Hiri Island Wall

Ternate · North Maluku · Indonesia

Ternate is a near-perfect volcanic cone rising from the sea in North Maluku, an island whose name once commanded empires competing for control of the global spice trade. Today it is one of Indonesia's most overlooked dive destinations. Hiri Island, a small volcanic satellite just north of Ternate, offers arguably the area's best wall dive. The wall begins just metres from shore, where black volcanic rock drops away into deep blue. I finned off the reef flat and the bottom simply vanished beneath me. The wall face is a vertical canvas of marine life on dark lava substrate. Enormous barrel sponges project from the rock at regular intervals, their ochre tones stark against the black backdrop. Gorgonian fans spread their lace-like networks into the current, and whip corals arc outward like fishing rods. The colour contrast is what stays with you. Against dark volcanic rock, every organism appears more vivid than on pale limestone reefs. Soft corals in orange, red, and purple glow like lanterns. Crinoids in electric yellow and crimson cling to fan corals. Nudibranchs of species I had never seen crawled across sponge surfaces, each a tiny work of art against the dark background. At 20 to 30 metres, the wall develops overhangs and small caves where whitetip reef sharks rest. A Napoleon wrasse cruised past at the wall edge, its blue-green bulk moving with unhurried confidence. Schools of fusiliers swept along the wall, and a lone hawksbill turtle worked its way along a sponge-covered ledge, tearing at soft tissue with its hooked beak. Surfacing, the view is equally spectacular — the smoking cone of Gamalama volcano towers above Ternate city, and Tidore's twin volcano rises across the strait. It is a dive site where natural and human history intersect, where waters that once carried galleons loaded with cloves now shelter reefs almost nobody has seen.