Metita Beach & Dive Resort — Hotel in North Maluku

Metita Beach and Dive Resort is a new resort located on Metita Island just off of Morotai Island in North Halmahera, Indonesia. It is a 20-minute boat ride from Morotai to Metita. It has just six bungalows, although there are expansion plans for more. It is the first real dive resort in the area. As such it is struggling with all the challenges of being a pioneer in a new region.||First the good stuff. The undeveloped waters in this northern corner of Halmahera have some of the healthiest coral we have ever seen. At dozens of dive sites there are acres of beautiful, healthy coral, with particularly huge amounts of soft corals. In only one spot did we ever see any evidence of possible dynamite fishing. On the other hand, the fish life is lacking. There are plenty of the small colorful species, but with the exception of some good populations of sharks, one seldom sees a fish larger than six inches. The number of natives fishing from outrigger canoes together with the amount of fishing line we saw on the reef, suggest the natives have eaten and continue to eat anything bigger than six inches.||The resort has two fast, comfortable dive boats with twin 100 hp. engines. The dive guides are knowledgeable and particularly good at finding macro subjects. On one dive our guide had no trouble finding a pair of Pygmy Seahorses at 33 meters. Most of the diving is reefs, but there are options for muck diving if people are interested.||The first challenge the resort faces is overcoming the mistakes of the original investors, who had more enthusiasm and money than experience and foresight. The new management and ownership will be addressing the many issues at hand. The current managers, Florian and Nancy, are doing their very best with a difficult situation. Among the issues:||The resort has had no fresh water system for three months. The pump in their desalination unit broke, and they have not been able to get parts or a replacement. This means all the water in the pipes is salt water. One showers in salt water, then rinses off from a barrel of fresh water place in each bathroom. This means dive gear goes until the last day of the stay without a fresh water rinse. By the end of the week inflator valves were beginning to stick and octopuses free flow because of accumulated salt.||We had opted for 32% Nitrox but found the oxygen content of cylinders varied from 27% to 30%. It was explained that they have a bad valve in their compressor and have not been able to get a replacement. To their credit, at checkout the management refused to charge us for Nitrox because of unreliability.||The air conditioning in the bungalows is inadequate. It cannot keep the units cool in the daytime and only barely at night. Management is aware of the problem but has been unable to obtain larger units. It is unclear whether this is a supply problem or a financial problem. This, like many issues, should be resolved in the future, as we were told new ownership takes over in April.||Getting to Metita takes a major commitment of time. From the U.S. it takes at least four flights. One can go through either Singapore or Jakarta, then to Ternate and onward to Morotai. Presently there is just one flight a week into Morotai. The Indonesian government has said developing tourism in the Morotai area is a priority, and there is heavy lobbying to add flights.||It seems just a couple of things could assure the success of Metita and other dive operations in the area that may come along. The first would be more flights to Morotai. The second would be creating a marine reserve. The creation of such reserves has been widely shown to quickly restore fish populations to otherwise depleted areas. Creating such reserves, however, are tricky politically and culturally. The local population has been feeding itself from these waters for generations. To tell them they can no longer fish is a challenge.||TIP: Plan to arrive and leave Metita wearing shorts and flip flops. The resort does not have docks at either Morotai or Metita Island. That means you have to wade to the boat for...

这个酒店太美了！超级新的度假村 友善的经理和员工 美丽的海滩和每天漂亮的日落。酒店门口的浅滩就有非常漂亮的珊瑚！Wonderful Hidden Paradise|Me and my wife visited metita in oct 2023 for6nights Its really a paradise island . The very friendly staff picked us up at the airport in morotai and brought us to the Resort. I just can say, it's a hidden paradise somewhere at the end of the world! The bungalows are big very new ！with keeping divers in mind. They have an outdoor hot shower and an den table for the underwater camera with power plugs. Mosquito Net, Fan, air-conditioned and the absolute best part: they're 0 Meters from the ocean directly at the resort owned private beach. And also resort have the dive center and have a big camra room. ！The staff is incredible friendly and helpful and the diveguides really have an eye for even the smallest critters! Also the food was very tasty and they even prepared very tasty vegetarian options for us. All in all a 5 of 5. The house reef just iinfront of the resort lots of coals and fishes even u can smoking this area was amazing ！ The dive site are beautiful lots of sean fans soft corals reef fishes And the sunset every day was beaful ，and the WiFi was sooo good！ And we find the maleo around the resort which if u stay at resort u can find them at early morning we Many thanks floian and all the friendly staffs. highly recommend to stay with...

Florian, the resort manager has very extensive experience in Indonesia and is well on the way to bringing the resort into shape. Transport from Ternate was very well organised. The local breakfast in Ternate was very good. If you can schedule it, the direct flight from Manado to Morotai is much quicker and more convenient. |All the Metita staff were very friendly and helpful. The chalets were comfortable with plenty space outside to chill. The bar area was also very comfortable and welcoming. |The dive sites were varied and different from those of North Sulawesi. Black Tips were seen on most dives at close quarters, and at Black Tip point the 1.5 to 2.0 meter sharks swam gracefully passed us all the time almost at touching distance. Feeding is never used here. Another site under 5 minutes from the resort is a series of rises from 18m to 10m and swarming with large shoals of e.g. Ocean Triggers, Snapper, Chubs with many angelfish and large butterfly fish. Even the odd Jobfish...