I am still reading the links to your trip report. What a wealth of information. I am ok with a few dives of macro photography and critter hunting but really like to see pelagics and big schools. How was the wide angle environment? Also the organization of your trip must have been daunting with all of the Indonesian flight arrangements. Did you have an agent help you or did you do it all yourselves?
Hi kneptoon, FWIW I planned a trip for 3 people to Ambon very easily, including sourcing pure O2 for our rebreathers and our own boat. This was all done with the help of Maluku Divers, who made the flight arrangements and reserved a boat for us to use for the 12 days we were there. I don't think the person we dealt with is there anymore, but any land based op in Indo should be willing to help with domestic flight arrangements as they can be complicated and the smaller airlines are notoriously unreliable and sometimes need pressure to be put on them from the resort operators who depend on them to do what they are supposed to. The guy we dived with in Alor was able to get a small airline to reschedule a flight they canceled the day we were to fly by putting pressure on them and we made it to Alor on time. This would never have happened with a less hands on dive operation.
In April 07', there were no direct flights into Ambon from Bali, but there was one from Jakarta, which is where we flew into. I don't know if that's changed, the resort of your choice should be up to the minute on what's happening with air routes/schedules. If they are not, or reluctant to help you book the flights, I would be wary and probably take my business elsewhere.
We saw lots of pelagics in the channel between one of the Tigas and the west coast, some very big dogtooth tuna and a huge giant trevally. Also saw some good sized GT off Seram, which is about 2 hrs away by speed boat.
A B-17 aircraft crashed somewhere in the Tigas, probably on the back side of the channel between 2nd and 3rd islands, possibly in water too deep for recreational diving. Nobody has found it yet and we got blown out into blue water looking for it. It was a very short dive in a 3knt current, but I saw the biggest marble ray I've ever seen, bigger than me. I was moving over him so fast that he didn't even move from his sandy ramp on the bottom. Amazing viz in the Tigas, well over 100' most dives.
Oh, and the night dive right off the beach of Maluku Divers was excellent, cockatoo wasp fish, ghost pipefish of the hairy and leafy varieties, slipper lobsters, big decorator crabs with huge sponges growing on them...Ambon is all that. -Andy