Advanced Indonesia
Banda Sea
Volcanoes rising from the abyss, sea snakes by the hundreds, and hammerheads in season
A deep sea from which active volcanoes emerge, forming tiny islands, with slopes plunging thousands of meters and an access window of just a few months. On one of those islands, hundreds of sea snakes share the reef with divers.
In this profile you'll find why the Banda Sea is a liveaboard-only destination, what its submarine volcanoes are and what grows on them, when the hammerheads show up, what diving among sea snakes involves, and what level it demands.
It's one of the most remote and least-dived stretches of Indonesia, with a combination of active volcanism, extreme depth, and unique wildlife that isn't repeated anywhere else in the archipelago.
Geography and access
The Banda Sea is a very deep basin in eastern Indonesia, with bottoms exceeding six thousand meters, from which isolated volcanic islands emerge.
Those islands are the summits of volcanoes rising from the abyss, so their underwater slopes drop straight down from very shallow depth. There's no continental shelf: you go from shallow reef to open void within a few meters.
One of those islands had a documented eruption whose lava flow reached the sea and wiped out the reef. Decades later, that same flow has been recolonized by young hard coral in excellent condition: it's one of the best accessible examples of ecological succession after total disturbance.
Another island in the group hosts a remarkable sea snake aggregation, seen in unusually large numbers and indifferent to the presence of divers.
Access is exclusively by liveaboard, on long crossings from ports in eastern Indonesia, and only during the seasonal window. Distances between islands are covered by sailing overnight.
Keep reading with full access
This article is part of the full Encyclopedia. A donation from USD 10 unlocks every article, every species photo and the downloadable app, and helps sustain the Scuba Sign Paperless Diving Community project.