Collection: Banda Sea
In October 2022 I spent eleven days crossing the Banda Sea aboard the Velocean. It sits in the heart of the Coral Triangle, in Indonesia, surrounded by volcanic islands and walls that drop straight into the deep blue.
It is a place that does not do things by halves. Hammerhead sharks, moving with that unhurried menace they have. Giant trevallies and schooling barracuda. The mandarin fish mating dance at dusk, which lasts seconds and is worth the whole dive. Sea snakes at Manuk Island, gliding past close enough to be unnerving. And on the surface, rainbows and dolphins, as if the trip were showing off.
The walls are what stayed with me most. Vertical drop-offs lined with soft corals, sponges and tunicates in hot pink, purple, lemon yellow and electric blue — colours that have no business existing at that depth and do anyway. And everywhere among them, sea slugs, a new one on nearly every dive.
Some divers say the Banda Sea feels like a time capsule: reefs still alive, still diverse, still largely untouched. That is what this design is trying to hold on to. Coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean floor and support around a quarter of all marine species, and roughly half the world's reefs have already gone. Wearing this one is a small argument for the half that is left.
