Author: Moyo Island Beach Resort

Indonesia indeed offers one of the best (probably the best) diving in the world. Scuba diving needs a lot of logistics, material, equipment in order to be conducted in a safe and fun way. The support of a reliable facility is crucial for the success of a dive trip. Here is a shortlist of some dive resorts in Indonesia that have all the credentials to make your dive holiday unforgettable, both above and below the water.

Even if November is low season on Moyo, the weather and sea conditions are still spectacular.

So, since the island is so quiet, we decided to jump on our dive boat and do some explorative diving around Moyo island.

Moyo is a small island and all the diving activities are now centered at Takat Segele, Angel Reef, Endless Reef. These dive sites definitely offer world class diving but give a very limited choice for a dive center based on Moyo island like us.

That is why we often take time off to find new dive sites, map them and push the diving on Moyo island to the next level by discovering new species that inhabit our coral reefs.

The last few diving exploration trips have all been along the west coast of Moyo island, north of Moyo Island Beach Resort.

It’ s amazing, surprising and exciting to be the first to jump and dive a brand new dive spots but takes a lot of experience and equipment to pinpoint locations and carry out the activities safely. A reliable dive boat is essential as well as a trained boat crew and an experienced captain, together with enthusiast dive guides and instructors are the key to success when exploring new dive sites.

In the last few days we have been lucky enough to find what is going to be on of the highlights of your diving holiday on Moyo island: a Yellow Bargibanti Pygmy Seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti).

This little guy is less than one centimeter long and lives in sea fans that are have its exact skin color and texture. Yes, it is awfully hard to find! And one of the biggest challenges for a dive guide is to spot it and show it to divers.

Luckily for us we have Nicolas that, with more than 10 years experience dealing with small critters, is the guy to go for these tasks.

We were aware of the presence of Pygmy Seahorses that had been spotted while diving around Moyo Island. But this is the first yellow Bargibanti found on the island’ s coral reefs.

Of course this was not the only discovery we made.

We also spotted sea moths, ghost pipefishes, Spanish dancers and other nudibranches and guess what…. a huge manta ray that played with us for a good 20 minutes.

More exploration diving around Moyo island will follow soon.

Moyo Island diving is definitely among the best in Indonesia.

So far only a small portion of the island has been explored. Dive operators, mostly liveaboard boats, tend to visit the same places. These dive spots are amazing indeed, plenty of sharks and healthy corals.

Our own Moyo Dive Center is trying to take the Moyo Island diving to a new level by exploring new dive sites every time we have the chance to do it.

For the past few days our staff was focusing on the coral reefs located north of the Moyo Island Beach Resort.

“The more we go north, the better it gets”

What the Moyo Dive Center staff said today is “The more we go north, the better it gets”.

These Moyo Island Diving exploration trips have been very rewarding so far, much more than what we were expecting actually.

About 30 minutes north of our resort lies a massive wall with astonishing corals, Napoleon wrasses, eagle rays, sharks, lobsters. This huge wall goes deep down and will require many more explorative dives to go further north and reach the end of it.

Tomorrow Moyo Dive Center dive boat will be off again for more explorative dives and to discover more fascinating details of the Moyo Diving.

“The Wall”

The plan is to continue exploring “The Wall” during the first dive.

For the second dive we aim to add a new macro dive site to our Moyo Island Diving map!

Moyo Dive Center boasts very skilled dive guides with more than 10 years of experience dealing with macro critters in Amed and Tulamben, on the island of Bali.

Other members of the Moyo Dive Center team have gained experience diving out of the Java Island searching for pelagic and other big stuff.

We do believe that, at Moyo Island Beach Resort, we have the right team, the right setting, the right attitude and the knowledge to bring up the best Moyo Island Diving.

Scuba diving offers a huge, immense, enormous variety of courses and specialties.

You may decide which course to take according to your skills, needs, interests, location, favorite holiday destination, budget and… you name it! 

