Northern Iceland
Flores, IndonesiaBudget Diving at Maumere, Flores, Indonesia by Andrew Falconer
After a week diving at Alor (see separate article), I flew back to Kupang (Wings Air) and connected the same day with a flight to Maumere (Sriwijaya Air), being met at the airport and taken by taxi to the https://www.ankermi-happydive.com/ resort about 40 km east along the coast. The resort was low key and relaxing, with bungalows, a restaurant and bar, and was run by a Swiss lady and her Indonesian partner.
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Location of Ankermi ”Happy Dive” resort, Maumere bay and islands |
There was both shore muck diving and boat dives to the passage near the island. For the islands a minimum of three divers are required. The trip out takes up to an hour using a local fisherman’s boat which has a very loud motor (I used earplugs after the first day. Double dives were made with a nice lunch in between. The diving was good with walls, beautiful corals and plenty of pelagic fish and sharks, for a change.
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Sunset from the resort |
schooling trevally |
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Grouper |
more schooling trevally |
The shore dives were either directly off the resort jetty, or in the case of a WW2 Japanese wreck a short walk away, and can be done solo with Ankermi as a guide I saw a lot of interesting critters.
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Coral shrimp |
scorpion fish |
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Ornate ghost pipefish |
one of the walls |
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Gorgonia fan coral |
white tip shark |
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Blue spotted ray close up |
passing jellyfish |
In conclusion, the accomodation and diving was excellent, and reasonably priced at $AUD650 for aweek. There are regular daily direct flights to Maumere from Denpasar.