Real Time Blue Manta Review: Banda Sea 9 – 19 Sept 2019

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Current status of the loading deck in a calm morning of Banda Neira. Half of the deck is taken up by the flooded dinghy on stilts.
 
Yes, 5 showers with soap and shampoo. After our dives they had benches for you to sit down and get your wetsuit off. Anytime I struggled to get my hooded vest off, one of the crew would help me.


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Tat is a great picture of the loading deck in calm seas.

As Dan said in moderate seas the deck floods, you can be taking off your wetsuit in a foot of surge. One f the stools fell on my buddy and she bruised or broke a toe.

I have been told that the deck on the BM is .2m above water line, and that on the White Manta is .6m above the water line. So apparently someone got a clue!

Our DM said that they load off the back every place except Banda Sea, where the seas are just too rough. And really it's not that rough, but with a deck at the waterline there is little to no room for surge.

- Bill
 
Try the Arenui next time. Great boat & great crew when we went on it.
 
The the Arenui next time. Great boat & great crew when we went on it.

I think @Dan is not going to take a traditional phinisi or any wooden boat across Banda ever again after what happened the first time he did it and given how rough the water can be. A steel hull is a better bet for something like that.
 
I should of been clearer, I meant for an Indonesian liveaboard in general, not a Banda sea trip.
 
Dan should correct me if I'm wrong but it seems unlikely that he'll be doing a Banda crossing trip again on any kind of boat.
 
Dan should correct me if I'm wrong but it seems unlikely that he'll be doing a Banda crossing trip again on any kind of boat.

Right. Once is enough. If I want to see hammerheads in clear blue water, I’ll go back to Cocos, which I will in September 2020.

Schooling Sea Kraits are cool though.
 
The hammerheads I saw on Maui were in the clearest water I have ever seen.
 
Loving the live reports (both good and bad)

I’m wondering: when you dive “in the blue” for the hammerheads- is there anything else to see? Or if you don’t see them the dive is (more or less) “wasted”.

How many dives a day? And are most blue water dives or mixed with reefs/pinnacle as well?
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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