In recent years, Ambon has become well-known for its muck diving and with the discovery of a new, incredible-looking species of frogfish, the island has become a destination of choice for the discerning, critter-hunting diver. There is still a great deal of exploring to be done – Ambon Bay has a huge coastline, much of which is likely to offer prime muck diving – but it is a small, very unusual site on the north-east coast that may well attract the most attention.
Imagine the scene. You kit up surrounded by a crowd of slightly incredulous villagers and slip into the shallow, gin-clear water. Ahead you can see the legs of ladies washing their clothes and children splashing in the water. Directed by an old man armed with some raw eggs, you make your way forward past the crowds to a natural pool and wait. As your guide clicks his fingers against the surface, shapes start to appear along the base of the walls surrounding the pool. Big shapes. Dark, thick-bodied eels slowly emerge and swim past and over you, through your legs and across your arms, heading towards the old man in search of a quick meal. These huge freshwater fish, up to 1.5m long, are the sacred eels of Waai – the star attraction of Ambon’s most unusual dive.
Eels of Waai – Images by Matthew Oldfield
A decade ago, the diving around Ambon focused on the reef and walls along the south coast, as well as the current-swept areas at Pulau Tiga and Tanjung Sial on the SW tip of Seram. Both these locations offered a good chance of encounters with lots of sharks, plenty of pelagics and the occasional big ray. However, like much of Indonesia, fishing pressures have taken their toll and gone are the days of divers buzzing with adrenaline after a particularly hairy encounter.
Nowadays, the ‘diving landscape’ of Indonesia has shifted dramatically and divers more often travel to a location in search of diversity and unique encounters rather than big fish. Ambon Bay is a classic example. After the conflict that engulfed Ambon in 1999, divers from the well-established Ambon Dive Centre, now known as Maluku Divers, began to search for new locations to entice divers back to the island. They eventually discovered the rubble reef slope in front of Laha Village that has become the focus of much of their diving. From the river mouth and jetty known as ‘Air Manis’ to the west, to ‘Rhino City’, ‘Midpoint’ and ‘Laha I & II’ to the east, this short stretch offers divers the opportunity to see Rhinopias, mimic and wonderpus, frogfish, seahorses, many different species of moray, cuttlefish and squid, coleman shrimps, zebra crabs and plenty of different nudibranchs – all the ingredients for a classic muck site. Whilst the site is nothing to look at, this short stretch of slope is one of those places where anything might turn up – exactly what happened recently when the psychedelic frogfish made its appearance.
Most divers come to Ambon and spend a week just diving these sites without even a quick trip out to the reefs of the south coast. They are even less likely to travel to the north-east coast and the tiny village of Waai. The simple, coastal village was almost completely destroyed during the conflict and after being rebuilt, is now a collection of brand-new houses hugging the coastline. Turning off the main road, you come across a small, shady oasis surrounding a freshwater spring, used by the villagers as a communal bathing and laundry area. The source of the spring is at the base of a small hill where a natural pool, some 4-5m across, feeds into a manmade, concrete-walled channel. Here, the villagers swim and bathe whilst further downstream, wash their clothes in a narrower channel. Legend has it that the spring is the the result of a family argument – a mother, angry with her children, hurled a bamboo spear into the ground. At the point of impact water bubbled up from the ground and has been flowing crystal-clear and steady ever since.
Legend also states that as soon as the water began to flow, eels moved up from the sea and into the spring, settling in holes in the rocky walls. Supposedly, these ‘Morea’ as they are known locally, have been in the spring for hundreds of years and are now considered very lucky if spotted. To ‘facilitate’ sightings of some of the bigger eels, the owner of the land around the spring has been feeding them raw eggs for years, to the extent that they now emerge from their holes as he snaps his fingers on the surface, allowing him to stroke and tickle their bodies and even lift them up and out of the water for a few seconds.
For the price of 150,000Rp – 50,000 of which goes to the village, the remainder to the owner of the land – photographers now have the opportunity to don snorkel and mask and get a close-up view of these unique animals. After directing you to a suitable spot, the ‘Eel Man’ tempts a Morea from its hole with an egg, broken at one end to release a thread of raw albumen. At first the eels seem understandably shy at the presence of a large camera-wielding human in their midst, sometimes swiftly retreating into the safety of a crevice if you approach to closely. However, they are very used to humans, having spent many years swimming around the legs of bathers and laundry-ladies, and it is not long before they realise that the camera poses no threat. This is when the ‘dive’ becomes a little more interesting, as the more confident eels swim over legs and arms, examine their reflection in the dome port and suck away at any eggs on offer. Having a 1.5m eel as thick as your leg swimming over your head is certainly an experience to remember.
An encounter with the eels of Waai may not be for everyone. There is certainly an argument that feeding animals for the sake of a brief encounter and a photograph should not be encouraged. However, the ‘Eel Man’ has been caring for and encouraging his animals for many years, long before any divers decided to make a trip to the site. And if the opportunity to witness the eels in such a unique setting means that a trickle of tourist-dollars passes on to the community of Waai, then this is surely something that should be encouraged. As well as being lucky for those that spot them, the eels of Waai may well end up being lucky for the village as a whole.
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