“Five take ‘Passport to Paradise' in Indonesia"

In late Sept, our small group of five set off for Indonesia in search of warm clear waters with quality tropical diving and we found and enjoyed exactly that.

A three day extended stopover in Singapore helped get us in the holiday mood (eg Singapore Sling cocktails in Raffles Hotel) and broke up the journey nicely.

Then a short flight, a bumpy cross-country minibus drive and, finally, 40 minutes on a small motorboat landed us on the soft sandy beach at Murex resort on the tiny tropical island of Bangka just in time for dinner.
The resort has a laid-back vibe with our well-equipped cottages dotted along the shoreline and an open-sided dining area and bar overlooking the beach.

The following morning set the relaxed routine for the next five days diving: breakfast at 7am, stroll across the soft sand to board the dive boat at 8.15am (our kit already set up for us by the dive guides), two morning dives within 5-15mins boat ride from the resort, back to base for a delicious lunch, then a choice of another guided dive, or just a self-guided wade into the sea to dive the house reef.

Optional night dives were also on offer before a later dinner, of which we did two, including to see tiny Coconut Octopus.

All our dives were simply fabulous. 29 degrees C down to 30m, with 20m+ visibility. Swathes of colourful soft and hard coral walls, pinnacles and plateau, shoals of fish, numerous exotic-looking nudibranchs ( for which this area is justifiably renowned), and an array of other delights: turtle, mantis shrimp, sea horse, moray eel, spade fish, cuttlefish, orangutan crab, blue spotted ray, tuna, puffer fish, crocodile fish, stone fish, octopus etc etc.

All good things must come to an end and our week's diving and relaxing in the resort ended with a day trip to a Nature Reserve on the Sulawesi ‘mainland’ island where our expert guide led us through the dense rain forest to see a large group of wild crested black macaque monkeys, a python with babies, a marsupial called a Spectral Tarsier and a kingfisher. It made for an engaging way of passing our pre-flight non-diving day.

On departure day, the glorious sunshine we had enjoyed thus far ended with a tropical downpour, which made for a damp and turbulent boat ride back to the main island.

In summary, the five of us had a really great trip, all went smoothly and the diving was well worth the long-haul journey.