Trip Report Raja Ampat 10-Night Indo-Siren Liveaboard Dec. 2 – 12, 2022 Trip Report

[drrich2]

XIII.) What Did This Trip Cost?​

• Indo-Siren liveaboard 10-night stay ($5,340) at 20% off: $4,272.
• International flights on American Airlines: $1,281.97.
• Roundtrip baggage fees on American Airlines: $200.00.
• Domestic flights on Batik Air: $385.69.
• Roundtrip excess baggage fees on Batik Air: $126.44.
• FM7 Resort Hotel x 3 nights: $189.
• Swiss-Belhotel in Sorong x 1 night: $74.
• Arch Roamright travel insurance: $258.
• DAN (dive insurance is required, but I already had it): $0 (already had).
• Marine, Park & Port Fees: $180.
• Nitrox fee: $130.
• 100-cf AL tank Fee: $45*.
• Airport Parking in Nashville: $0 (wife drop off).
• Fuel Surcharge for Indo-Siren: $150.
• Liveaboard Tip: $534 (estimate).

Total: $7,796.10.

Told you I saw these things.
​

Note #1: That’s 1 traveler/diver. A married pair can nearly double it. I chose not to include meal costs at airports or hotels because so much food was included on the liveaboard, plus some on flights, that what I spent at hotels and airports was much less than I’d have spent back home. * - Rental equipment fees, including for the extra-large tanks, were waived due to inconveniences and stresses related to the boat getting stuck due to a hole in the engine. I did put a nearly 10% base trip cost tip in so the total cost would be ‘real world’ – I’m not telling anybody how to tip, just acknowledging that whatever one tips is part of the trip cost.

But we're so worth it... Hey, you can't see the reef for the fish!
​

Note #2: Old adage – Death by a thousand cuts. The costs add up! The liveaboard portion accounts for roughly half the trip cost.

I suspect if you track down every last expenditure, including pre-trip preparation, you could call this an 8-grand trip.

That so looks like a souped up graysby by from Bonaire.

But anemones the size of bed pillows were new to me.
​

You Will Pay More – I booked around Nov. 23, 2020 for a Dec. 2021 trip price at 20% off (it got rescheduled for the next year, but the price was honored). Since then, the pandemic and Russian war on Ukraine causing worldwide economic disruption, devastating extended shutdowns impacting dive operators and roaring inflation pretty much guarantee most of you will pay more for the same trip.

 

[drrich2]

XIV.) Concluding Thoughts.​

This trip was worth the money, time and effort as a bucket list trip to enrich my life having 1st hand experience of some of the best tropical coral reef diving in the world. I’m a middle class married man with a kid so it’s not something I can keep doing. It’s not feasible to blow 8-grand apiece on a couple of dive vacations/year for just me on an ongoing basis. Impressive as it was, I don’t think it ruined me for the Caribbean.

Given my struggles with current, I’m glad I passed on Komodo and doubt I’ll ever go. I’m told PNG is harder to get to and expensive (you see far fewer trip reports); no thanks, Raja Ampat was hard and expensive enough. Which leaves one destination of interest, based on a trip report by Trailboss123 and favorable mention by a number of other divers; a stay in Puerto Galera in the Philippines, staying with El Galleon and diving with Asia Divers.

I did a little checking into a Philippines trip based off a @Trailboss123 post, to get a sense how trip cost might compare, and made adjustments for traveling alone, eating a lot and not being a vegan. I tried to convert his ‘for two’ trip plan to a solo diver trip plan, but I don’t know how that’d work, especially since it’s a land-based resort. If my numbers are on target, maybe close to 3-grand cheaper than my Raja Ampat trip?

 

[drrich2]

Trip Report-Philippines-Puerto Galera-El Galleon/Asia Divers-April 1-14, 2019 - by @Trailboss123

Puerto Galera with El Galleon/Asia Divers

——10 Day stay with meal plan - For Trailboss123, would’ve been $1,614 + $42.50/day x 11 days so $467.50, so $2,081.50. If round trip transport weren’t included in the package, it’d be $320 more!

——Airfare - July 19 - Aug. 2, 2023 (just grabbed some dates): close to $1,800.

——Baggage - Might be none! I don’t know.

——Tip - Let’s say $250?

——Nitrox - $70 for a week. Maybe $110?

@Trailboss123 in 2019 had 11-night stay at El Galleon + breakfast daily + 11 days unlimited diving + personalized transfers from Manila Airport to Batangas and high-speed boat to resort for $1,614 per person. He had a 12-hour flight to Taiwan, 4-hour layover, 3-hours to Manila, 1.5-hours in Manila airport, 2.75-hour drive to Batangas City for boat, then 1-hour 15-minute boat ride to resort. His total travel time from Seattle to resort was 24.5-hours. Figure 4-dives/day.

