The Spice Islands: Sorong to Ambon by way of Misool and Banda

The crew meet you at the airport and you settle into your cabin with a drink on deck. The boat sails for Raja Ampat and the first snorkel or dive of the trip is that afternoon, with the sun going down behind the limestone islets.

• Boarding at Sorong
• First swim in Raja Ampat
• Sunset over the islets

You wake at the southeast end of Misool to a pastel sunrise and breakfast on deck. Four days here: Boo Window and Magic Mountain underwater, the ancestral caves of Tomolol with their rock paintings and orchids, a pearl farm, and powder beaches for picnics and shell hunting. Nobody has ever asked to leave early.

• Boo Window and Magic Mountain
• The Tomolol caves and rock art
• A working pearl farm
• Beach picnics

A tiny island ringed by a blinding white beach that drops into turquoise, with coconut palms and a fringing reef so protected it works like an aquarium. Overnight the boat crosses towards the Bandas.

• Koon's protected reef
• The white beach
• Overnight crossing to the Bandas

Ashore on Ai to find the ruins of Fort Revenge in the jungle, then to Run, the first British overseas colony and the island the Dutch took in exchange for New York. Forgotten forts, a picnic lunch, and a coral wall to dive.

• Fort Revenge on Ai
• Run island and its history
• Picnic lunch
• The coral wall

Walk the old nutmeg plantations under ancient almond trees, once the most expensive spice on earth, with endemic birds overhead. After lunch two dives at Batu Kapal, then a village on Pisang island with beaches and reef all round it.

• The nutmeg plantations
• Batu Kapal dives
• Pisang island village

For the fit, an early ascent of Gunung Api, the most famous of the Banda Sea's ring-of-fire volcanoes, first recorded in the fourteenth century and last erupted in 1988. About 640 metres up a narrow track, and a view worth every step. Everyone else dives the lava flow, where the coral came back faster than anywhere studied.

• Dawn ascent of Gunung Api
• The 1988 lava-flow dive
• Lunch back on board

The Bandas emerge on the horizon early. Dive Bird Rock at Suanggi island, then ashore in Banda Neira: cannons outside colonial houses, seventeenth-century inscriptions on the walls, Fort Belgica, the old church, the governor's palace, the jail and the museum.

• Bird Rock at Suanggi
• Fort Belgica
• The colonial town

Saparua is the largest of the Lease islands east of Ambon. Ashore for the town and Fort Duurstede, built in 1676, then lunch under way to Mamala island, whose eastern coast is walls and overhangs full of small, strange things.

• Fort Duurstede, 1676
• Mamala's walls and overhangs
• Last night on board

Breakfast on deck, and the crew take you to the airport. Ambon connects direct to Jakarta and to Bali with a stop.

• Breakfast on deck
• Check-out by 10:00
• Transfer to Pattimura airport