Anyone got info on the French Polynesia Master liveaboard, launching 2016?

[judyo1]

I've just completed a 10 night cruise on the French Polynesia Master, so here are some general comments:
* overall a positive experience
* I booked through liveaboard.com (as they don't charge a credit card surcharge). There were some mixed messages / changes of disembarkation port. I'm not sure whether the 'confusion' orginated from Master fleet or liveaboard.com but all worked out well in the end..
* the liveaboard is expensive. However, French Polynesia is exceedingly expensive so I have attributed the cost as a reality of operating in an isolated, expensive location
* 29 dives were offered, I did 28 of them. Usually 3 dives a day, a couple of night dives offered. The one night dive I did was underwhelming.
* we only had 9 passengers on our cruise, boat takes 26. I am sure the experience would be quite different iwth 26 people on board.
* Diving good. SOP was max dive time of 60 minutes, max depth 29m. (I may have gone to 32ish m a few times). Ascend when 50bar in tank. There were 4 divers in my group & 2 dive guides. Dive times were generally in the 50-55 minute range. I generally had 100-120 bar left in my tank but am pretty good on my air, others were generally coming up around 50 bar. TBH, usually by the end of the dive, we'd completed the pass so I was (usually) happy enough to finish the dive then. Also on the boat was a 75 year old man & 79 year old lady, both travellling independently (I sooo hope I am able to do that if I reach that age!!!) They were each assigned an individual dive guide (and hadn't requested this). So the other group of 5 divers were 3 friends (who had one dive guide), and the 2 more 'mature' divers who had a guide each.... I think it fair to say we were well looked after. Not sure how this would have panned out if the boat had been full.
* the diving: lots of sharks (grey reef, white tipped reef shark, silvertip, a hammerhead, a tiger was seen (not by me - buggar!). Walls and walls of sharks... Currents yes... but have dived much stronger currents
* we dived South Fakarava, north Fakarava, Kauehi, Toau, Apataki & Rangiroa.
*Food - I was very happy with food. It wasn't gourmet food, but flavoursome & plenty of variety. I am a non-seafood eater and although a lot of seafood served, plenty of non- seafood options. Large amount of fresh fruit available and also a big salad with every lunch and dinner.
* the boat. it is large. The rooms are very large. I can't understand why the downstairs bathrooms were so appallingly designed, cupboard size with shower more or less over the toilet. THe rooms are huge so surely the room could have been a bit smaller? Toilet paper got wet from the shower... A lot of stuff seemed to break - toilets blocked, RIBs needed repairs. Taking a positive view of this, everything got fixed by the crew... but there was a bit of a 'made in China' feeling to the boat... (It was made in China). After a few nights of sleeping on the sofas in the lounge (which are VERY comfortable) due to my room mate's snoring and then disagreements regarding aircon (I couldn't sleep with it switched off) I got moved to an empty room on the upper deck. These rooms were a bit smaller (but more than adequate) but the bathroom was bigger.
* crew were friendly & approachable. Boat seemed to handle well. Dive guides were French, all bilingual.
* weather average... a reasonable amount of rain - but it is the rainy season!
Cheers

 

[Wingy]

Hmm...just hmmm...

FP Master when you read this could you please respond here at least regarding my multiple emails to you re CMAS divers.

Thanks for the report Judy - wondering what longevity will be

 

[nwflyboy]

Hmm...just hmmm...

FP Master when you read this could you please respond here at least regarding my multiple emails to you...

Good luck with that....

 

[jrfox]

I'm pretty much in agreement with what judyo1 said above (and with what others said about WWDAS being hostile about answering questions). For people taking the trip, there are a couple packing tips in my comments below.

Disclaimer: This is my first liveaboard. Sorry about the length of the report, but it answers a bunch of questions I had before the trip, and I hope it might be helpful to others. From what I've read, this is largely consistent with what others have said.

Itinerary: The Tuamotus (Fakarava, Kauehi, Toau, Apataki, Rangiroa; 28 dives offered)

The good: the diving (sharks, mantas, dolphins, hard coral, small fish and pelagics), the dive crew, the dive deck, the cooks

The unexpected: team diving (not buddy diving), stated conservative depth limits, too many sharks (just kidding )

The glitches: occasional power outages (new fuel supplier); intermittent water outages and plumbing problems (including 1 of 2 heads on the dive deck being out for the last half of the trip, and the second being out of order as well for the last day or two); ladders failed on two of the RIBs

The persistent failures: no satellite internet for entire trip; a/c inadequate for the full restaurant at meal time; too many flies in the dining area; the diet sodas had aspartame failure typical of hot climates and were awful (and past "best by" date); yogurt past "best by" date and ran out

Notes:

I loved the experience overall: I travelled with a fun group (Undersea Expeditions) that got along well, even though we had only met one of the people on our three previous trips with the company. The diving is spectacular, and I'm a better diver at the end of the 10 days.

The dive crew was all smiles, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, helpful and friendly. The variety of music on the dive deck (thanks to Antoine) was a pleasant background for the joy of gearing up and the anticipation of the next dive. The order of the teams rotated day-to-day, and there was roughly 5-10 minutes between departures of the RIBs to keep groups from jamming up. Dive groups would be sent to alternate sides of a pass on the outgoing current dives to further disperse the groups.

