Raja Ampat and the Banda Sea

Long before Coronavirus catapulted the world into chaos, the climate catastrophe that threatens to destroy everything natural and beautiful in the world made it increasingly important to me to see the wonders beneath the sea before they're all gone. So I spent more money than I should've, and took 43 hours of flights to get to Sorong, Indonesia for a ten day liveaboard cruise with Wallacea Dive Cruises aboard the MV Ambai through Raja Ampat and the Banda Sea.

Most of this was written as I went, so I’ll have to ask you to forgive the inconsistent tenses because I’m not editing it again.

It's a far cry from diving aboard Blackbeard's, and while I appreciate the luxury, I don't know that I love it as much as the stripped down, bare bones service that I have got from Allstar Liveaboard's budget service out of Nassau. The food is great, the crew as friendly as one could hope for, and the accommodations are phenomenal. But I felt a tad out of place among the mostly European travelers.

The first morning on the boat brought me to life with a sunrise through the brass porthole beside my head, and the creaking sound of wood twisting and flexing as the motor slowly brought us up to speed to take us deep into the Dampier Straight. Aside from dive trips, and Christmas as a child, I don't know of a time in my life that I’ve ever eagerly jumped out of bed at 0630.

After the first dive I'd checked off the three things I was desperate to see: octopus, Wobbegong, and a mantis shrimp. SD Card failures notwithstanding, it was wildly successful to say the least. By the second dive I've got my breathing back and have seen more sharks and barracuda than most people see in their lifetime, the current was strong and most of the dive was spent tethered to the reef and patiently watching the ocean unfold before us. Swimming against the tide was as futile as fighting it, or time, ever was. I gave up and let myself go along for a slow drift.

The third dive was exactly what I travelled halfway across the planet for. A shallow dive on a reef that yielded more photos and videos worth talking about than my entire last trip did. Turtles, sharks, tens of thousands of fish, and a cocky little clown fish that fronted on me and my intrusive camera. An almost endless line of trumpet fish, giant parrot fish, beautiful macro life and coral that beggared belief in its vibrancy and diversity.

A quick stop at Bat Island, an island with several abandoned cabins. Apparently, halfway through completion someone realized that the market for travelers deep in the Indonesian ocean who were willing to cohabitate with thousands of bats the size of Canada Geese was probably limited to myself, and a handful of others. The island is now a stopping point for cruises like mine, day travelers and locals. A sign hastily, but securely, strung between two trees proclaimed it an ecological site. The feral cats seemed friendly, but when you're a day’s cruise from the nearest hospital, rabies sounds less fun than it normally does. I did not pet them.

Closing the first day with a night dive was more of the same. More things crossed off my list: cuttlefish, pigmy seahorses, tiny hermit crabs and more shrimp with their iridescent orange eyes capturing the light of the torch. Peppering the wall between 3 meter wide sea fans of the most vibrant shades of purple and pink, were pine and lime green soft and hard corals, bright red, purple and royal blue coral tubes turned the entire wall of the island into a living history of a planet untouched by mankind. Sculptured slipper lobster trundled along the near vertical surface in their prehistoric majesty.

As the only north American on the boat, some things require a mild amount of mental gymnastics: converting millibars to PSI when at depth, converting depth from meters to feet, so that I know which camera is safe to use, and then back to meters so that things make sense. It's also sheltered me from dealing with currents of any real sort, aside from my beloved Washing Machine which is a drift more than a dive in a current. No lessons were apparently learned by me from the second dive the day before and I spent a significant amount of time struggling to stay properly oriented on the first dive of day two. Dragged tumbling away from my buddy and dive guide I partnered up with our Spanish cruise director who took me on a fantastic exit to the dive, pointing out multiple black and white tipped reef sharks, bumphead parrotfish, and a handful of other large fish.

The second dive of the day was unremarkable, relatively speaking. The magnitude of life here is, in and of itself, remarkable relative to anywhere else I've been. The most potent thing I saw was a sea fan with 18 pigmy seahorses; our dive guide said he'd never seen more than five or six on a single fan.

