pakman
Contributor
I just got back from a 1 week liveaboard trip to Komodo and I thought I'd share my experience. I was on Sea Safari 8 going from Bali to Komodo through www.oceanfocusbali.com run by two great guys Chris Paporakis (Aussie) and Michael Ishak (Indonesian) (their new website up but not complete yet). There are other liveboard dive ops which also use the various traditional phinisi wooden ships in the Sea Safari fleet which are all owned by the same guy and chartered to various dive ops. www.kararu.com (Sea Safari 3) is a komodo liveboard op that seems to get good reviews (do a search on this forum). I have some friends who will be on their Komodo trip later this month.
Now to the trip report. This will be a bit long winded...
First off, the ships are fabulous (I have a soft spot for wooden ships...). They are comfortable and being based on old phinisi sailing ships, have a nice charm to them. They may not have the best layout for a dive boat or are the fastest as say some of the more modern dive liveboards but are functional and most of all roomy enough that you're not constantly bumping into crew or other guests. Most of the Sea Safari ships have a great sun deck up top and a covered deck at stern (my favorite spot as there was a bar conveniently located there along with some comfortable sofas!...). Watching the sunsets and the islands around Komodo from those sofas were a treat... The cabins were comfortable (but then again I had a whole room to myself). Hint: get a cablin on the main or upper deck. Some of the guest in the front lower cabins (at the bow) did complain about the pitching and waves whenever we hit some rough seas.
Crew onboard was excellent and extremely friendly and always happy to help out. Food was your standard Asian dive resort buffet fair. Nothing to knock your socks off but filled your tummy.
As for the 'cruising' part of the trip, the islands between Bali and Komodo are breathtaking. Although some of the islands around Komodo are very arid, they provided great photo opportunities and backdrops for beautiful sunsets. These ships are NOT fast, I think top speed is 10 or so knots... We did hit a patch of bad weather 1 nite (unusual this time of year) and things got a bit rocky beating into the waves. Some of the guests who weren't used to it were looking a bit green...
Now onto the diving... The diving was great but I was a weebit disappointed we didn't see more of the "big stuff". But then again I might be being too critical and we may have just been have been unlucky. There are some of the most beautiful coral formations I seen and the volcanic islands provide some great walls. Also, there's a lot of great macro for you shutterbugs. As for not seeing more of the large pelagics, some of this may do with our dive location selection which was complicated by weather and some flight scheduling problems we had. We had to stay north of Komodo most of the latter half of the trip in order to stay in cell phone range as Merpati decided to cancel our flight back to Bali and the organizers were frantically trying to find a solution!!!!
Now I did see two graceful eagle rays, a couple of white tip sharks, a few tuna, napoleon wrasse, big groupers, schools of barracuda and jacks, and a sea turtle who was content on nibbling the coral right in front of us. On top of this, there was always the abundant reef fish. The barracudas and jacks were far from the huge whirlpools that you would say see in Sipidan in the past.... I was also disappointed that we didn't dive at the manta cleaning station... And no mola mola siting at Nusa Penida on the way out...
One of my favorite sites was GPS point and ETF (Easy To Find Rock). These sites get some great currents and provided a fun ride! The dive masters were very professional and would call off or delay a dive until the currents became manageable. They did a great job of handling some of newer divers and kept them in protected areas to avoid down currents.
Of course seeing the Komodo dragons was a real treat. We did our walk on Rinca and was lucky to come across a large dragon which had just finished eating a small water buffalo. And I guess it had a little too much to eat as it ended up vomiting a buffalo leg at our feet all captured on video and photo (maybe our camera flashes gave him indigestion).
Added bonus was when I opted to go snorkeling while the rest of the group did a wind down dive. Of course it didn't hurt that I was escorting a lovely bikini-clad young lady
(a freelance writer who happened to join the boat for an article and who was a non-diver)... We ended up going ashore and walking along pristine beaches.
Overall I had an excellent time. Great diving, met some fun people, and had some great times just lounging on the deck and enjoying the beauty around the Komodo area. Also I have to thank Merpati Airlines for a hair-raising flight back to Bali from Bima. After our flight was delayed a day, we took off for Bali the following day only to lose an engine (twin prop fokker) and had to return to Bima. Fortunately the pilot handled the landing well and the problem was located (air trapped in the fuel line). Of course I think all the passengers were a bit hesitant getting back onboard...
