Dunia Baru

Komodo and the wider Lesser Sunda chain are Dunia Baru home water, joined in Labuan Bajo. The operator frames the region as more than the national park: Satonda, the Flores coast and the volcanic islands between Bali and Timor all sit inside the range of a normal charter, and a 1,100 nautical mile range means the itinerary is not confined to the standard four-day loop.

Inside the park itself the anchor points are the ones everyone visits, and the difference is how you visit them. Batu Bolong for the wall diving, the Taka Makassar sandbar for a morning when the tide is right, Padar and Rinca for trekking, Pink Beach when the light is late. With three tenders and jet skis the boat does not need to move for every stop.

At four metres of draft she anchors further out than the thirty-metre boats, so tender time is part of the day. In exchange she is stable, quiet and large enough that fourteen people are not living on top of each other.

West Papua is the half of the year where the dive centre earns its keep. Charters join in Sorong and work the Dampier Strait, Misool and the reefs around Waigeo, with a PADI-certified cruise director running the diving and Nitrox available on board.

The night diving setup is the unusual part. Thirty-four underwater LED lights are rigged permanently, which turns the anchorage itself into a dive site after dark and is why Dunia Baru shows up on itineraries built around mandarinfish and walking sharks rather than just the big drift walls.

Beyond Raja Ampat the same season opens Triton Bay off Kaimana and Cenderawasih Bay, where whale sharks feed at the bagan fishing platforms year-round. Those are long-passage itineraries and they are the reason the range figure matters; most phinisis this size do not attempt them.

The Banda run sits between the Komodo and West Papua seasons and is sold as part of the Alor, Maluku and Forgotten Islands itinerary. It is the most remote thing on the calendar and the least scheduled.

The diving is pelagic and demanding: hammerhead aggregations off the seamounts, sea snakes at Manuk, and walls in the Forgotten Islands that see a handful of boats a year. Ashore, Banda Neira delivers Fort Belgica, the nutmeg groves and a colonial waterfront that has changed very little since the Dutch left.

Crossings here are long and open. A 51-metre hull at 395 gross tonnes handles that in a way smaller vessels do not, and the eighteen-strong crew means the boat keeps running normally through an overnight passage rather than shutting down for it.

Alor is the first leg east and, on the operator own description, as much a cultural itinerary as a diving one. The mountain villages above the coast still weave for their own use, and the textile traditions are a genuine reason to go ashore rather than a scheduled photo stop.

Underwater, the Pantar Strait funnels cold water between the islands and produces both the visibility and the current the region is known for. Sites are largely undived by Indonesian standards, and the muck diving holds species that Komodo does not have. It suits confident divers; snorkellers are better served on the sheltered northern side.

Alor is normally sold as the opening of a longer eastbound voyage that continues through the Forgotten Islands to Banda, rather than as a destination on its own. Dates are quoted on request.