The third dive of the day brought us back to another shallow area with a crumbling wooden jetty, half collapsed in disrepair, covered in bright fuchsia soft coral. A newly implemented conservation area, with incredible growth over the last year gave hope that maybe reefs can survive if humans make an effort to ensure it. Massive spans of spiky coral; a human sized giant clam; thousands of yellow-tailed fusiliers content to let me swim among them; dozens of each of the types of sweetlips native to the area sat guard atop spans of mushroom-like flat topped hard corals. Turtles dozed in nooks between tall coral blooms, starkly contrasting the blues and purples of the coral. A medium-sized turtle took one look at me, decided I wasn't the kind of person she wanted to associate with and ascended for air. Just around the corner a meter and a half long turtle spun slowly on a front fin before crashing down, sending shards of spiky coral drifting down on the slow drift of the bay’s current.

After just over an hour underwater we boarded the speedboat to return to the mothership and set off for the longest open water crossing of the trip. Heading for the Banda Sea saw the sun set, casting long shadows over the last protective islands we'd see until morning. The sea greeted us with open arms, strong winds and moderate swells. The wide, clear skies sparkled with a million stars as the waves broke against the hull, spraying me gently with salty mist as my stomach slowly rose and fell with the sea, and ship.

The open sea brings its own challenges, namely in the form of meter tall swells, and constant course corrections. The skies clouded over as the wind began to howl, threatening to send furniture and personal belongings over the railing and into the black water. The gentle misting became splashing water, and the slow rise and fall became abrupt and thunderous crashing on the troughs between waves. Add to this, the distinct smell of diesel below decks and my iron stomach began having doubts. After dinner everyone headed to bed to sleep through the worst of it. A fitful sleep punctuated with brief moments of consciousness was rudely interrupted by several liters of seawater crashing through the porthole opposite my head which I'd failed to securely fasten. Combining the smell, the bouncing, the twisting and rolling and dinner came back with a vengeance, and much less taste. I slept the rest of the night in the galley.

The morning's first dive was the first of which I wish I'd brought a wetsuit for. The water was chilling and threatened to sink into my core. To say it was worth it is a gross understatement. The dive started with a marble ray two meters across if it were an inch. Swollen, Sky Blue and Carlsonhoff's Phyllidianudibranchs occasionally dotted the coral floor. Juvenile barramundi, a spotted eel, and Mobula manta were the stars of the show until we happened upon two octopi fighting over a hidey-hole, and a third who seemed more interested in teasing me with its eerie stare, pulsating cloaca and rapid colour changes than in letting me see it. Blending into the background with near supernatural precision gave way to slowly flashing colours drawing tiny fish closer to it's grasp. Unfortunately for me, shyness on its part and a desire to move on on the part of my dive buddy left me watching naught but the top of its head peek out of the shelter before flashing black, white and blue at me and disappearing back down.

The second dive was down a wall, which after my trip to the Bahamas in May, didn't leave me with a whole lot of hope. I was instead treated to views akin to those in early diving footage before the seas had been fished dry and destroyed. Massive walls of sparkling, shimmering, dancing anchovies, slender fusiliers, and assorted other fish hiding within them. Left and right they danced, as our dive guide, bee hat and all, conducted them like a professional Concerto. A smash of his hands sent them scattering briefly before coming back to the dance. Cresting the wall brought us into a spiraling school of barracuda shimmering in the sunbeams. We sat still on the ocean floor as they slowly circled us, giant black marble eyes staring at us from the front of their torpedo-like bodies. Human-sized Bumphead Parrot fish lurked in the distance as black tipped reef sharks patrolled in the cloudy edge of visibility. Finding Nemo proved easier than the film would have you believe as every corner held anemones with a handful of clown fish keeping things clean and free from debris.

Dive number three brought me up close and personal with several jellies, another patch of clownfish, and a school of jacks so fearless I wondered if they were going to hit me.

After the dive we journey to a lagoon in the middle of nowhere. Despite all the magnificent beauty of the landscape seemingly untouched by man I'm reminded of the legacy we'll leave behind. An area visited solely by the local liveaboard industry, undeveloped, and so far out of the way that not even locals –if you can call people from a fishing village 20 kilometers away locals— come to view it, is riddled with plastic garbage brushing up against the giant stone cliffs and plastic bags caught on tree roots that dip into the water clinging to 15 meter vertical cliffs, and chunks of Styrofoam bobbing carefree in the nearly picture-perfect azure water.

