The deep South |
| Diving the Moluccan Islands |
In April 2003 we headed on board of the Ciska from Bira to the south of Sulawesi in Indonesia. As in the years before the weather was excellent and the sea was very flat so that even for very sensitive persons the trip was very enjoyable indeed.
Starting in Bira our 10-days-trip followed the eastern coast of Selayar in southerly direction. From the southern tip of this island we turned east in order to revisit the steep and awesome drop offs of Pulau Kakabia. Further south we made some excellent dives off Pulau Kaunadi and eventually turned west, passed Pulau Madu and went north again along the west coast of Selayar.
After having visited the area around the Selayar Dive Resort regulary for three years now, we were impressed how possitively this diving area has developed after having been included into the Taka Bonerate National Park. We found big schools of fish, a healthy reef and big number of pelagics. There were really big Napoleon Wrasses, a number of Grey Reef Sharks and a lot of Whitetip Reef Sharks at Shark Point not far away from the resort.
Hard and soft corals were in good health and as visibility
was excellent we had very enjoyable dives in the area.
Like two years before Pulau Kakabia greeted us underwater with spectacular drop offs. With excellent visibility the walls were covered with huge Gorgonian fans, black corals, plenty of soft corals and big barrel sponges looked even more impressive than two years ago. We spent three full days of diving around Kakabia and discovered a lot of dive spots also some very interesting ones at the south-west and south-east corner of the island.
In our logbooks we could log in many dogtooth tunas, turtles, schools of jacks, murray eels, scorpion and leaf scorpion fish. Again we did not see many big pelagics. We were sure they had to be there. However we did not find the right spot and had not enough time to meet them. So we have to go there again.
Pulau Kaunadi with slopes in the sun was a could change after the dramatic and sometimes dark walls of Kakabia. We had easy relaxed dives off the southeastern coast and saw turtles and big tunas and in 6 m depth a perfect coral garden.
Wir passed a couple of other islands on our way further southwest and followed the south coast of Pulau Madu. Though we were all the time looking for promising dive spots we only discovered one on the southwest tip of Madu.
Though 15 m visibility was much worse than before at Kakabia and Kaunadi we discovered underwater a gigantic table coral landscape. Never before on our trips in South-East-Asia have I seen such a perfect scenery of table corals. They stretch over a huge area in the shallower part of the dive and form impressive formations.
After further dives at the southern tip of Selayar we followed the western coast of the island and finished our trip in Bira. Most of the participants of the tour will be again on board of M/V Ciska next year when we will dive the waters of Komodo.
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