The Scents of the Spice Islands aboard Ombak Putih

On the first day of your adventure, you will be collected from your hotel after breakfast by out tour leaders and taken directly to the boat which will be waiting at anchor in Ambon Harbour. As soon as everyone is settled in and the captain gets clearance from the harbour master, we will raise anchor and head south the open sea crossing to the legendary Banda Archipelago. NB* Due to the unpredictability of flight schedules you should arrive in Ambon the day before departure. Ask us about pre-tour accommodation options.

Meals:  L,D

Today we will wake up in the Banda Islands. Famous for their natural beauty and cultural heritage, and the well-preserved remnants of an extraordinary history of imperialist rivalry, these islands are quite simply one of Indonesia’s highlights. Banda was originally the world’s only source of nutmeg and mace, valued for their rarity and high cost by aristocrats and elites. Since conditions of wind and tide will determine the order in which we visit various Banda islands, our activities here can’t be assigned to a particular day. Here’s what we aim to cover. In the capital Banda Neira: It’s a pleasant stroll through the quaint colonial outpost’s characterful streets, inspecting notable residences, a museum, forts, churches and a waterfront market. Just across the harbour is Banda’s perfect, jungle-clad volcanic cone Gunung Api (‘Fire Mountain’ – 640 metres). The fit and ambitious might make an early morning ascent up a challenging track to the top for stunning views. We choose from some of the other small islands of the Banda archipelago – Lonthor, Ai, Run, Hatta – each of them with its own remnants of old plantations, Dutch cemeteries and fortifications. The tiny outlying island of Run was the subject of an unbelievable real estate deal when in 1667, under the Treaty of Breda, it was ceded by the English to the Dutch in exchange for Manhattan. Yes, the Manhattan where New York stands. On Lonthor we will enjoy the tranquil beauty of nutmeg groves, where the shapely fruit-bearing trees grow in the shelter of towering, gigantic kenari or native almond trees. We will observe the age-old technique of harvesting by hand, and can taste (and buy) baked goods, condiments and jams flavoured with fresh mace and nutmeg. The fruit enclosing the nutmeg seed is sold dried and has a unique and intense flavour. It is a delicacy rarely obtainable outside the Banda Islands. We will also climb up to fortress Hollandia and go on to meet the last of the perkeniers – the small-holder farmers who managed the plantations for the Dutch, on land parcels known as ‘perken’. You’ll learn of more recent wars and eruptions that shook these lovely islands, and value even more their current peace and tranquility. There are some excellent coral reefs nearby and we should see some amazing marine life whilst snorkelling. Ironically, in the less-than-pristine waters of the harbour we have a good chance of seeing (at dusk) arguably the world's most stunning fish, the small but jewel-like Mandarin Fish. Leaving Banda we will navigate through the Sonnegat (‘Sun’s gap’) between Neira and Gunung Api, possibly escorted by kora-kora – the big Moluccan galleys used traditionally for ceremony and warfare, propelled by banks of warrior-oarsmen.

Meals:  B,L,D

We wake up and go ashore on Nusa Laut, an island rarely visited by outsiders. It is home to a Christian community that was founded after early missionaries planted their faith here at the same time that Islam was spreading through the archipelago. On Saparua we land beside Dutch Fort Duurstede (1691), stormed in 1817 in a revolt led by Ambonese Kapitan Pattimura, a national hero and martyr. His story is told by vivid museum dioramas. Brightly painted bemo mini-buses will take us to a morning market before we sail to nearby. A highlight here is a lunchtime feast of wonderful local dishes – freshly prepared by villager hosts from forest, garden and sea produce. It’s your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to try papeda, the most famous and unusual of the many sago dishes in this region.

Meals:  B,L,D

Manipa Island is said to have magical powers, because none of the Portuguese, Dutch or WW2-Japanese who occupied the surrounding islands ever landed here. The spell doesn’t apply to Indonesian ships, so we land at Uwe township for lessons in village technology. Its gardens produce cashews, while the leaves of forest Melaleuca cajuputi are pot-distilled to make a volatile oil called kayu putih or cajeput. It’s famed throughout Indonesia as a universal panacea: cosmetic, antiseptic, insecticide, decongestant, analgesic, expectorant, anti-spasmodic, stimulant and tonic. We also view production of the traditional Moluccan food staple, sago, a nutritious flour washed from the fibrous trunk of the sago palm. Sago can be baked into easily transportable dry cakes, which Wallace often subsisted on, while the palm also provides building material and thatch. After an afternoon snorkelling, we will cruise on towards Belang-Belang.

Meals:  B,L,D

Deserted, white-sand Belang-Belang is a real beachcomber’s paradise, where we can launch our full flotilla of watercraft, kayaks and paddle boards. At Obi Latu, mountains clad in forest and clove plantations plunge spectacularly into the sea.

Meals:  B,L,D

We will wake up off the western coast of Bacan, another of Indonesia’s historic spice sultanates. We go ashore to explore the forested slopes where Wallace made some of his greatest zoological discoveries, including the Moluccan Cuscus, the Standardwing Bird of Paradise, and the huge and magnificent Golden Birdwing Butterfly. Alfred Russel Wallace described the latter species as the "finest butterfly in the world". We will also keep a close watch for these and a host of other animals, some of them endemic to these islands, including parrots, cockatoos, lorikeets, hornbills, the elusive cuscus and the endangered black macaque – the only monkey in Maluku. It’s the wrong side of the Wallace Line for monkeys; these ones were introduced hundreds of years ago from North Sulawesi.

Meals:  B,L,D

Today we will visit the Guarici Archipelago, a chain of islands with white sandy beaches, vibrant coral reefs and some lovely local villages. We will spend a full day here snorkelling, swimming and pay a visit to one of the villages to meet the local people. The islands are part of a government-controlled conservation area, designed to protect the reefs and the many beautiful marine species that live there.

Meals:  B,L,D

Today we will wake up just across from Ternate off the coast of Halmahera, with the mighty peaks of Ternate and Tidore as our dawn backdrop, ready to head ashore to the village of Dodinga after breakfast. This is the very place where Alfred Russel Wallace was staying when, in a fit of malarial delirium, he came up with the idea for the mechanism for evolutionary theory. He promptly wrote to Charles Darwin when he recovered and set in motion the formalization of the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. Dodinga is a pretty little riverside village with friendly people, colorful houses and the ruins of an old Portuguese fort, and its importance in the history of science i cannot be understated. After spending some time with the villagers, some fresh coconuts and enjoying their hospitality, we will head back to the boat for lunch and then go off for an afternoon of snorkeling and relaxation.

Meals:  B,L,D

We reach the island of Ternate. This colorful city was the centre of the spice trade for several centuries, and the imprint of the Dutch and the Portuguese can still be seen. In fact, its warehouses are still filled with fragrant piles of clove and nutmeg. Nearby is the splendid 17th-century, pagoda-style royal mosque, and the Sultan’s Palace with its rich collection of heirlooms. There’s a choice of forts to visit from the turbulent colonial era, such as well-restored Fort Tolukko (Portuguese, 1540). Wallace rented a house on Ternate for three years and used it as his base for the exploration of the Moluccas. It was whilst living here, very soon after returning from Dodinga, that he posted his legendary 'Letter from Ternate' containing his independently conceived theory of natural selection to Darwin. We will visit the probable site of his house near Fort Oranje, before going back to the Ombak Putih to say farewell to the Ship's Naturalist, the captain and the crew.

Meals:  B