No Nitrox in Labuan Bajo (Komodo)?

[bshort4]

I've been trying to book a less expensive liveaboard trip for this November with a local dive op in Labuan Bajo. Since I'm retired I just can't afford the more expensive liveaboard boats that provide Nitrox for free or at a cost. Was planning to do a few day diving trips before going on the liveaboard for 4 or 5 nights or whatever I could arrange. After contacting more than a few dive ops there none of them have Nitrox on their liveaboards and none for their day trips either. In such a popular place for diving I just can't understand this. It seems like someone would have a Nitrox membrane so they could make Nitrox. Since no one else has Nitrox it would surely steer a lot of customers their way. Some of the dive ops that bothered to respond to me said that a company may be setting up later this year to provide Nitrox to the dive ops that want it--no set time yet and no prices for what the cost per fill may be. But they probably still won't have Nitrox for their live aboards. I did find one or two liveaboards at the top of my price range that can provide Nitrox--the Cheng Ho at about $2000 for five nights--Nitrox $25 a day for how many dives you do that day, but they pack 24 divers on the boat which doesn't appeal much to me. The MY Mona Lisa which I can find out little about which is a hop-on hop-off boat and you can schedule as many days as you want any time you want and for about $350 usd per night plus $25 per day for Nitrox--smaller boat and only 14 divers I believe. Well I guess my choices are limited and will need to make a decision on diving with or without Nitrox for my trip---without Nitrox it opens up a whole new world of choices.

 

[outofofficebrb]

Doing a search on PADI Travel for Komodo LOBs with nitrox yield many options. Some are the same price as the ones you’ve found, some are way higher, some are lower, and 1 or 2 are waaaaay lower. so while it isn’t land based as you had hoped, there are still options for liveaboards with nitrox within your budget. Check it out.

I always dive nitrox when i can and try to go out of my way for nitrox as well. I dived Komodo on air and honestly, while nitrox is nice, most of the dives weren’t that deep so it wasn’t a must-have. Surface intervals were also long enough between dives.

Here are the liveaboards below with nitrox. I used Sept 2019 as a search parameter thinking there is more availability then and will show me more boats that have openings for the purpose of this list.

While total passengers is something to consider, also look at boats with less passenger maximums and look at how large the boat is. While they take fewer people, the amount of space per person (length of boat divided by # of passengers as an example) can sometimes be less. Look at total length and width of boat and look at how many passengers there are as well as crew to passenger ratios.

I’ve been on quite a few LOBs and have been on smaller ones with 8-10 passengers and larger ones with 26 passengers. It wasn’t as many or as crowded as I thought it was for the latter so you might be pleasantly surprised if it is spacious and well appointed.

Panunee
KLM Manta Mae
Seamore Papua
MSY Seahorse
SY Adelaar
Damai II
MV Empress
Sea Safari VII
Cheng Ho
Lady Denok
MV Mermaid II
SMY Oceanic
Aurora

 

[bshort4]

Thanks for the reply my friend, I've looked at most of these boats on both PadiTravel and LiveAboard and most are out of my limited price range. Also the timing is bad as most of these boats have shifted to Raja by the time I will be in Komodo in November. I'll be combing this trip with a trip to the Philippines for a month after I leave Komodo. I will probably end up diving on a local liveaboard and not use Nitrox at all unless something unexpected turns up. Some local dive boats for liveaboard diving look ok but I'm not to much into sleeping on the deck traveling backpacker style--I like a few creature comforts--a/c for starters which most have. I've had some good conversations with a few of the better known dive ops there (Uber, Manta Rhei and DiveKomodo) and I've e-mailed several more who never responded. Another point is them having enough divers on the smaller boats and having them cancel the trip for lack of divers---especially since I won't be travelling there at the busiest time of the year. I'll just keep up my search and see what comes up--thanks again.

 

[Centrals]

MY Mona Lisa: I won't go anywhere near this boat because reports of bedbugs.
Scuba Junkie Komodo runs day trip from its base outside LBJ. Three dives a day and also has AC room in the resort.

 

[bshort4]

MY Mona Lisa: I won't go anywhere near this boat because reports of bedbugs.
Scuba Junkie Komodo runs day trip from its base outside LBJ. Three dives a day and also has AC room in the resort.

Where did you find any reviews on MY Mona Lisa? I've looked all over the web and found maybe two and one person didn't actually go on the boat because it was being repaired and they took him to another boat without even telling him. He booked the Mona Lisa because it advertised Nitrox and the other boat had none and he had to fight like hell to get his money back for the pre-paid Nitrox for the week.