If we ignore 3-years’ inflation (hah!), it might add up to $4,241.50. Let’s throw in unexpected expenses (e.g.: Travel insurance? Fuel surcharge? Inflation?) and call it 5-grand rough estimate. His travel itinerary looks similarly grueling to my Raja Ampat trip.

 

[drrich2]

So what do you need to dive Raja Ampat? People vary widely in their natural aptitude, dedication and tenacity, quality of instruction and prior experience. Some divers are ‘better’ at 50 dives than I am at over 500. My suggestions for anyone who cares to hear them are:

1.) Unless you are a precocious diver (by aptitude or experience), I arbitrarily suggest 100+ dives. Be comfortable diving without near constant monitoring by an instructor or guide. The Indo-Siren guides did signal for ‘okay’ pretty often and occasionally inquired about pressure, but don’t rely on that. I and the staff usually checked that my tank air was turned ‘on,’ but one dive neither did (note: responsibility for that was mine; my console computer’s high pressure quick disconnect hose failed that morning, which may’ve been on my mind and threw off my routine?), I back rolled in, let the air out of my BCD and went down…and couldn’t breathe. My weighting wasn’t too excessive so I finned back to the surface without ditching weights; even so, I worked to orally inflate my SMB rather than my wing (which wouldn’t been smarter, but task loading and anxiety make divers functionally dumber) when the guide joined me and turned my air on. I share this anecdote as a reminder crap happens, and you need be ready to deal with it.

2.) Do a dive trip somewhere where the customer base are seasoned divers rather than ‘valet op.s’ catering to occasional vacation divers. Jupiter, Florida (e.g.: Jupiter Dive Center), Morehead City, North Carolina (e.g.: Olympus Dive Center), California dive boats, etc… You need to reliably monitor remaining gas pressure without the guide frequently cuing you for it.

3.) Get your AOW cert. and comfortable diving in the 60-80 foot range. Know how to shoot an SMB (and plan to carry one).

4.) Get your nitrox cert. and plan to dive nitrox. Multi-day diving at 3-4 dives/day in a remote location merits conservatism.

5.) Spend a week diving Cozumel or a similar place with current (and back roll entries).

6.) If you’ve only dove places with excellent viz., consider a week in Key Largo (Florida) or other destination where the viz. is more like 50 feet.

7.) If you’re going to use a camera, spend time playing with switching to and from Macro mode (and if an Olympus TG6, Microscope mode).

Psalm 107:24 (NIV): They saw the works of the LORD, his wonderful deeds in the deep.

By the grace of God I was blessed with a great trip and my life enriched. I hope many of you have or someday get to enjoy diving Raja Ampat, too.

The End.​

Oh, Raja Ampat can rock a sunset.​

 

[drrich2]

Thank you for the detailed report. I know you did a lot of homework. I (and I am sure many others ) will appreciate your sharing your experiences for future travelers.

FYI: I actually was able to get money from multiple ATMs at Jakarta airport. I was rejected by the first one(didn’t seem to work for anyone) but had no problems at second two. I was just using a plain old ATM card , not a debit card.

Thanks for the correction; I went back and added a quote from it to my original post and deleted the content apt to be in error or cause confusion.

Yes, a 1st time Coral Triangle solo trip to Indonesia from the U.S. without much equivalent prior experience took considerable work, even with ScubaBoard and dive travel agent Tim Yeo helping me. It was a good deal more involved than researching my Jan. 2020 Galapagos trip (the previous complexity record holder).

But still not as bad as researching our 2021 trip to Walt Disney World in Florida. I hope I never have to go through something on that level again.

 

[MT_Shadow]

Good Lord that was an epic report. I read every word and enjoyed it immensely. Thank you for such detail @drrich2 Its sounds like it was an amazing trip. I honestly think my diving would be close to up to the task.... but I have no experience with the "bum-gun"... I wonder if my LDS has a course on those

 

[Centrals]

US$7,796.10 for one diving trip!!! Wow!!
I am glad I am living in HK and diving in most if not all diving destinations in SE Asia could ever be that expensive. But I knew how expensive it could be from my only experience in Cocos Island(Costa Rica).

@drrich2
I am really pleased that you thoroughly enjoyed the diving experience in this trip.
Any chance of visiting the Coral Triangle again in not too distant future?

 

[Skeptic14]

Great report, and the details regarding logistics getting there and back are very useful for divers who haven’t done a bucket list far afield trip.

I’m very interested to see how this might impact your perspective on future Caribbean trips dive quality wise.

How would you overall compare the quality of the diving with some of your other destinations?

Did any particular dives blow you away in regard to fish, reef big encounters etc that dives in Caribbean simply can’t touch?

Thanks

 

[drrich2]

I’m very interested to see how this might impact your perspective on future Caribbean trips dive quality wise.

