, you could guess the outcome : there were zilch on the day we went there.

 

For those who haven’t dived Alor, it’s a weird sort of area full of marine ressources but uneasy to capture : Alor is a mix of  vivid blue waters teeming with fish but NOT schooling, the coral life is outstanding as well, add on top you will find a mini Ambon/Lembeh sort of muckdive environment when diving Kalabahi bay.

Aside from the hammerheads which are a hit or miss (Overall I’m on a 30% success rate on the HH site) , the main photo interests for me as five-peater photographer in Alor are :

·         The fantastic shallows in crystal clear waters (the guides are always surprised when I tell them I want to stay in the shallows rather than diving deep on the wall),

·         Human action (you often meet local people fishing or setting bamboo fishtraps underwater – aka « Bubu »-),

·         The nice Bakalang ferry jetty with populated with batfish between the colorful coral encrusted pillars.  

·         and the ubiquitous Rhinopias when going to muck sites.

 

UW photos to come.

[Luko]

1- Shallow parts :

 

The shallower parts of some of the main sites in Alor (Bama Wall, Cathedral, The Edge, Red Sand beach etc.) are incredible, I would stay there for the whole dive instead of going deeper on the wall.

This thanks to the topography, the fish and coral life density and also the incredible visibility  : the walls drop off almost immediately starting from 3 to 7m deep close to the shore, hence compacting the shallower reef inhabitants in a relatively small area with great visibility making it ideal for Snell windows or sunbeams. However the downside is that you can be often swept sideways or over the shallows by a sometimes raging current. Alor is not a joke for currents, but then you get the fishlife. 

 

Here's below the idea.

 

Cathedral which is typical for sunbeams and greenish light coming from the tree shades and the algaes in the shallows

 

Bama Wall - my favorite dive site in Alor-

 

 

 

 

 

Other sites like The Edge, Red Sand beach or even Rumah Biru

 

 

[Luko]

2- Local fishermen action

 

Fishermen traditionally use "Bubu" local name of bamboo woven traps that they set on the bottom of the spots where they fish, for decades or centuries it hadnt done too much harm since the traps are resting on a mostly sand or rubble, they also allow smaller fish to get out of the trap.

Unfortunately fishermen are using more and more narrow meshed nylon fishing nets like seines which are damaging both the fish and coral life. Indistinct fish like damselfish or anthias find themselves entangled, these larger nets are disposed on larger coral fields.

Even though still better than bombing, that trend might become a threat to the more delicate coral fields and also to the small coral reef fish.  

 

Scouting the bottom for the perfect bubu location :

 

Bubu down

 

Securing the Bubu

 

Bubu check

 

Fishing nets and spearfisherman

 

[Luko]

3- Bakalang jetty

 

Bakalang jetty is the local "big ferries" harbour for eastern Pantar island, that is quite close to Alor Divers (15 minutes boat ride), it can be done as an afternoon dive or even a nightdive.

While 10 years ago it was regarded as a pure macro/muck site, the corals have encrusted the pillars, the early afternoon sunbeams with the small fish schools concur to make it a legit wide angle site. 

It's probably with Bama wall and Yellow corner, one of the sites I have dived the most often in Alor in all my stays.

 

Encrusted pillars and sunbeams :

 

 

Fish life : froggie hiding

 

 

Fish schools

 

Topic related to chapter 2- : ghostnets

 

[Luko]

4- Muck diving

 

The long and narrow Kalabahi bay stretches on 15 km from inland Kalabahi town to the Pantar strait where current is running and most of the dive sites located. Near to the entrance of the bay, villages like Ampera, their mosques or their schools set a background for muck diving sites like Mucky Mosque, School's Out, Faktori Es or others.

It easily reminds Ambon bay settings above and below without the used diapers floating or the goat skulls lying on the bottom,  but most unpleasantly a temperature drop of 3-4 degrees compared to the northern Pantar strait sites. (Ultimately for those unlucky divers who surfaced near to the village sewer, a frequent flyer pass to the bathroom that would jeopardize any diving for about 3 consecutive days 🚽... I was one of these divers on my second stay in Alor, lesson learnt,  I would never take my regulator out of my mouth until I'm on the boat when I dive the place.).

  

The biotop is also very similar with black sand, rounded volcanic rocks, rubble, sparsed corals and crinoids where Rhiniopias like to roam (one rhinopias sighting per dive was my ratio). You may also find fields of fire urchins with Coleman shrimps or zebra crabs riding on top, froggies concealed in between ropes, lots of ornate GPF, an abundance of seahorses, occasionally some tiger or harlequin shrimps, fewer nudis than expected though.   

