It’s west of West Papua and east of Timor-Leste. Saumlaki, which receives probably no more than one domestic flight per day is our embarkation point for the 40-metre boat, Damai II. The vessel is a traditional pinisi, seven-cabin wooden dive boat and our home for 11 diving days at sea. 

This is the first time for a few years that I have travelled to explore an area quite as remote as this one and I am psyched to be here. My diving explorations vary wildly from wrecks of the Baltic Sea, cold-water destinations on polar fringes, temperate UK and tropical destinations further afield. However, one thing that doesn’t vary is the discovery of plastic items I find in the ocean each time I go beneath the surface. From Philippine reefs lined with nappies and single-use plastics through to quaint English coves covered with fishing jettison; I have almost come to expect to see it in the water on every dive I now make and have collected a grim folder of images to prove its existence. On the flip side, I am interested to learn whether there are still some remote regions left on the planet, free of the visual plastic problem that dominates our social media. 

The Indonesian Banda Sea and Missol and Raja Ampat marine reserves promise a wildlife experience of times gone by. There is a group of nine divers aboard the pinisi – a mix of photographers and videographers. Much of our travelling will be done at night, heading north and stopping to explore what’s beneath the waves and fabulous far-off places with adventurous names such as The Forgotten Islands, Manuk Island, known as ‘The Island of Snakes‘ and The Banda Islands, which is perhaps more widely known as The Spice Islands, famed for their nutmeg, mace and cinnamon and the bloodshed distributed by those seeking to monopolise on their global trade.

The boat crew reminds us that, for the most part, we will be quite alone while at sea with no rescue helicopter to call upon or any means of a quick evacuation should we have a serious problem. With this in mind we must dive well within safe limits. Don’t go deep for the sake of going deep and don’t stay there too long if you do. Land, with its plumes of agricultural land fires falls behind the horizon as we leave Saumlaki, the sea darkens to a foreboding shade of black and the tangerine sky fades into purple. We are just below the equator and night fall comes quickly here.

The Forgotten Islands sound so adventurous to me and, apart from the occasional live-aboard dive boat exploring this area, we won’t find evidence of any land-based tourism here. There are small villages that are peppered across some of these islands. The people there rely heavily on fishing for food and wonder what our business is here in their territory. These islands have no official police force – decisions are made by village elders and I suspect not much has changed in that way since people began to occupy these remote spots. When approaching islands such as these, two of our crew members take the tender to land in order to negotiate permission to dive with the village elders. 

Pessimistically, I expect to see plenty of plastic in the water here, as I have done when visiting similar destinations around the world. Yet, we are somewhere in the region of 100 miles from the next major settlement and so there is a part of me hoping that these folk are not so reliant upon single-use materials. Instead of plastic, what I do discover during our first few dives in the area, is an ocean full off is fish and a healthy reef system packed with fabulous soft and hard corals. Filter feeding sea fans lean out from steep walls and into the current. Vibrant walls plunge down into the blue.

During our time at sea we stop beside Atoll Nil Desperandum, an oasis of sand and coral that barely breaks the surface in an expanse of blue waves. We explore its coral fringes with the drone from the air and its steep drop off reefs by diving them. Away from our boat and with the tender’s engine switched off in a flat sea we experience total silence. This area is pristine and we feel like we are the first people to have been here – certainly visually it appears that way. 

We wake to the sulfur-spewing Manuk Island, having travelled at sea for ten hours overnight to get there. I believe that this is about as wild as an island can get. It’s occupied by the frigate bird and a lot of snakes – both in and out of the water. The Olive sea snakes almost rain upon the underwater explorer around Manuk Island; they’re inquisitive of us too and often swim over for a closer look once we descend into their underwater world. This is their territory and they are present everywhere, from the surface, where they gulp air, down to around 50 metres deep. The snakes have formed a symbiotic relationship with the trevally fish species and we often see this unlikely pair hunting together on the Jurassic-like volcanic reef. Everything is feeding underwater beside this island, from those critters living within the corals to those just above. In the middle of the water column shoals of silver baitfish subject to continuous predation and those predators are unfazed by our presence. A tornado of barracuda above us at times covers the sun like a living cloud of building weather. I see no evidence of human interference at Manuk Island, not on the reef or on the water’s surface – we don’t step foot on the island, which is free of human activity. For me, this place is as close as you can get to time travel.