Raja Ampat's diversity is above and beyond anything I've ever seen in the Caribbean, the degree to which some reef scenes were 'teeming with life' was a cut above (though at times you may see schools of brown chromis on some Caribbean reefs), the colorfulness of many fish was greater (compare a sweetlips to a yellow snapper), and the size of some of the hard corals, sea fans and anemones (literally the size of bed pillows) was impressive.

Here's an example of the ornateness factor. You've probably seen a pipe fish in the Caribbean at some point; maybe a guide pointed out what looked like a tiny stick, and you watched a bit and saw it move. Here's one from Raja Ampat:

What is with that crazy tail fin?

All that said, Bonaire's far southern sites (e.g.: Sweet Dreams is my favorite - lush gorgonians in the shallows), the outer atolls of Belize via liveaboard and Little Cayman's Blood Bay Wall/Jackson Bight area have beautiful, lush reefs (and often better viz.). Roatan dove from CocoView Resort had some sweet, lush reefs (but nowhere near the fish life of Raja Ampat).

Comparing destinations is a very apples-to-oranges endeavor. Back in February I went to Bonaire 2 weeks and got in 48 dives (without any night dives; 4/day x 12) with the freedom and self-agency that solo shore diving offers, and I didn't have anywhere near the grueling travel ordeal and uncertainty, for around $3,700 all in. But I ate a lot of PB&J sandwiches, cookies and chips, the culinary high point of the day was a double cheeseburger and fries or chips from a food truck, and I wasn't led by professional guides on tours of some of the greatest coral reefs on Earth in-between being fed by a chef for 10 days.

Did any particular dives blow you away in regard to fish, reef big encounters etc that dives in Caribbean simply can’t touch?

We hit 2 sites aiming for mantas, and got action on both (on the 2nd, the prior 2 trips didn't see them, but we did). All were the all-black reef mantas. These sites had lower viz. and were a bit murky. But this isn't something I've seen in the Caribbean:

How would you overall compare the quality of the diving with some of your other destinations?

The Galapagos out by Wolf and Darwin have a similar 'teeming with life' vibe, they're about medium to large animals, not macro or corals (though there's some of both), the water's colder you need to wear exposure protection so you can grab abrasive rocks and tuck yourself into crevices (due to current) and watch the show, and viz. is a bit limited. They also dive from pangas (fun fact; I said 'panga' and our Cruise Director asked what it was; in Raja Ampat, apparently they're called dinghies. Panga, dinghy, RIB, whatever).

For species diversity, big corals and ornate sea life, and for macro., I've seen nothing like Raja Ampat.

As for 'big stuff,' Raja Ampat is decent (aside from the mantas, which rock). From what I saw, black tip reef sharks looked around 3 or 4 feet long, maybe, white-tip sharks smaller and leaner, the gray reef sharks tended to be murky overhead silhouettes (looked online - they resemble Caribbean reef sharks), Napoleon wrasse are smaller than goliath grouper (maybe giant sea bass size, as seen in California?), bump head parrotfish pretty good size (didn't see many), titan triggerfish look about 2 feet long, some of the jacks might approach 3 feet, the morays I saw weren't as large as the big greens of the Caribbean, 1 hawksbill and several green sea turtles, plenty of batfish, some medium-grouper, big puffers...on the whole, I'd say for medium (i.e.: dinner plate sized) and up animals, Raja Ampat had more than Caribbean destinations I've seen, including fish like this one that I don't know what they are:

But for divers who like (or need) really benign conditions (e.g.: no current), there's a lot to be said for the Caymans, Roatan, Bonaire, Curacao, Belize, etc... Cozumel's drift diving was more difficult than those but less so than Raja Ampat for me, it had great viz., abundant life and I'm a fan of the Palancar area reefs. Any of these destinations lends itself to the typical 7-day/1-week 'get away' American vacation, and Raja Ampat does not.

And U.S.-based divers who want 'big stuff' can enjoy the goliath grouper and lemon sharks out of Jupiter, FL, the sand tiger sharks out of North Carolina, the tiger sharks via shark feeding diving out of Jupiter, FL and Tiger Beach in the Bahamas, or the Socorros, Cocos Island, the Galapagos or Malpelo (I haven't dove the Bahamas, Socorros, Cocos or Malpelo).

 

[scubadada]

@drrich2

Hi Richard,

Wow, what a trip report! Thanks for spending the time and energy writing it for us.

I have dived with others on liveaboards who have taken advantage of renting 100 cu ft AL cylinders. It appears that the AL100s generally get filled the same as the AL80s, closer to 3000 psi rather than their working pressure of 3300 psi. Having around 90 cu ft of gas is certainly better than 77.4 cu ft, but it isn't the 100 cu ft you might think you will have.