The night dive on day three may have changed my mind about them. Most of the dive was typical, small shrimp, little worms, and jellies. Standing out was a beautiful banded coral shrimp, a tiiiiiny bobtail squid, and a large bell jelly with tails half a meter long. But the star of the show was the dinoflagellate lights show. Turning all our lights off, the sea turned utter black, more so than anywhere I've ever been on land. Brisk movements create fluorescent green sparks to fly forth from the water around your hands and shining your light quickly into the darkness spawns galaxies of brilliant blue light exploding like a thousand neutron stars going nova. The world around shines briefly, hanging in the darkness a brilliant trail of explosive ink as the tiny shrimp-like creatures jet away from you. I was the master of a universe spawning light in the darkness with my hands and a beam of narrow bright light before dousing my torch and watching my creation unfold. I thought initially I might be a bit narc'y, but after the dive, safe on the boat, and now a year later on land, I can say it was still the coolest thing I've ever seen on a night dive.

Day four was cloudy, the sun a slightly brighter patch in the sky, bumpy seas and windy. We started with a trip to a cleaning station in the worst visibility we've had yet. My octo started free flowing as I dropped in and I lost two hundred PSI so I was more focused on my air than I would've liked to have been the entire dive; not inherently a bad thing, but a preoccupation. I picked up an old fishing reel and about 30 meters of fishing line that was wrapped around coral and threatening to slice a couple sea fans off at the root. As we crested the reef everyone's heads snapped to the right and a few people let out audible groans, muted as they are by twenty meters of water. A giant oceanic manta slowly swooped down out of the murky water and gently flew a few meters overhead, slowly and gracefully gliding over us. A few long slow turns and it disappeared back into the distance. We all stopped and watched as giant schools of anchovies swept back and forth close to the reef sparkling in the diffused green glow from the overcast sky. Slowly moving forward and another manta came into view, the same silky movements as it turned in slow circles above the reef. Dolphins chirped in the distance, safely out of view as a third and even more massive manta came into view. The guides all told us it was a big one, and their excited chatter once we were all back on the boat gave rise to the impression that they weren't just talking it up for our benefit. Four meters they say, and the scale of it mixed with its grace is something that neither words nor video of the event can truly convey to those that haven't seen one in the flesh. After spending 40 minutes at depth, a chill set in, and I spent the interlude between breakfast and the next dive in sweatpants trying to warm up. Maybe, just maybe, I should've brought a shorty.

Back into the murk at Boo Windows, down a wall with another zillion small fish; colourful sea slugs; and another large oceanic manta hovered overhead, it's massive mouth open as it trundled forward against the current. A brilliant white and multi-blue juvenile Emperor Angelfish skittered around, alternately displaying it's circled scales and hiding behind anything it could. While full grown Emperor Angelfish darted around chasing the various triggerfish just off the reef.  Further down the wall small crabs hid in sea fans, and a painted spiny lobster did it's best to avoid its moment in the spotlight. Coming nearer to the surface another turtle kept a wary eye on the foreign paparazzi while we did our best to keep a respectful distance. A Depressed Spider Crab sulked on the edge of a sea fan lamenting the day I came to Indonesia. Yellowtail Coris, numerous kinds of parrotfish and brilliantly coloured Grouper chased each other, and a near infinite variety of smaller fish as we swam through unnoticed. A scorpionfish sat motionless as I approached, its eyes twitching slightly as my camera panned over its spiny, reef like body. Atop the ridge a black Saddleback Anemonefish angrily tried to evict a tiny one-armed crab from the middle of their anemone without success. As we neared the small swim throughs for which the site was named, the current kicked up and refused us entry. Moving along with the current hovering weightless above the reef with the abyssal aquamarine water to our left we slowly surfaced and returned to the Ambai for lunch.

En route to the third dive of the day the dolphins finally made an appearance; poking their heads out of the water and dancing in front of the boat. When we arrived at the site, the visibility was shit, but the dive was great. More giant bait balls, more nudibranchs, more schools of Spanish mackerel, longfin bannerfish, and the ever present blue and yellow fusiliers that I swim through every chance I get. Halfway through the dive, I assume, the dolphins came hunting and sent all the aforementioned schools running to the hills. I was trapped in a fish stampede as they all fled in the same direction, heedless of me and my peers as they escaped whatever terror was behind them. I saw a handful of juvenile midnight snappers clumsily banging around the ocean floor, as graceful as pinballs, their long fins more an obstruction than anything beneficial. For the third time in one day, and one lifetime, a giant Manta graced me with its presence. More macro life, and something akin to my Bahamian favourite, the scrolled filefish.

Our second long crossing of the trip was next and since it was a 13 hour sail in ideal conditions the crew wanted to set off immediately since the forecast was saying bigger wind, bigger waves, and all of it pushing against us. Thankfully, the seas, and wind, were calmer than forecasted, and far calmer than those of the first. I spent an hour lost in thought watching flying fish jump through our wake as we slowly moved on.

Despite dire predictions of arriving several hours late, we got to Koon on time for our dive briefing, and 7:30 dive.  The first of the day brought multiple eel sightings, a large spotted eel and two green morays peering from their den. Neither of which had the courtesy to give the camera a flash of their teeth. Beady little eyes and crooked fangs their creepy, borderline evil, reputation is well earned, but hardly deserved with how timid they are. Aside from it being my 100th dive, and some beautiful views of coral, the only other remarkable things I saw were a large sea snake slither swimming across the ocean floor, and hundreds of meters of fishing line wrapped around, through, and in some cases forming, coral. The cleaner parts I untwined and brought back to the surface. The parts not completely covered, or forming new parts of the reef we cut free  and brought them back to the boat to hopefully not just end up back in the depths. Removing all the forgotten fishing line from the site is an impossible task, there it will live on long past when humans have finished destroying the planet, to be uncovered, doubtlessly, by whatever comes after us.

The second and third dives were at the same spot and were both more of the same for me. Others in the group saw a parade of twenty or so hammerhead sharks swim by off the wall, at around 37 meters. Unfortunately, that was a depth precluded by my NitrOx. Like many other divers in the area, I came hoping for a sighting but left with only other people's videos to prove that they actually do exist. A midsized sea turtle sat under a branch of hard coral scratching her back while a crowd of us sat watching, filming, and wondering how long it could go on. I know turtles can hold their breath for hours, and it's quite possible that her entire breath could've been spent scratching her back at the same spot; we didn't stay long enough to find out.

In lieu of a night dive, we were supposed to take a slow cruise down an island inlet, but the tides were too low for the boat to make it safely over the near-shore reef. Instead we took a different route to shore and were met by a handful of machete-wielding locals. Our tour guide negotiated with them in hastily spoken Indonesian and they took us on a short hike through the island over a concrete path, the bush strewn with plastic waste, empty cigarette packs and the requisite discarded flip-flop. Midway through the hike were several shacks in disrepair and a brand-new Mosque surrounded by a pristine lagoon. As with most things here, the colours were so bright they looked colour corrected. After a brief stop for a few pictures our machete wielding guides beckoned us on, and we continued to our destination.

At the end of the path, another wooden shack, this one overlooking the end of the inlet from atop a ten-meter cliff. With a smile, and a machete in hand, one of them motioned us to go closer and indicated we should jump. Some more hasty Indonesian between our guide and them let us know that they all jump here; it's great fun, they say; trust us, it’s safe; we promise it’s deep enough to dive headfirst into. Some concern about how we would get back up was waved away and they pointed to a ladder, which was definitelynot up to code, but should serve well enough. Half the group jumped in, myself included (obviously), and the semi-fresh water enveloped me in warmth from the days sun. A nice contrast to the cold-water diving that we'd been doing all day. After each jumping in twice we headed back to the boat and took a handful of selfies at the overlook, and near the first lagoon.

Walking on land is weird after a few days at sea, but the excursion was definitely the highlight of my day. The slow boat ride back to the Ambai was bathed in another picturesque rapid Indonesian sunset before the ship set sail for another open sea crossing, albeit a shorter one than the last two.

An early morning dive at Karang Hatta sent us into the worst visibility we had for the trip, in water only a degree warmer than the day before. The mild current had me close to a wall, peeking into tiny holes and looking for macro life. Aside from some bright yellow Long-Tailed Sea Hare, there wasn't anything incredibly unique about the dive until halfway through, off in the distance, the unmistakable silhouette of hammerhead sharks against the bright green murk that I'd come to associate with the Banda Sea. Their calm, almost slithering, motion letting them glide slowly out of view. The visibility was bad enough to obscure their colouring, so it's unclear if they were scallopedor greathammerheads, but they were at least two meters long by the dive guide's reckoning. While still endemic to the site, the fishing line here all seemed to be old, wrapped in hard coral growths at least a couple years old. Long strands of pink and pale blue coral tubes had begun to form on the tightrope between two other larger outcroppings. Long strands of line coming down the wall had been wrapped tight around rocks, and hard corals. The thick, plyable plastic had cut through a tube or two which had then simply grown around it, entwining it and enveloping the line that would surely outlive everything on the reef.

