Scuba Diver Australasia + Ocean Planet
EPIC JOURNEYS
That time when the orcas showed up… On the last day, the ocean attempts to console us in the face of the impending end of the affair: It blesses us with orcas, just as we are cruising into the setting sun. We all lose our minds. This is the sighting we have all been secretly hoping for. Two massive, proud dorsal fins penetrate the surface, gleaming like PVC. It could be a mother and calf. They dive. We stop, scanning the horizon for their ascent.
Then the penny drops. This explains why the listening stations for the past days have been so quiet – these are the apex predators of the sea, and Ben tells us they will clear a vast area, causing all other cetaceans, even the big ones, to go into stealth mode to avoid being detected by these lupine beauties. No doubt those spooked spinners of a couple days ago had already encountered this pod of hunters. This would explain why the whales we have been seeing have been so reluctant to let us get close.
Sadly for us, even the orcas don’t want to stick around, and while we spend more than two hours trying to get close enough to rouse their natural curiosity, they remain unnaturally evasive, leading us to speculate as to why. Have they themselves been hunted recently…?
The sad bit – we have to leave Stepping on to terra-firma, we are hit by the lurch of land-sickness; it feels like a lot like waking from a dream. Every one is changed: We have learnt so much, seen so many wonders, laughed with new friends so hard that our faces hurt. We are all enchanted, stunned by the epic, imposing beauty of the
Banda Sea.
This is an extraordinary area in the truest sense of the word. One of the Earth’s few really remote places – no planes fly overhead, hardly another boat to be seen. Tourism here is only just taking off, and there is still time to do it right. This trip was about more than taking out some big industry names to have a great time underwater. We had an incredible opportunity here to get people excited about protecting the ocean.
Ben Kahn, through his organisation APEX Environmental, and in collaboration with the Coral Triangle Centre, has been working with stakeholders around the Banda Sea for some years to try to generate increased support for the conservation of this unique little patch of ocean, before it becomes exploited by tourism or extractive industries like commercial mining and fishing.
With this expedition, our combined skills and reputations could be brought to bear to promote the value of sustainable marine tourism – to get local governments, NGOs, universities, dive operators and other stakeholders onside, and keen to engage with the mission to help the Banda Sea become a genuine “eco-tourism” destination, now, while it is still so pristine.
This was too good an opportunity to pass up. So, in both our port of departure, Ambon (the regional capital), and our final destination, Kupang, Ben mobilised his network and the whole expedition team was invited to present at two very slick events.
With our secret weapon, PhD candidate Judi Lowe, sustainable marine tourism specialist, our charismatic freedivers, Dada and Pepe, and image maker Aaron Wong, we formed a dream team, a crack squad, all of us honoured to be able to share our passion for the underwater world (and especially for this special little corner of it) with the people who will be responsible for its future.
It could not have gone better. One Course Director in Ambon was so inspired by the expedition that he shared with us the the very secret location of “Hammer Island”, a site that rivals Cocos and Galápagos for its hammerhead aggregations. In Kupang, where we were able to show footage and stills from the trip and communicate our palpable excitement about the destination, we were bombarded by questions, invitations and requests for support to help develop the Banda Sea’s tourism industry in the “right way”.
We all left on a high, buoyed by the enthusiasm of our new network, and aware that this was just the very beginning of what looks like an epic journey indeed.