 

 

 

 

 

[Luko]

5- Yellow corner

 

Yellow Corner is the name of the deep wall that was discovered by Alor Divers some 12-15 years ago and that was a regular passing site for hammerheads schools at a certain time of the month under certain conditions.

It has become "publicly known" some years later, therefore becomes more often dived even by liveaboards, but the special conditions can reward the divers only a few days a month around full moon, hence like all the dives in Alor that need specific schedules, much better to stay at an experienced resort.

 

Even though the hour/tide/moon phase conditions are met, you can always find yourself either "empty handed" at the end of this often demanding dive (35 to 40m deep, beaten with current on the plateau where you need to hook) or rewarded with anything from a couple of HH to a wall of 30+ hammerheads interspersed with a couple of silky sharks (somebody explains to me why silkies like to mingle into HH schools).

 

If you don't get the HH, you'll still get a beautiful though deep dive where your computer might not like your PPO2 value, along a deep wall on the top of which flows a waterfall of bannerfish and/or a zillion snappers, then hooked on a lively coral plateau at 30-34 m deep, where you can see various species of sharks, grey reef or blacktips passing in the distance behind the curtain of multiple coral reef fish.

 

Along the wall with the snappers (the images are tilted for the sake of the image composition)

 

 

This is the deep plateau where you need to find some room avaialble to hook yourself, the snapper school is still parading.

 

Time to "dehook"

 

 

 

6- Technical considerations 

 

Now time for technicalities.

All of the wide angle pictures where taken with a R7/Nauticam housing equiped with a 18-45EFS entry zoom and a Nauticam WWL1-B wide angle  lens.

For the macro part I used a EFS 60mm macro lens.

 

Lighting was provided by 2 Fotocore GTX strobes most of the time at full power without any diffuser. It was my first trip with these newely purchased strobes,  I found the light delivered was pretty good for wide angle. Only drawback was the issues with optical cables I had, these flashes don't accept all kinds of S&S type connectors. I only had consistent results with WeeFine cable connectors (this is not related to the type of cable but only to the connectors).

 

I used sometimes a Scubalamp/SUPE OSC snoot for the macro part.  I wouldn't have the same opinion on these strobes fro macro usage, they are heavy and the OSC snoot is not optimal/precise enough for super macro (probably due to the circular bulb combined with the lack of a fresnel lens inside the snoot).

 

Now my recommendation : GO AND DIVE ALOR !

Edited September 23 by Luko
lots of typos

[Davide DB]

Luko, your report was absolutely amazing! Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
I'm sure the report will be appreciated for a long time, especially since the place is so popular!

 

And a big congratulations on the gorgeous photos! 

 

I know this might be a bit of a different take, but I really loved the photos of the fishermen. They have such a fascinating anthropological meaning.

[Luko]

54 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

know this might be a bit of a different take, but I really loved the photos of the fishermen.

Yeah me too, it's really different like street photo on slow motion.

Needs to be aware on what's going around and have eyes looking behind.

I nearly had the bubu of another boat falling on my head. 

[Davide DB]

26 minutes ago, Luko said:

Yeah me too, it's really different like street photo on slow motion.

Needs to be aware on what's going around and have eyes looking behind.

I nearly had the bubu of another boat falling on my head. 

 

Just think that just two days ago I got my hands on a photo book by Fosco Maraini who in 1954 photographed and described for the first time the AMAs, the Japanese women pearl fishers. So when I saw the photos of the fishermen, I thought back to the book.
 

 

[Luko]

26 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

Just think that just two days ago I got my hands on a photo book by Fosco Maraini who in 1954 photographed and described for the first time the AMAs, the Japanese women pearl fishers. So when I saw the photos of the fishermen, I thought back to the book.

Wow, that's a reference... (not sure there is enough on my side to stand even a remote comparison... 🥴).

 

But yeah I come from a travel/streetphoto background (you know : a Leica M6 loaded with TriX film, the guy in the back looking the people moving around, waiting for the scene to happen then processing/enlarging the films on the homelab), so it was a nice break from purely Nature photography, involving thoughts on how to scenarize the action.

Probably closer to video except that I am really hopeless at shooting video.

 

[vkalia]

Lovely!   I’ve been toying with whether or not to take a group there, and this post is increasing my interest in doing so.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed report.

[humu9679]

@Luko Lovely photographs and a very succinct report. Mahalo nui loa!