Alor, best dive resort? ?

[Immeriswas]

Planning my next longer trip to Indonesia and was looking into Alor beside some other places. Has anybody some information about the different resorts there? Thanks

 

[jcclink]

Welcome - Alami Alor Dive Resort

Alami Alor Dive Resort. New mid 2015, it only takes 8 divers. Excellent diving, bungalows & food. Both macro (bays & slopes) & wide angle (reefs &, walls) dive sites at Alor & Pantar. 3 boat dives/day. I saw 7 of their 10 rhinopias in Oct. Vis varies from good to excellant, depending on site & tide. Water can be a bit cold at some Pantar sites. They suggest a 5-7mm suit. No nitrox due to remote location. I just booked 14 days for Oct 2017. Really need to book early. A great diving experience. Go before more divers discover the area.

 

[Immeriswas]

Thanks ! Did you check out the other resort in Alor as well ? Why did you choose this one ? Got some recomandations ?

 

[jcclink]

I think there are 2 other resorts - 1 on Alor near entrance to bay, & 1 near northern end of Pantar. I didn't check either except web pages. I really liked the small group at Alami Alor. It was recommended to me by AquaMarine Diving in Bali. They've been my Indonesia dive agent for several years, & have always given me good advice. Also seen at Alor in channel - spinner dolphin, pilot whale & mola mola. No single supplement at Alami Alor which helps my budget. Alor is fairly easy to get to - 2 domestic flights in Indonesia. Fly to Kupang, connect on short flight to Alor (40 pax turbo prop). I discovered Alor on a 2014 Komodo Dancer trip & quickly decided it was worth a return trip.

 

[cephalopod2]

I did some in depth research on 2 of the 3 senior land based ops before my July 2012 trip and summarized some key differences here Alor - done my homework, now some important questions - see post #5. There is also La P'tite Kepa which were I to return to Alor I would definitely lean towards because my Alor veteran friend who has now dived with all 3 ops says LPK was heads and shoulders better than the other 2 in knowledge of and spotting of special macro animals.

I wanted to do a lot of diving in the time I was in Alor. Some questions that were important to me that you may wish to consider:

- How many boat dives do you want per day?
- Do you want to be able to night dive more than once?
- Do you want Nitrox?
- Do you care about maximum diver:guide ratios, time on boat to get to dive sites, access to 24 hour power for camera charging, wifi access, air conditioning, etc?
- Are you more interested in macro/muck or reef/pelagic diving? If you are interested in macro, are you a beginner, intermediate or advanced macro diver?

There may have been changes since 2012, so make sure you get an update from any of the ops you are interested in. I would be interested to hear what changes these ops have made.

jcclink thanks for posting your experience with Alami Alor - very interesting.

Immeriswas, Luko is a very experienced Alor diver - hopefully he will have time to reply to this thread, but if not, you may want to PM him for his advice.

 

[Luko]

There are 3 dive resorts in Alor :
- Alor Divers french/slovenian owned, located on Pantar, on the other side of the strait. More than 10 years experience on Alor, also photograher friendly, they hold a yearly competition (which I won once). Nice wooden bungalows, great beach, speed boats that can go anywhere, a guest table where everyone congregates at lunch and dinner time ,share dive stories of the day or discuss metaphysics (more rarely but I swear it happened...). This is my favorite (probably in all over Indonesia resorts), it's also closer to where the blue water action is, probably slightly less macro oriented than the 2 others, all in all I find it's a good balance on what Alor has to show.
- La Ptite Kepa, french owned, very experienced on the area but more of a budget resort, located at the entrance of Kelabahi bay, big and slow diveboat. Good for budget diving, haven't seen them on the northern Pantar spots, also too many young divers on the boat to my liking,
- the newcomer Alami resort (opened 2 years ago) inside Kalabahi bay, muck dive country so no beach, I woudln't go there with a non diver it's more of a dive resort; Speedboats as well more specialized into Macro.

For a budget stay and looking for macro oriented dives, probably La Ptite Kepa.
For a 7 days or more, an eye on (bigà fish action definitely Alor Divers, who's able to show you everything good in Alor, with some special divespots.
Two weeks : 9 days in Alor Divers + 5 days Alamii to combine blue water and macro specialists.

 

[cephalopod2]

Hey Luko,
Happy New Year!

Quick question for you, since you've been more recently - is Alor Divers still doing 2 boat dives per day max? Ever persuaded them to do more than that? I'm sure they still offer unlimited house reef diving.

Also I take it there's still no Nitrox anywhere land based in Alor?

I'm hoping to get back there one day.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2017.

 

[Luko]

Hey Luko,
Happy New Year!

Quick question for you, since you've been more recently - is Alor Divers still doing 2 boat dives per day max? Ever persuaded them to do more than that? I'm sure they still offer unlimited house reef diving.

Also I take it there's still no Nitrox anywhere land based in Alor?

I'm hoping to get back there one day.

Best wishes for a wonderful 2017.

Happy new year Natasha, wish you lots of great dives!

In fact some days you may dive 3 boat dives, 3rd being on a Pantar spot, not far from the resort (like the pier closeby), but the usual fare is still 2 dives indeed.

They also cover Beang bay south of Pantar, i insisted so much two years ago that I convinced Gilles to go but the day they planned the trip I got seriously belly sick after a dive in Kalabahi. They went later on and was so good that it's now a scheduled trip on request.

Still no nitrox.

 

[Immeriswas]

I did some in depth research on 2 of the 3 senior land based ops before my July 2012 trip and summarized some key differences here Alor - done my homework, now some important questions - see post #5. There is also La P'tite Kepa which were I to return to Alor I would definitely lean towards because my Alor veteran friend who has now dived with all 3 ops says LPK was heads and shoulders better than the other 2 in knowledge of and spotting of special macro animals.

I wanted to do a lot of diving in the time I was in Alor. Some questions that were important to me that you may wish to consider:

- How many boat dives do you want per day?
- Do you want to be able to night dive more than once?
- Do you want Nitrox?
- Do you care about maximum diver:guide ratios, time on boat to get to dive sites, access to 24 hour power for camera charging, wifi access, air conditioning, etc?
- Are you more interested in macro/muck or reef/pelagic diving? If you are interested in macro, are you a beginner, intermediate or advanced macro diver?

There may have been changes since 2012, so make sure you get an update from any of the ops you are interested in. I would be interested to hear what changes these ops have made.

jcclink thanks for posting your experience with Alami Alor - very interesting.

Immeriswas, Luko is a very experienced Alor diver - hopefully he will have time to reply to this thread, but if not, you may want to PM him for his advice.

 

[Immeriswas]

NatashaS thanks very much for all this useful Information. I will write a report as usual, if I go there in Oktober.