DREAMING OF RAJA AMPAT - Virtual Dive

[Dan]

Serious hot sweaty early .morning uphill

Welcome to equatorial rainforest.

 

[Laval]

Very nice video, well done. Absolutely love the diving in Indonesia. One of my most favorite countries in the world.

Thank you for your comment. I agree regarding diving in Indonesia.

 

[Laval]

The divining was awesome and December was our only time available for a long (2 week ) vacation in 2019. We took a liveaboard in Komodo and loved it.

Thank you for your reply.

 

[Laval]

To answer your questions yes you can dive Komodo in December but its raining season right now. I have some friends that actually just got on a boat 3 days ago and they have had rain maybe every other day. Mostly in the afternoon. Raja is a better location for December travel does not get the rain like Komodo does. But if you have not been to Komodo yet you MUST go!! this is arguably one of my most favorite places to dive in the world. I have a good friend that owns 2 liveaboards and he runs trips in Komodo, Raja, Banda/Alor, Lembeh and his favorite place is Komodo also. The other reason I like Komodo is its much easier and quicker to get to than Raja and Komodo is much cheaper. You can either fly into Jakarta or Bali and then from there take a quick domestic flight to Labuan Bajo (Komodo) super easy and cheap and there are usualy 5-10 flights a day from each of these locations. I just looked on Skyscanner and lookes like on Monday you can get a one way flight from LAX to Jakarta for about $500 and then the domestic flight from GGK to LBJ is about $80

Now for your question about where to stay, Komodo its best done on a liveaboard. Its like Raja its such a large area and like Raja the liveaboards will take you to all the "good" dive sites. You can stay in Labuan Bajo in a hotel and just do daily boat dives but you will just be going to all the "regular" dive sites but there still amazing!! I am not to sure what kind of vacationer you are but just a heads up Labuan Bajo is very SE Asia its not a pristine Caribbean holiday island which is a good thing that's why the diving is amazing in all of Indonesia it has not been over taken by tourist and huge all inclusive resorts. Its still raw untouched and has culture.

But that being said Indonesia has so much to offer for diving if have already done Raja try something new Komodo, Manda, Wakatobi, Banda Arch regions, Lembeh, Bunaken, Gili T, Lombok, the list goes on.

Not my video but here is a little Komodo teaser.

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Thank you for details regarding Komodo. If everything is okay, we will go there probably in spring of 2022.

 

[Laval]

beautiful video! Did a 10 day liveaboard in Raja just about a year ago and am aching to go back! Personally, I liked the diversity of going from South to North and finally finishing off in the Dampier Strait, especially because there were some weather patterns that we managed to avoid that way, but it sounds like a great resort that may be worth checking out if I end up traveling with people who might not want to go on a liveaboard, so thanks for the tip!

Thank you for watching my video and your comments.

 

[Laval]

I wanted to scratch my itch of Raja Ampat bug bite that I was usually able to do around this time of the year for the last 10 years, but this pandemic situation messed up my plan, so I went to Cocos instead since the Costa Rica is now open to the world.

Indonesia needs to learn from Costa Rica if they want to get their tourism back in business.

I would love to go to Cocos.

 

[Laval]

I hope you'll post a 'compare and contrast' trip report; I suspect for some of us it may be a once in a lifetime trip, one or the other. Any idea what your longest continuous single flight is likely to be in the trip?

I have not been to Komodo yet, but my friends who did about 40 dive trips in Indonesia ranked Dampier Strait as #1, Komodo #2 and Misool as #3. I would agree with Dampier Strait and Misool, so I still have a place for Komodo.

 

[Laval]

Wait until later because once you go, you'll do almost anything to dive there again. It's ruined me for Caribbean diving.

I agree regarding Caribbean diving being ruined by R4.

 

[Dan]

There are some sites to visit & see the birds of paradise.

Here’s one in Sawinggarai village, Gam island, at the west end of Dampier Strait.

 

[Dan]

If you are a hard core bird watcher, then visit the Papua mainland and track where Planet Earth filmed them: