Dive Review of Kalimaya in
Indonesia

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Kalimaya: "A remote gem with a huge variety of diving", Nov, 2023, by Tom Flaherty, Marsworth, GB ( Reviewer 3 reports with 1 Helpful vote). Report 12700 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
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Located on the east coast of Sumbawa, this is a challenging destination to get to from the UK. It was worth the trip. Kalimaya is everything a small dive resort should be; friendly, good value and providing the visiting diver with a very wide choice of diving. All the people working here have an untrainable attitude, being nice and helpful just comes naturally. The food is outstanding and the small rooms which are air conditioned are perfectly fine and comfortable. We dived at full moon and it would be fair to say that there was a lot of current around. We would often encounter upwellings when the temperature would drop from c27c to 22/23c and there were a few down currents too. Many of the dives would not suit those new to diving. That said, I am sure too that if you went there and asked not to be exposed to current they could arrange this. Our check out dive took place on a quiet site called Snake Island and really set the tone for the rest of the ten days we were there, in that the dive had a little bit of everything, critters, coral, sponges and tropical fish. And this in turn speaks to the strength of the place. Our last five dives consisted of a night dive where we saw bobtail squid mating, through to an incredible reef dive in the best coral we have seen since some of the outlying parts of Fiji, on to hanging on in current as seven very large reef mantas moved in and out of a cleaning station, on to a part active volcano where géothermic activity means that the reef you dive on is bubbling and warm to to the touch and where we came across five Pygmy seahorses and several turtles, and ended on a mini wall with hundreds of anthias, damselfish etc. There is one drawback and that is there is a dearth of large schooling fish. The resort is pinned between two fishing villages and every night a large number of boats would set off and on one memorable occasion actually dynamited in front of the resort. Kalimaya is aware of this and is actively trying to rectify this situation. For us, it was much like visiting Wakatobi, who actively tell visitors that they are not going to be seeing large fish. Doesn’t seem to hurt their business but I know a few divers who were there at the same time as us were mildly disappointed in this. Personally, I think that the wide variety of what is on offer more than makes up for this (and we both love critter diving). Aji and Mersi run the show and were quite brilliant at handling anything that came up ( like a chest infection which nearly scuppered all my diving). The dive team went over and above what we would expect time and time again. If you are using Nitrox you might want to bring your own analyser. The boats have everything you will need but are worn and it took us a while to master the steps getting back out. That said, I am sure you could take your BC off and hand it up. There is a very large camera room and all the dip tanks were refilled daily, some with a small nip of dettol . There is a head on both boats. Most dive sites were about 30 mins travel, some longer, a few shorter and we had flat seas for the duration of our trip. We dived Gili Banta and went across to Komodo to see the dragons, highly recommended, as is the surface interval spent on Pink Beach. We didn’t manage to dive the house reef but others who did reported Rhinopias and a very large yellow frogfish. In our time at Kalimaya we saw sea snakes, robust ghost pipefish, at least ten different types of nudi, large cuttlefish, turtles, several types of seahorse, dolphins from the boat, large reef mantas, dogtooth tuna plus all the other things you’d expect in these parts. Food is made from scratch and was excellent. Lunch is two courses, snack at 4pm and then a three course dinner, a variety of dishes from Indonesia. You should be aware that alcohol is not available on Sumbawa so you have three options. You can bring your own, you can try asking to see if they have any beers or you can try life sober. We tried the latter and the upside was the smallest bar bill we have ever had on holiday. There is now limited wifi too so no digital detox if you don’t want to. Would we return? Yes, we would. As our diving world continues to shrink it might just be that we have to recalibrate what we can reasonably expect from the search for the ‘perfect’ dive holiday. Kalimaya’s only flaw is a lack of schooling fish but as far as we are concerned, everything else that comes with staying there outweighs this. A gem.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	Galapagos, SW Ireland, Indonesia (various), Caymans, Belize, Oman, Bonaire, Maldives, Seychelles
Closest Airport	Bima	Getting There	Lion Air (Wings) hugely problematic, standard for this part of the world
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	currents
Water Temp	22-27°C / 72-81°F	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	10-30 M / 33-98 Ft
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	None
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	Squadrons
Dolphins	1 or 2	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	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	Lots of critters to photograph.

Report currently has 1 Helpful vote

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Dive Review of Kalimaya in Indonesia

Kalimaya: "A remote gem with a huge variety of diving", Nov, 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):

Dive Review of Kalimaya in
Indonesia