2012 – 2013 New Season Report
Time flies.
After a sometimes difficult, but predominantly enjoyable rainy season in Ambon, Maluku Divers is into its fourth year operating in its purpose-built dive resort located in the quaint village of Laha, just 8 minutes away from Pattimura Airport of Ambon, Indonesia. And the word is out: in the last three years, Maluku Divers has broken new ground in the dive industry as the new muck heaven in Indonesia, with its variety of muck critters in Ambon Bay rivalling Lembeh Straits, Bali and the Philippines. We are fortunate to have had rave reviews in numerous consumer lead platforms, including independent divers’ forums (Yorkshire Diver, ScubaDiving), underwater photography websites (Underwater Photography Guide) and travel forums ( Trip Advisor) that attest to the success of our efforts in building a cohesive well-trained, specialised and dedicated team that seek to deliver diving resort service of the highest quality without sacrificing the personal touch.
Despite the successes, we are still seeking to improve. As the new season gets underway, our divers can look forward to an even more comfortable stay in our private bungalows, with our newly-installed sunshield curtains and a splash of new paint throughout the resort. With our Head Chef Dewa now partnered by his good friend, Chef Cerio Badili, from Manado, the Kitchen team is dishing out a brand new menu, including Chef Ceri’s Minahasa Chicken Curry, Honey Chilli Chicken and scrumptious Beef Burger, to take our resort’s dining experience to new gastronomical heights.
Repeat divers will be pleased to hear that dive guides, Semuel, Soleman and Stonner, are all ready to bring muck magic to your dive experience, reporting population booms in frogfish and rhinopias in Ambon Bay since the start of this season. Beni and Luky, our endearing Ambonese boat crew, will be joining the dive team ranks as trainee dive guides with the completion of their Open Water Diver certification with the help of instructor Li Li Tey. During training, Benni and Luky have already amassed 500 dives each, absorbing many of the techniques and skills of the experienced dive team around them. We’re proud to call them the next generation of Maluku Divers’ critter spotters.
As the last three years efforts in training our team of dedicated local staff pay off and the resort begins to run like a well-oiled machine, (despite some Ambonisms of course!) we can are able to start to explore some of the fun asepcts of having a resort in such a unique area. Resort Manager, Marcel Hagendijk, is embarking on a couple of serious diversions to keep his hyperactivity at bay. First, with three publications in Silent World (dive magazine for German readers), Duiken (Dutch) and Scuba Diver Through the Lens (worldwide) in 2012, there is great awareness of his psychedelic interpretations of marine life. Marcel will be sharing his tips on underwater photography with willing divers at the resort, and for the more dedicated Hagendijk fans, Marcel is also offering the opportunity for personal workshops during stays at the resort. You can check out his amazing and award-winning images in the photo albums on the Maluku Divers’ page.
In addition, as an IANTD Technical and Normoxic Tri-Mix dive instructor, Marcel is gearing up (and literally) for the new season, with plans to conduct technical dive training and wreck explorations to tap into the vast potential in technical diving with Ambon’s deep bay and close proximity to one of the most diveable wrecks in Indonesia, the 137 metre Duke of Sparta.
Last but not least, under the leadership of Li Li Tey, Maluku Divers is proud to announce that we will be joining a growing movement of scuba divers in 180 countries in the year-round Dive Against Debris project by Project AWARE. We will be collecting and reporting the underwater trash we find in Ambon Bay to help protect the ocean against the onslaught of marine debris.
The Dive Against Debris project at Maluku Divers will be launched on 25 September 2012, on International Coastal Cleanup Day, but the collection and reporting will be conducted throughout the season from September 2012 to May 2013. We extend an invitation all our divers to participate in this project by dedicating one dive during your stay to help make a small but significant step towards our dream of making Ambon Bay a marine conservation park in the future.
So with these exciting developments, we look forward to welcoming our old friends and new divers to a new dive season at Maluku Divers. See you soon!
