Alami Alor Trip Recap
Alami Alor Trip 1 Group Photo
On our 45-minute drive from the airport to the resort I was reminded of my first trip to Bali in the 90’s with the simple landscape, mopeds leisurely and calmly zipping in and out, and the tranquility of the island. The lush vegetation adds to the exotic ambiance of the island.
Meal times…
7AM - Breakfast made to order
30 minutes after boat returns - Family Style Lunch
7PM - Family Style Dinner
Room amenities include a wall a/c unit, fan, shelving units for storage, umbrella, in room safe (a larger safe is in the manager’s office), shampoo, conditioner, body gel, drying rack, hair dryer, bathrobe and slippers. The spacious outdoor showers offer a wonderful tropical ambiance to your Indonesian stay. All the rooms are close to the water with rocky walks into the water, sorry, no sandy beach.
During the Check Out Dive on the house reef…we saw peacock mantis shrimp, 2 red tailed banded pipe fish, many different nudibranchs, a pregnant mapped puffer, and black juvenile frogfish. We saw all this on the shore dive which is open 24/7 for self-guided dives.
The diving is a mixture of reef dives with impressive hard and soft corals and is very fishy with travel time from the resort about 25 minutes, and muck dives within a 7 minute boat ride from the resort. The morning schedule is a 2-tanks 8AM reef dive, including a surface interval on the boat (no head) with cookies and coffee/tea. Return to the resort for lunch (served 30 minutes after the boats return to dock) and a single tank at 3PM for muck diving. Dives are usually about 60 – 80 feet deep and last 60 – 70 minutes depending on air consumption. There are 2 dive boats with 4 divers to a Dive Master.
Our group remarked how fishy it was and enjoyed seeing blue and black ribbon eels, fire dart fish, convict fish, octopus, scorpion fish, lion fish, all varieties of anemone fish, peacock mantis shrimp, spotted porcelain crabs, zebra crabs on sea urchins, juvenile yellow boxfish (one the size of a quarter), orangutan crabs and hairy squat lobsters. Our rarer sightings included bamboo sharks; coconut octopus; Sarasvati anemone shrimp; groups of large harlequin shrimp; painted spiny lobster; mosaic boxer crab; sea cucumber swimming crab; yellow dot guard crab; candy crab; regal angelfish; juvenile emperor angelfish; juvenile pinnate spadefish; juvenile midnight snapper; painted anthias; juvenile oriental sweetlips; solar fairy wrasse; chain-lined wrasse; juvenile peacock razor fish; frost fin cardinal fish; two-tone dart fish; mandarin fish (during the day but they also have a twilight dive for them too); juvenile and adult warty frogfish; paddle flap and weedy rhinopias; flasher scorpion fish; cockatoo wasp fish; dragon sea moth; rigid shrimpfish; juvenile mimic filefish; ornate, velvet Halimeda and robust ghost pipe fish; ringed pipefish; huge variety of seahorses; hairy octopus; sea apple; mushroom coral pipefish; different nudibranchs on each dive…and the list goes on.
Although they offer 3-tanks per day boat diving and unlimited self-guided shore dives, the dive times and meal schedule make it hard to do many shore dives unless you skip a meal or make one of the shore dives a dusk and/or night dive. Alor is also known for changing currents, often several in one dive, so be prepared for current and changing direction.
Many of the dive sites, and the house reef, are shallow enough that snorkelers can see many of the same fish as the divers. Snorkel trips with trained snorkeling guides are offered as well.
Wifi is provided in the dining area but can be spotty and slow based on the number of users at any given time. I was lucky to have some cell reception in the rooms, but it, too, was a little iffy. Mosquitoes can be an issue but are not always prevalent, but insect repellent is supplied both in your bathroom and in the common areas.
There is a small camera room near the diving dock with space for 8 camera set-ups. There are plans to build a bathroom near the boat dock, but until then, the closest bathroom is in either your room or at the dining area. Personal plastic bins store your dive gear and are rinsed off nightly and returned to the dive dock before the morning’s dives.
Alor is not for the faint of heart. It is accessed by two planes from Jakarta, Wings Air and Batik (neither is very friendly with overweight luggage), with a 2AM departure time, and a 9AM arrival after a layover in Kupang. Fortunately, the airport in Kupang has a nice bakery and coffee shops in the terminal. After landing in Alor it’s 45 minutes by car. Meals are served family style and are healthy (heavy on veggies) with primarily seafood, tofu or tempeh with a tiny bit of beef and a few chicken dishes sprinkled in over the week. The meals are very simple and nutritious, but not at all “American” style.
The Alor area is known for power outages, some are planned and others are not. The resort’s generator can power everything, including room fans, but not a/c in the rooms. To make the best of your visit, assume power outages a few times per week.
It’s a simple resort. The diving is very fishy and amazing with a diverse fish population plus the mixture of reef and muck dives available from one location. If that appeals to you, Alami Alor might be perfect for you… It’s not the Ritz Carlton, but it has a lot going for it.
Special thanks to Mark Mitchell for his amazing underwater photos.
