Mermaid 1 Bali - Komodo - Maumere

[weeksd]

Mermaid 1 is an excellent liveaboard holding 15 guests. A comfortable liveaboard to be on. Rooms are very well laid out. Dining room is large which serves a mix of european, american and asian dishes. Special diets can be catered to by informing the office when you book of any diet requirements. Large sun deck and outside seating area makes between dives very relaxing. All dive briefings are done inside the salon area using the tv with maps and photos of what to look for on each site. Komodo dive sites vary quite a bit. White, grey, brown, black sand and muck. Walls, pinnacles, sloping reefs. Every site is different. Currents on each site are taken into account when planning the trip to hit the site in its best current direction and strength. Animals which are specific to that dive site are highlighted in the briefing. Dive deck is very well laid out. Put on tank and walk down steps to inflatable. In the water dive guides are there to find critters. The knowledge the guides have is amazing on the sites and the where to find the critters. Most of the guides have many years in komodo. You can follow the guide or do your own dive thats your choice. I have done six komodo trips on mermaid so i know most of the sites. Most dives are 75 minutes long unless they have to move the liveaboard to the next island then its 60 minute dives. Three day dive and one night dive is offered each day. On out trip we went to maumere so the last day of diving depended on when you were flying back to bali. Three day dives were done and a night dive at the maumere pier was cancelled as the harbour master had to many cargo ships in the harbour. Kayaks were put into the water to kayak to an island and a beach walk for those flying the next day. Komodo even after six trips still surprises me. Sharks, mantas, turtles, large schools of fish, small reef fish and critters are abundant but even from trip to trip things change. Guides quite often find critters they have not seen before. On previous trips we kept finding an octopus which has just been identified as a new species. Where else but indonesia do you find critters not in the book. Walk with the dragons was done on rinja island with many dragons seen. My website is http://reefscenics.smugmug.com

 

[Hintermann]

I went on the Bali-Komodo 9-day cruise in June this year and it was certainly an exceptional trip. The senior Dive Instructor Hari the Finn was exceptional in organising the dives in such a way that the guests get the best out of every dive. Despite the fact that there was strong current at almost every dive site we went, we swam against very little. I saw more critters on that trip than any other that I have been, including Raja Ampat. The Mermaid I is a great boat, on the upmarket side and very comfortable.