Dive courses and specialties range from the Recreational Diving: rescue diver, cave diver, deep diver, night diver, marine life identification, wreck diver, navigation, shark diver, sea slug specialty course (and many, many more). 

if you are passionate about marine life and don’ t find any allurement for the ocean’ s depths, you’ ll become skilled in the Fish Identification and will probably take a Shark Diver course and other courses related to your interest.

The very first step in scuba diving

Whatever is your “cup of tea” in scuba diving, each and every diver started by taking the same beginners course: the Open Water Diver. The Open Water Diver course is a license that allows to dive at 18 meters, takes a fairly short time to complete, lasts a lifetime and gives all the basic skills and knowledge to be an autonomous diver. What not every diver knows, even though all divers did it, is that the actual first step in scuba diving is the Introductory Dive or DSD (Discovery Scuba Diving). This short, easy and exciting course doesn’t get you to be autonomous underwater, but it’s meant to get you a first look at the underwater world as a scuba diver but, most of all, it’s an awesome experience! Introductory Dives are particularly popular in the tropics and resorts location with warm water and easy access to shallow areas. Once this dive is completed, you may wish to continue your course right away, or you can decide to register this dive in your logbook and continue your training elsewhere on your next vacation. It normally takes only a few hours to complete it. Your dive instructor will do a short briefing on some simple rules you’ ll need to follow during the dive, how to respect the underwater environment, basic hand signals, a quick overview of your diving gear and what you are most likely to spot underwater.

Ready for your first dive? Yes, you are! Ready and excited!

All you need to do is to get a full tank and set up your gear again. Your instructor will be there with you at all times, will give you precious advice and will guide you through all the preparation for the dive.

What comes next will be one of the most exciting experiences you’ll ever have. The feeling of flying along beautiful corals with myriad of fish patrolling the reef will make you forget that you have tank on your back and that you are breathing through a regulator. You’ll find yourself in another world, just a few meters away from the surface. This dives normally lasts about 40 minutes but it feels like only a few minutes have passed and everyone wants to get back in the water as soon as possible.

No matter where you are from, what is your experience as a diver, what is your budget for a diving holiday… Indonesia is on every diver’ s bucket list!

The greatest part of the famous “coral triangle” is part of Indonesia, making it the country with the highest marine biodiversity on earth.

Indonesia has already many diving hotspots. Well known places like Komodo, Bali, Lembeh are visited by thousands of divers every year.

In this article, I want to tell you about the off-grid dive destinations in Indonesia, where very few divers have been. Looking up online to these spots will definitely not result in a myriad of photos and videos. These places still offer the feeling of the pristine Indonesia, just like once were Bali, Lombok and Lembeh. The experience of scuba diving without the crowd, only you and your group of divers is still possible here. The feeling of surfacing after a dive and have no other dive boats around is daily routine for off-grid Indonesia.

2nd Beach Cleaning of the season

Beach cleaning in Indonesia is an important activity to save the planet. Sadly Indonesia is facing every day the problem of plastic and pollution, also in remote area as Moyo Island.

At Moyo Island Beach Resort we organize often this activity, also to teach to local community how important is to take care of our planet.

For this reason, the last 2 days have been all about beach cleaning at Moyo Island Beach Resort.

Our managers, together with our staff, managed to involve the local community from the nearby village to help us during the cleaning process.

About 10 people from Brang Rea village joined the cleaning team of our resort and successfully removed all the rubbish brought in by the big waves of the last rainy season.

In the afternoon the divers also joined them and helped out.

Even though our divers are normally up to make a third dive in the afternoon, they decided to skip the normal afternoon program to speed up the beach cleaning.

It took 2 days only to clean the 100 meters long stretch of beach right in front of our restaurant.

In the next few days, we will divide our workforce in 2 groups and we will continue to clean the left side and the right side of our property.

When this cleaning will be completed, John, one of our staff from Brang Rea, will be the one in charge for the daily routine to keep the beach clean. We hope this will be enough until the next monsoon season when currents and big waves will bring ashore more plastic and other debris.

