Wow would love to hear about your adventure! 2 Months with fishermen sounds pretty hard-core and amazing. Did you dive or only free dive?
Where did you start and what was your route? Did you stay on a boat or in local villages?? So many questions....
Hi there,
I have been frequenting the region of South Halmahera for a long time. It's an amazing region that is next to Raja Ampat while being more of the beaten path. An awesome thing about the Maluku region (especially North Maluku) are the amount of interesting things to do on the dry days.
The adventure starts in Ternate and then takes you across to Halmahera by ferry and then down to the bottom of the South Peninsula of Halmahera. On either side of the peninsula you have amazing places to dive. I've been frequenting the Widi Islands, Joronga Islands, and Islands around the Island of Kayoa and there are all extremely different from eachother in terms of diving but all equally amazing in my opinion. I just returned to Ternate from a leg down in the Joronga Islands which is all sea gypsies.
I just use local fishermen as my guys that I go around with and pay them a good wage and cover the expenses like fuel for the boats, extra water, food and smokes for the local guys to make it worthwhile their time.. Most fishermen are also farmers and so generally have a good knowledge of how to eat from the forest on the uninhabited islands so when your not staying with their families in their villages you just eat fish, coconut, fruit and whatever carb you can get your hand on. It is also super interesting going to their villages and staying with their families to get to know them... so yeah if you come with the mindset ready for adventure, not staying in a resort mindset South Halmahera is absolutely world class, I mean Raja Ampat level diving.
In regards to the diving I had 2 friends come with me to the widi islands and we rented some tanks in Ternate and brought them with us on the boat from one of the villages I normally launch out from (at the bottom of Halmahera). The Widi Islands are a huge marine protected zone that jut out towards Raja Ampat which apparently you now need special permission from the government to dive in, but all that that means is you stop on the way down at the government office in Sofifi (halmahera) and report in with your intentions and just say that you have your own local guide. They'll tell what you can and cant do... this is all super new and they themselves are trialling this system for sustainability reasons. It's all very....... interesting. After we used up all our tanks we just freedived which was honestly just as good!
The local villages are very very basic. You will be sleeping on the floor most of the time so be sure to pack either a hammock or blow up camping mattress unless you are good with the wooden floor. Id also suggest a mosquito net too.
