Help me with planning a dream trip

[Diving Dubai]

Have you dive there at 5am to see schooling of bumphead parrotfish & brown marbled groupers coming out of their hideout looking for breakfast in a clear stale water, before being mucked up by those newbie divers?

Yes, it's okay... But way over hyped. I guess each of our perspectives are driven by other places we've dived. Tulamben is nothing special, and there are areas in the local with better diving.

The newer divers didn't bother us as we went and stayed in the 30-40m range with planned deco's. Still didn't improve the place

 

[Dan]

Lorenzoid, add RA into your bucket list.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Diving Dubai, what other locales? And did you like them "deep" or at the depth that most of the divers would be diving them?

 

[dirtfarmer]

Yes, it's okay... But way over hyped. I guess each of our perspectives are driven by other places we've dived. Tulamben is nothing special, and there are areas in the local with better diving.

The newer divers didn't bother us as we went and stayed in the 30-40m range with planned deco's. Still didn't improve the place

So we're you diving muck at those depths?

 

[Dan]

Yes, it's okay... But way over hyped. I guess each of our perspectives are driven by other places we've dived. Tulamben is nothing special, and there are areas in the local with better diving.

The newer divers didn't bother us as we went and stayed in the 30-40m range with planned deco's. Still didn't improve the place

After diving in RA, you just got spoiled on what you see in anywhere else. My Bali DM surprised me with one critter there in the bottom of the USS Liberty in about 90' deep. He pointed to a Raja Ampat Denise Pygmy seahorse, which I thought they only exist in Misool area. It blew my mind.

 

[Dan]

For those who are wondering what Raja Ampat Denise Pygmy seahorse looks like, here is one that I pull it off the internet. So, they shouldn't say Raja Ampat Denise Pygmy seahorse. They should just call it a variation of Denise Pygmy.

 

[Diving Dubai]

So we're you diving muck at those depths?

Liberty maxes out at 40m. A couple of walls go well past 50m. (The shore slopes off fast to 800m) so no muck diving

 

[dirtfarmer]

Liberty maxes out at 40m. A couple of walls go well past 50m. (The shore slopes off fast to 800m) so no muck diving

I can see why you might not have liked the Tulamben area. It is excellent for muck-critter diving. The reefs are ok but yes there's much better elsewhere in Indo. When I dive Tulamben I'm mainly diving the muck sites shooting photos of critters.

 

[Diving Dubai]

Diving Dubai, what other locales? And did you like them "deep" or at the depth that most of the divers would be diving them?

For the deep in Tulamben, similar stuff to the shallows but more of it, also bigger schooling fish were deeper


Other locals. Thailand and malapascu in the Philippines I wouldn't go back to, and put them on the same list as Tulambem

Misool, Komodo and Nusa Lembongan so far in Indonesia were great and I'd go back

The Maldives were good and worth a repeat

The Red Sea, I learnt to dive there so obvious your first dives are special, the last trip was yet okay, I think the Red Sea has been over dived (sour then Red Sea) then again fir me to get there from Dubai it takes 15 hrs, if it only took the 5 hrs it takes from the UK my perspective might be different

My local is the Mussandam, the northern tip of Oman in the strait of Hormuz. Not always great vis (it us at this time of year) loads of great hard and sort coral lots of life that we take for granted that others get e cited about on other trios. whales sharks we see most months. Local fishing is just by small boats and no dive industry to ruin the place.


Still want to explore the South Pacific and want to see dolphins underwater and schools of hammerheads the glapagos is a $20k trip and cold water diving (for us) so not on the radar as yet, but lots of other places are. We just want decent diving to match the effort expended

 

[Dan]

The 5 am dive on the wreck was our first dive in Tulamben and one of the best! The night dive on the wreck was one of the worst--too many people in the water at the same time.

It's all relative. In Tulamben we had our divemaster spend most of our time on muck dives, which were excellent, yet still not nearly as good as Lembeh. On the other hand, we enjoyed Tulamben more than Menjangan. The reef/wall at Menjangan was nice but failed to "wow" us, especially in view of the bleaching. I have never been to Raja Ampat, but from what I have read, I get the impression it is far nicer than anything on Bali.

I noticed 2 kinds of garden eels there, the solid black & white with black dot ones poking out of the black sands right next to each other. I haven't seen the solid black ones anywhere else.