15 Sept 2025
Good morning from the Banda Sea!
I slept quite well despite napping most of yesterday, woke up a few times but was able to fall back asleep quickly. Definitely feel the movement of the ocean from my top deck room, but so far, not too bad.
While we slept, the boat relocated to this tiny island that doesn’t even show up on my hiker app:
Here’s the plan for today:
We’ll be doing a few dives around this tiny island, hoping to find schooling hammerheads.
Waters are several thousand feet deep in that dark area Cedric, our cruise director, is pointing to- we’re a bi west from the top part of the crescent.
Dive #1/7 – Jackpot
Not sure if I should start my numbering over for this part of the trip, or just keep a running tally of total dives… I think I like the latter better.
CHEEEEESE!
Slender grouper:
Hello there, not-so-hidden scorpionfish!
Scorpionfish on the move:
and settled onto the reef once again:
Normally, they don’t stand out quite so much.
A hammerhead!
This was a shorter dive the pinnacles where the hammerheads tend to school past are at about 70’/21m, which isn’t that deep, but still limits how long we can stay down. We actually had 3 hammerheads cruise through and the 2nd one was close enough for pictures, but they asked us not to use flash, so I missed the shot while powering down my strobes.
Lame.
Soangi/Suanggi Island:
(Google gives me a couple different spellings)
There are so many birds here!
Look at them all!!!
Unfortunately, it’s a bit tricky to shoot moving birds from a rocking boat, so I only managed this mediocre shot of a frigatebird:
Dive #8 – Jackpot, again
Either we missed our mark when we splashed, or the current has picked up, because we had to kick hard to get to the pinnacle our guide wanted us to hook into (we all carry metal hooks we can use to anchor ourselves on the reef- rather than keep kicking into the current, this lets us stay in place and watch for big critters to swim through). Unfortunately, that means we tend to just swim past all the cool stuff- fish and reef and nudis- to get to our lookout point before we blow through too much of our tank. So while we did see hammerheads schooling through, it was a pretty short dive.
though I did spot this little Phyllidiella pustulosa while we were hooked in:
I might be on the wrong trip- this is so not my kind of dive 🙁
Unloading:
I missed some of the splashier times, but I was thankful for the extra assistance when moving between boats (the crew moves all our gear on and off the boat, we just have to move us).
Pocari sweat! I discovered this stuff in Japan and absolutely loved it! It’s like Gatorade, but less sweet and more grapefruity- yum!
Dive #9 – Jackpot, take 3
Slightly better than last time- we hooked in near some corals so I could fish-watch:
Longnose emperor:
I tried to limit my use of flash if there were hammerheads around, or if I was pointing into the blue, but sometimes you just need to make those colors pop!
Overhead hammerheads!
Love their shape!
Bumphead parrotfish:
Another strange critter.
Blackspotted puffer:
And a more camouflaged scorpionfish:
Not sure how I missed it yesterday, but there is a giant bunch of bananas hanging on the dive deck:
Chef fried some up as an after-dive snack. Note to self: Do not eat the fried bananas- they may taste delicious, but fried foods do not agree with my stomach. I’m very thankful my bathroom is equipped with a bidet. (sorry/not sorry!)
Farewell, tiny island!
