Dive Review of Alami Alor in
Indonesia/Alor Island

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Alami Alor: "Best Resort Diving in the World", Oct, 2023, by Michael Wood, WA, US ( Sr. Contributor 22 reports with 15 Helpful votes). Report 12611 has 1 Helpful vote.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Alor has it all: Astonishing reefs/walls/overhangs, soft coral, hard coral, enormous swarms of tropicals, sharks (occasional hammerhead), giant ocean sunfish (occasionally), scores of leaping dolphins (not on dives but on boat rides), fabulous muck day & night. The most pristine marine environment I've seen anywhere in the world from a land based resort. Only liveaboards in Raja Ampat can exceed its beauty, diversity, visibility. Alami Alor has first class cabins with outdoor showers/bathrooms. It's a small (7 cabins) boutique resort at the end of the road on Alor Island on Forbidden Bay. It takes a long time to get there, but is worth the effort--stay at least for 10 days of diving to take in all of the breath-taking dive environments. Great Wall dive site is to die for. Their jetty dive is very nice. The colors are eye-popping, the swarms of fish endless, the viz often unlimited. Water temp was a steady 27C/80F, with a couple of exceptions. I recommend a 5mm-3mm full wetsuit, and a 2cm vest underneath for the south dives that are more like 74-78F sometimes. Highly varied dive sites were a real treat. They carefully choose each dive site each day according to the phase of the moon, tides, currents, weather, seas. Had only one "superman" drift dive, which was on the site that used to have a football-field sized anemone carpet. "It just disappeared" since I was there 6 years ago. You won't see giant mantas or whale sharks here. Do Raja for that. This trip we didn't see any of the hammerheads on the Current Alley dive, but I did my previous trip. Se la vie. The food was ok and could be improved, but my expectations were modest, as they are at the end of the earth on a small, rural island and much has to be imported from Australia. If they added one steak and one jumbo shrimp to the menu each week, that would be great. Local veggies take getting used to. Chicken, fish dishes and dessert cakes were great. To-order breakfasts varied and good. Showers in cabins only have about 5 minutes of hot water, so my dive buddy and I had to be judicious after dives to save the other some hot water. They have a first class camera room on A/C, big rinse tanks at the dive center, but boat facilities for big camera rigs are in a basket on the floor. They handled camera equipment very capably. Boats are in good shape, adequate room for 8 divers. Our group of 8 were able to negotiate coral dives for the afternoon dives. Normally, they only do muck dives in the bay for afternoon & night dives. I did the night muck dives every other day of my 14 dive days, which was perfect. As good if not better than Lembeh Strait, with somewhat less trash. Day muck diving was good, but night even better. Put Alami Alor on your bucket list if you love Asia diving and want to experience pristine underwater environments. This is for advanced divers, really, willing to make the travel sacrifice to experience the best diving in the world.
Websites	Alami Alor Alami Alor
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Caribbean, Indonesia, Maldives, PNG, GBR, Philippines, Hawai'i
Closest Airport	Alor	Getting There	From Denpasar, Bali: Late morning LionAir to Kupang, overnight, morning flight to Alor. A pain, as they've been cancelling the usual afternoon flight from Kupang to Alor, forcing one to leave a day earlier and overnight in Kupang. Stayed at Aston Hotel, ok but one of our group had his 22" roller bag stolen out of the lobby under the watch of the bellman. Never recovered, no responsibility taken by hotel.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	calm, currents
Water Temp	74-81°F / 23-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	75-200 Ft/ 23-61 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	?
Enforced diving restrictions	~60 minute dives, generally not below 80 ft. 28-29% nitrox, intentional as precaution against down currents.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	Schools	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Huge, varied opportunities for both macro and wide angle. Stunning colors, textures, fish life, soft & hard coral. Great camera room.

Report currently has 1 Helpful vote

Subscriber's Comments

By Valera Sakhnenko in ON, CA at Dec 07, 2023 15:19 EST

Thank you for your review. I am planning to go there.

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Dive Review of Alami Alor in Indonesia/Alor Island

Alami Alor: "Best Resort Diving in the World", Oct, 2023,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subscriber's Comments

Dive Review of Alami Alor in
Indonesia/Alor Island