We anchored just off the reef near Tanjung Butom and went through a briefing before hastily. The second dive of the day was worse from a visibility perspective, but nicer from a temperature perspective. Several turtles lounged in the spiky coral gardens, but the thing we all hoped for was more hammerheads. We spent the first twenty minutes dropping down to 35ish meters and burned a third of a tank waiting for them but were stood up. Seasonally, this kind of water is to be expected in the Banda Sea as deep water upwells, bringing nutrient rich colder water to the top. Speculation is, we’re told, that this is why there are hammerheads moving through here. From my understanding, it's pretty rare for sharks to travel in such large schools as well but seeing twenty or more of them at a time isn't unheard of. Ascending back to the top of the reef brought an expansive coral garden out of the murky green water. Built upon a volcanic island, the rocks were purple and green and teeming with life while the soft and hard corals suffered no bleaching at all that I saw. Fish darted to and fro beneath the cover of the coral, around large sponges, and chased each other around and away from their territory. Some local parrotfish variations I haven't seen before caught my eye, but the visibility was too poor for my camera to grab anything I could use to clearly differentiate them from the other varieties when I got back to the boat.

Currents are fickle things, and when we arrived at our next destination we had to change dive sites twice because they weren't acting as predicted. Splitting awkwardly against an island meant that both approaches to the first site wouldn't work well for diving. So off to the spot that was supposed to be our night dive, another wall with a volcanic shelf. Some large-ish tuna, a bunch of the same bright yellow sea-hares from before, some Emperor fish, parrotfish, angelfish, and baitfish. There was a picturesque swim through at 30 meters, about five meters long, that put us out at 25. Its walls were lined with soft coral, sea fans, sponges, and filled with dozens of smaller fish seeking refuge from the current.

The main attractions to the site were the flora, rather than the fauna. The biggest sea sponges I've ever seen, beautiful massive sea fans, and an expansive coral garden atop the volcanic rock. The water, still green and murky meant that anything more than about three meters made it hard to keep an eye on both my buddy, and my dive guide. We got briefly separated a couple times during the dive, but when the current kicked in as we came atop the shelf the brief separations became longer. Our guide stopped as both he and I had lost track of my buddy at the end of the line. We waited a moment, my buddy showed up, I stopped to take a video, they kept going. I waited a moment, couldn't see them, set off in the direction we'd all been going and searched for them for a couple of minutes, then decided to call the dive. I slowly ascended along the shelf until I got to 5 meters depth, and held for a five minute safety stop, inflated my sausage and ascended.

A minute or two later our dive guide popped his head up as I was climbing aboard the speed boat to make sure I was ok. I signaled all good and he went back down to finish the last ten minutes of the dive with my buddy. Being lost and alone at depth is concerning, but when there's sky overhead, and ample air in your tank, there's no reason to get stressed or do anything other than stick to your training, calmly follow procedure, and have a conversation about how to avoid getting separated from each other on the next dive. We discussed what went wrong on the way back to the main boat, and agreed on how we were going to behave on the next dive.

Once the dive was done, we all got dressed, dried off and headed into a small island town named Banda Neira at the foot of a relatively recently active volcano. Old fishing trawlers, catamarans and shallow pencil shaped fishing boats lined the docks. The salty sea air was laden with the smell of fish and diesel and a warm breeze flowed down the side of the mountain while the sun crept lower in the sky, behind the perfect amount of cloud cover to ensure another photoshopped sunset sky. A stone fort sat atop a hill behind a mosque, a reminder of when the island was central to the spice trade in the 1600s. The area was central to cinnamon, nutmeg, and anise, each of which was more valuable than gold or diamonds.

Climbing the hill to the foot of the fort led to a breathtaking view, another golden topped mosque shining in the setting sun. The bay created by four islands in a circle reflected the cloudy sky, creeping shadows spreading from the cloud covered peak of the volcano, while a rooster endlessly crowed in the village below. The Indonesian jungle shone bright in the setting sun, as a local nutmeg harvester took us into the bushes to show us how it was done, then gave us a sliver of cinnamon tree bark. Upon learning I was from Toronto he asked me to come.out drinking with him, and told me he wanted to give me a surprise. When I said we were leaving soon, he let me know that the surprise was for Viagra and shook his head with disappointment when I declined his offer. He opened the fort for us nonetheless. Climbing rickety metal ladders, fastened to the two hundred year old stone by bolts corroded by time and saltwater I came to an even better vantage point atop one of the fort's five watch towers. Guests and crew alike wandered the abandoned fortress and as the sun fully dipped behind the cloud tipped volcano four different mosques began calling out evening prayer. The arabic echoed off the walls and hills while my tour group hooped and hollered dive jokes at each other from across the fortress parapets.

Another surprisingly awesome night dive wrapped up the day. I set into it with very low expectations. It was to be a muck dive just offshore of the town we visited earlier. Given how covered in garbage the water near the shore was, I expected it to be mostly sunken plastic, and a few dull brown coastal fish. Instead, I was treated to a cornucopia of bright and fascinating life. A bright orange granular sea starthat looked like a stuffed animal, so large that I had to put my hand near it to give the photo context. A couple bright Unadorned Gymnodoris, a blue boxer crab, a skittering little darklined fire worm, a giant bright red crab I can't pinpoint, and other rather common local stuff. Towards the end of the dive, things got really interesting. A bright red dinosaur head poked out of the sand and at first glance I thought it was a child's toy that I grew up playing with. After a second look, I noticed it's jaw slowly moving, the head, quite alive belonged to a Reptilian Snake Eel,waiting for some hapless fish to become dinner. We saw a Bobbit Worm on the hunt, it snapped unsuccessfully at a passing fish and so we waited patiently in about 10 meters on the mucky shore floor as more little brown fish slowly ambled by it. Slowly, one came to rest just outside of its reach, and as the water ebbed, it was gently pushed closer and closer to the waiting maw. Once, twice, and then the third time a flicker of movement and the fish was drawn down, a second chomp and it was dragged under the mud. A trio of pink, mottled scorpionfish sat motionless as we passed, completely ignoring the clouds of dirt kicked up by our group. At the very end of the dive, two small-cuttlefish hunted together as a pair. While I watched it's colours slowly shifted as it hid in the rocks between two large black Sea urchins with bright yellow and blue lines at the base of their spine. I was momentarily distracted by a passing razor fish and when I turned my attention back, my cuttlefish was gone.

After a fitful sleep filled with vivid dreams, we headed back to the site we’d missed the day before. The water had warmed up a few degrees and the visibility was markedly improved. We headed down the wall and over a coral covered volcanic ridge at about 30 meters, seeing some nice schools of angelfish, butterflyfish and bannerfish. Once we made it across the ridge and started a slow ascent we came across the first of a dozen different eels we'd see. The first, a midsized Giant Morayrelaxed and only it's head and a bit of its body slipping out of the hole in the volcanic rock. Next was the brilliantly lemon coloured head of a Fimbriated Moray, it's jaws remained closed as we passed. A Yellowmargin Moray sat partway out of its hole, watching us curiously as we passed. When my buddy's GoPro ventured near it began tracking the movement, maybe drawn to its own reflection in the lens, or maybe I'm just anthropomorphising. Halfway out of its hole we all snapped a selfie with another Giant Moray as we made our way forward. Coming around a corner we noticed massive Honeycomb Moray lounging lazily, fully exposed to the sea on a lower nook of the wall. It was either oblivious or apathetic to our passing. After swimming through more schools of bannerfish and trevallies, we found more of each of the eels, in various states of exposure. As we finished our safety stop we noticed a large coral boomy which held two Honeycomb morays and another large giant Moray. As I ascended yet another spotted Moray poked its head up from the ground, slowly slithering out as I surfaced. We returned to the boat for yet another fantastic meal aboard the Ambai and set sail for deeper waters.

Another distant island brought another deep ridge with a decent current. A rapid descent to the edge of my maximum depth and the briefest of hammerhead sightings. Grunting and fists pushed to temples and a quick outstretched hand cutting like a knife to the forehead making everyone spin wildly around looking everywhere in the vicinity of where the finger pointed. A solitary body slipping into the edge of visibility left me knowing I saw a shark, with a long tail, but still I'd yet to see one in clear view. Silhouetted and distant seems to be their style. We sat tethered to the reef, which I'm not a huge proponent of. Anchoring via a reef hook to lifeless volcanic rock is one thing, I find it hard to truly care about the damage I'm doing to a couple square centimeters of microbial life that will doubtlessly fix itself before the next person dives the site. But anchoring to hard coral, even when done carefully, flies in the face of the way I try to dive. After swimming through a large school of Blue TrevalliesI happened upon a wonderful spiky shelled turtle and swam with it for a bit before we both decided that lunch couldn't wait any longer and parted ways. Her for some nearby soft coral, or something, and me for the surface.

Broken O-rings and that old chestnut, my previously burst eardrum marred the next dive for myself and one other diver. On a negative entry, as soon as I dropped in I knew something was amiss. My left ear started creaking, hissing and making all kind of noise that it shouldn't make. Immediately I checked my depth saw I was at about 3 meters and called the dive. One push up got me a bit disoriented, so I inflated my BCD and when I breached the surface flipped my mask to the top of my head and signaled to the speedboat driver that I was not ok. My buddy and guide surfaced, and I told them I was calling my dive due to ear problems and that they should continue without me.

As I clambered onto the boat, equilibrium slightly off, I saw two more divers surface: one guide, one guest. The guest's O-ring had burst at about 10 meters and his entire tank had vented as he did a rapid, but controlled, ascent. Discussing it later, after he'd calmed down a bit, he said that on his last pull from his regulator he'd been met with the terrifying vacuum that all divers experience during training. As he got to depth, he heard a pop, followed by the rapid hiss and bubbling of free flowing air. He'd had time to check his octo, see that wasn't the issue, look at the other divers to see them all looking back at him, and then someone else had shoved their Octo into his face and motioned for him to go up.

Luckily they were at a shallow enough depth, at the start of the dive, that a rapid ascent wouldn't be injurious. Just to be clear to all readers, if your O-ring pops, you will vent a completely full tank (220 bar/3200 PSI) in under a minute: get someone else's Octo in your mouth and do a controlled emergency ascent immediately. He was unable to breathe at the end of his ascent from ten meters, under a minute into a dive. If he'd been deeper, or longer into the dive it would've been much worse.

Adding insult to injury, a school of twenty or more hammerheads was spotted at the end of the dive at about 10 meters, and everyone had a perfect view of them. Oh well, live to dive another day.

At the end of the trip, it was hard not to be bummed, stuck on the boat for the last two days of diving. It was made easier when the alternative is having a worse experience flying home, or so totally blowing up my ear that it never heals properly and I can't ever dive again. Thankfully all of the first day's dives were relatively boring. Nothing special was seen on any of them, aside from mediocre visibility and beautiful coral gardens. Sitting on the boat for the day it became very clear that something was very wrong with my ear.

I turned to DAN's very helpful website and took the printed advice to abstain from diving for the rest of the trip, but unfortunately there's nothing to be done about the flying. The fluid draining from my ear has gone from pink to clear, which is a good sign, but fills me with dread about the flights that will get me to Sydney, and eventually home.

We headed into a small village before the rest of the boat went for their night dive, and like everywhere else I've been on land since we first set sail, the amount of plastic garbage coating the landscape was horrific. All through the bay were floating pieces of bottles, plastic bags, Styrofoam, and random assortments of garbage. I read an article recently about the Anthropocene, which essentially stated that even if every human on the planet disappeared tomorrow, a civilization in a million years would be able to detect us.

A thin geological layer filled with synthetic hydrocarbons, radiation and fossil records complete with traces of our disposable lifestyle. For all we know this planet is one of a kind with enough resources to build and sustain our civilization for another few hundred eons, but instead we've decided, collectively, to allow our basest needs define the planet's history until the sun devours us all.

As the sun set on the Ambon harbour on my last day in Indonesia, the bay looked free from garbage, Arabic songs rang out from every direction. Even though my last two days have been dive-free, I'm nothing but happy about this trip. It has been a profound experience as a diver and as a person experiencing the best and worst of what our planet has to offer.