I would definitely do this trip again, but I'd like to find a liveaboard that will focus on the dive spots south of Komodo Island.
I will try to post some of the photos I took u/w and topside from the trip shortly.
Now to the trip report. This will be a bit long winded...
First off, the ships are fabulous (I have a soft spot for wooden ships...). They are comfortable and being based on old phinisi sailing ships, have a nice charm to them. They may not have the best layout for a dive boat or are the fastest as say some of the more modern dive liveboards but are functional and most of all roomy enough that you're not constantly bumping into crew or other guests. Most of the Sea Safari ships have a great sun deck up top and a covered deck at stern (my favorite spot as there was a bar conveniently located there along with some comfortable sofas!...). Watching the sunsets and the islands around Komodo from those sofas were a treat... The cabins were comfortable (but then again I had a whole room to myself). Hint: get a cablin on the main or upper deck. Some of the guest in the front lower cabins (at the bow) did complain about the pitching and waves whenever we hit some rough seas.
Crew onboard was excellent and extremely friendly and always happy to help out. Food was your standard Asian dive resort buffet fair. Nothing to knock your socks off but filled your tummy.
As for the 'cruising' part of the trip, the islands between Bali and Komodo are breathtaking. Although some of the islands around Komodo are very arid, they provided great photo opportunities and backdrops for beautiful sunsets. These ships are NOT fast, I think top speed is 10 or so knots... We did hit a patch of bad weather 1 nite (unusual this time of year) and things got a bit rocky beating into the waves. Some of the guests who weren't used to it were looking a bit green...
Now onto the diving... The diving was great but I was a weebit disappointed we didn't see more of the "big stuff". But then again I might be being too critical and we may have just been have been unlucky. There are some of the most beautiful coral formations I seen and the volcanic islands provide some great walls. Also, there's a lot of great macro for you shutterbugs. As for not seeing more of the large pelagics, some of this may do with our dive location selection which was complicated by weather and some flight scheduling problems we had. We had to stay north of Komodo most of the latter half of the trip in order to stay in cell phone range as Merpati decided to cancel our flight back to Bali and the organizers were frantically trying to find a solution!!!!
Now I did see two graceful eagle rays, a couple of white tip sharks, a few tuna, napoleon wrasse, big groupers, schools of barracuda and jacks, and a sea turtle who was content on nibbling the coral right in front of us. On top of this, there was always the abundant reef fish. The barracudas and jacks were far from the huge whirlpools that you would say see in Sipidan in the past.... I was also disappointed that we didn't dive at the manta cleaning station... And no mola mola siting at Nusa Penida on the way out...
One of my favorite sites was GPS point and ETF (Easy To Find Rock). These sites get some great currents and provided a fun ride! The dive masters were very professional and would call off or delay a dive until the currents became manageable. They did a great job of handling some of newer divers and kept them in protected areas to avoid down currents.
Of course seeing the Komodo dragons was a real treat. We did our walk on Rinca and was lucky to come across a large dragon which had just finished eating a small water buffalo. And I guess it had a little too much to eat as it ended up vomiting a buffalo leg at our feet all captured on video and photo (maybe our camera flashes gave him indigestion).
Added bonus was when I opted to go snorkeling while the rest of the group did a wind down dive. Of course it didn't hurt that I was escorting a lovely bikini-clad young lady
(a freelance writer who happened to join the boat for an article and who was a non-diver)... We ended up going ashore and walking along pristine beaches. Overall I had an excellent time. Great diving, met some fun people, and had some great times just lounging on the deck and enjoying the beauty around the Komodo area. Also I have to thank Merpati Airlines for a hair-raising flight back to Bali from Bima. After our flight was delayed a day, we took off for Bali the following day only to lose an engine (twin prop fokker) and had to return to Bima. Fortunately the pilot handled the landing well and the problem was located (air trapped in the fuel line). Of course I think all the passengers were a bit hesitant getting back onboard...
I would definitely do this trip again, but I'd like to find a liveaboard that will focus on the dive spots south of Komodo Island.
I will try to post some of the photos I took u/w and topside from the trip shortly.