Indonesia is still fighting its battle against plastic. Beach cleaning in Indonesia is an important activity to save the planet and teach a good behaviour to local communities.

At Moyo Island Beach Resort, like at many other international resorts, we are doing our best and taking all possible actions to avoid the use of plastic.

Unfortunately, especially in local communities, plastic is still widely used and thrown in the ocean, forests, jungles, rivers, rice fields, etc…

Hopefully in the next few years, also here in Indonesia, people will become more sensitive and respect their environment and the nature of their own country.

The local government is already organizing events at the local school where officials from different organizations explain to our young kids on Moyo how to deal with this problem.

By:  Jack, Indonesian Head of Gardening & Landscaping Team at Moyo Island Beach Resort

Moyo Island has basically two seasons:  dry and rainy.

I and members of my team were all born and raised on Moyo Island, and we have lived with its kind of climate since our childhood.

All of us have to plan and manage our activities, both personal and professional, according to the season. Whether you work in the ocean, on a rice field, cultivating vegetables, raising buffalos, or you have a job in a hotel, the season will play a major part in your activities.

Moyo Island Beach Resort is proud of its amazing tropical garden that spreads from the rooms on the back side up to the swimming pool and beach bungalow.

Our responsibilities are to keep the grass green, the trees and plants healthy, and the whole area clean.

Aside from the big tropical garden, we have also allotted a few spots around the property to grow our own vegetables and fruits.

The main garden at the resort features huge bougainvillea, many species and colors of large frangipani, several trees like palm, banana, coconut, and mango, as well as more plants like aloe and agave.

In our vegetable garden, we grow multiple kinds of chilly, pepper, watermelon, carrot, potato, rocket, lettuce, and some spices such as basil, rosemary, mint, and others.

We also have a dedicated aloe vera garden. Aloe vera is a very important plant to have around as we use it a lot for our guests. If they get a sunburn or some kind of skin rash, we only need to cut a piece of aloe vera, scrub it on the skin, and leave some of the pulp on the injured part overnight. We are successful almost every time we use this herbal treatment.

Being responsible for such a huge garden becomes a great challenge during the dry season. The dry season on Moyo Island is the longest one which is from March to December.

March to October is definitely the most difficult time for me and my team. The weather is very warm and dry, sunshine is intense during the whole day, and there is no rain at all for months.

During this period, we have to pay extra attention to our gardens. Luckily for us, Moyo Island has plenty of water. It comes down from the hills inside the National Park, forms waterfalls and rivers, and abundant all year round.

One thing that amazes me, my colleagues, and our guests the most is that even in the peak of the dry season, after a few months of no rain, Lady Diana Waterfall and the other waterfalls remain with plenty of water.  It is astonishing to see the ponds underneath the waterfalls full of water and the rivers retain their normal water level. It’s a phenomenal sight.

During the dry season, we spend most of our days in Moyo Island Beach Resort watering the grass, trees, and vegetables. The resort has its own wells where we get the water for our gardens and for all other uses.

November is the beginning of another short season that nobody talks about. I personally call it the ‘3^rd season’ of Moyo island.

During these two months (November and December), the weather is still very warm, it does not rain but the sunshine is not as intense as before due to the clouds that announce the upcoming rainy season, and the air is not as dry anymore.

This not-so-sunny weather is a true blessing for our gardens. After months of dryness and intense sunshine, our plants and grass immediately turn into bright colors and healthy green.

This ‘3^rd season’ is the perfect time to plant new flowers and plants.  Based on my experience, new plants develop their strength very quickly after being planted and are ready to benefit from the rainy season that starts in mid- January.

During the rainy season, the gardens reach its peak of splendor, all thanks to the rain that falls abundantly. All we have to do is cut the grass that grows at an unbelievable pace and marvel at the beauty of the flowers that grow luxuriantly in the gardens of Moyo Island Beach Resort.