The diving is by small teams (typically 4-5 divers + 1 guide), and each team (or palanquée) ends the dive together within the prescribed time limits (lightly enforced 1 hour), depth limits imposed by French law where the limit for a given team was for its least-advanced member, and no deco obligation. Our team was well matched in certification and reasonably matched in air consumption, so ending the dive together was not fraught with contention. (15 liter tanks are available if someone is emptying their 12 liter/80 cu ft tank ahead of the rest of the group.) The rule in my team was that we signal 1/2 air at 1500psi/100bar and then reserve (750 psi/50 bar) at which point we would begin a leisurely ascent and comfortable 3- to 5-minute safety stop with the guide handling SMB deployment. We were as limited by our gas mixture (a reliable 32-33% EAN over the week) as the rules and regs (29m / 99ft for most divers). After each dive, depth, time and remaining gas is recorded by each diver on a clipboard of logs near their equipment area.

Serge's dive briefings provided detailed drawings of the sites, the approach to take to dive the site, what to look for, where to be careful with the current and where to pay especially careful attention to the dive guide for the group in order not to be swept away. Some of the incoming current dives, for example, can take a diver from deep to shallow very quickly, and it is important to manage one's ascent by keeping out of the current close to the bottom or grabbing rocks to slow down, in order to avoid the risk of bubbles. Similarly at Apataki in the incoming current, it was important to drop right after the lip of the "shark bowl" to avoid being swept over the feature without being able to stop. (The best dive of my life. Amazing.)

Cylinders were refilled within minutes of return from the dive, and the staggered returns plus two oxygen analyzers meant no long queue to analyze cylinders. DIN regulators were accommodated without complaint, but the default setup is for yoke. Light fills were corrected by my dive group leader (Anouck) when we logged our analysis and pressure results before a dive (may vary by leader).

The anti-stink dip for the wetsuits was phenomenal -- it smelled like it might have some pine plus phenol in it, and kept 23 divers free of mildew stink for 10 days. When they worked, the two hot showers on the dive deck were a nice touch. Numbered towels awaited divers at their station after each dive. My towel was missing about 25% of the time.

SMB required. Reef hooks OK (and often used). Gloves OK (recommended on some dives). Bring bug spray/wipes for the outings (and any time on the ground in Pape'ete or the islands before/after the liveaboard). Bring reef-safe sunscreen/clothing for roughly five minute boat rides and waiting for pickup. Most people switched to full rash guards or light wetsuits because of abrasion risks when flying along. I dove a 2.5 mm Waterproof wetsuit without a hood for the week and was comfortable in the 80-82F water temps (February 14-24, 2018).

The kitchen crew learned our breakfast preferences instantly, and there were no misses in the abundant food all 10 days. The crew was attentive to people with special food requirements (set aside portions without problem foods).

We were in cabin 6, off the dining area. The port anchor chain runs just forward of that cabin (and the starboard anchor just forward of cabin 7), so there is no sleeping through the anchor being raised or lowered. The wet bath had a shower curtain that kept the towels and sink dry when we showered. We were fortunate to miss all of the non-transient outages/breakages that afflicted a couple cabins. The occupant of the outer beds in 6 and 7 will catch some air in moderate seas -- I had to wedge myself against the wall with pillows so I didn't thump down on the bed during the overnight crossings -- it was fun in some strange way.

The boat has a "no shoe" policy, but do keep a pair of waterproof flip-flops in the cabin for shore outings. (Fancy flip-flops with leather footbeds and cloth straps got super rancid in the rainy few days before the liveaboard, so consider bringing simple, cheap, all-plastic slippers.)

I wish I had left my full travel pharmacy intact for the trip. A cold ran through the whole ship -- and apparently all of Pape'ete while we were at sea -- and I didn't have US-style cough suppressant. (The pharmacy in Pape'ete only has ETH and some other expectorant, not dextromethorphan.) The dispensary (drug cabinet) was shared generously for people that needed Tylenol, seasickness meds or antibiotic ointment.

The 22 hour crossing from Rangiroa to Pape'ete at the end of the trip caused more seasickness than our atoll-to-atoll 3- to 8-hour sailings. I was OK with candied ginger, dimenhydrinate (Dramamine) at night and meclizine (Bonine) in the day. Next time, I would slap on a scopolamine patch for that part of the trip.

There was talk of a possible proposal (French law) to limit AOW divers (CMAS two star diver) at some point in the future to 20m/66fsw. I would encourage the parent company WWDAS to be transparent about the state of this rule as time goes on, as well as establishing guidelines for which certifications through PADI, SSI, SDI/TDI, NAUI, etc. map to CMAS** and CMAS*** and the depth limits that will be stated. I would also encourage divers heading to French Polynesia to work on their credentials if they find the depth limits under French law to be more restrictive than they would like. There's a lot going on at 100 fsw -- it would be a shame to be limited to 66 fsw.

In the month since our return from the trip, I just can't get the diving and the trip out of my head. I hope I have enough years (and $$$) left in my diving to be able to return.

 

[bubffm]

Well, all those happy people with just 9 or 10 divers on that boat.... We were "fully loaded" with 25 divers and it resulted in a total mess. The dining area / lounge is nowhere near sizeable enough to fit 25 people. We were sitting on each others laps! "Camera room" (more of a junk-area) got flooded on crossing Papeete - Rangiroa with batteries, chargers and lenses getting wet! Big queues on the dive deck. Sometimes you had to stand around for 30min+ in full outfit before the dingy ahead of you finally left. Some of our divers where super-sleepy (Frenchies mostly..).

The boat screams CHEAP all over it. Temperature control of the A/C didnt really work (you were either frozen or cooked) but make a hell of a noise (60db measured with App). The drawers were falling apart, the bathroom smelled rotten. Food is "so-la-la". Snacks means they open a bag of chips....

Diving is ok for the sharks but most reefs are in poor condition with heavy bleaching.

The boat is 2 years old but looks like 20 years old. Everything is happily rusting along. Worst Liveaboard experience we ever had.

Not recommended.