Timor West Divesites
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On the southwestern tip of Timor Island the harbour area of Kupang city, as well as the nearby islands of Pulau Semau and Pulau Kera offers some excellent diving. Kupang is the last stop on some liveaboards that start in Bali. There is also a local dive centre that can arrange daytrip dives. The best time to dive is March to May or September to December.
The dives close to shore do not have great visibility and are predominately critter dives with some wonderful stuff to see. Look for pipefish, leaffish, lionfish, pegasus seamoths, nudibranchs, mandarin fish and much more.
Further out at Semau Island the visibility improves and colourful reefs and walls are carpeted with soft corals, gorgonian seafans and sponges. Blue spotted stingrays can be seen in the sand, turtles can be found over the reef. The occasional white tip or black tip reef shark can be spotted.
Graeme's Groupers (named after Graeme Witford of Dive Alor), on the north east of Semau is home to many grouper species including coral grouper, flagtail grouper, polka dot grouper and white lined grouper.
On the east side wall of Semau Island, Cave City, is a long wall dive with several small caves full of schools of fish. Look for angelfish, butterflyfish, sweetlips, pufferfish and wrasse. Also at Semau there is also a Japanese wreck sunk by the Australian Air Force in WWII.
At Pulau Kera (Monkey Island) there are a couple of good dive sites. The Aquarium in the south is a shallow hard coral reef dive with colourful fish life. At the north of the island PTR dive site is a good place to spot turtles and sting rays.