Raja Ampat/Lembeh in Dec?

[Dan]

Thanks everyone, I decided to rebook Komodo (Mermaid I) in August 2022, and Raja Ampat (Papua Explorers, Carpe Diem) in Dec 2022. I was originally booked on Mermaid for Raja Ampat and Carpe Diem for Komodo but figured flying in/out of Bali and avoiding the LBJ flight was better in post-COVID times so swapped them around.

Bastianos said if Lembeh is still not open to tourists by the end of the year they will allow me to extend my credit to 2022, so I've exercised some discipline (thanks to the sense in the comments here) and held off.

Still need to reschedule the White Manta trips - originally had Derawan in June 2021 and Banda sea in Oct 2021, which I would need to reschedule by June/Oct 2023 respectively.

This sounds more reasonable & more likely for you to make them.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Sorry, this will be a quite long comment. For now the Indonesian government is not prioritizing tourism around Lembeh or for the R4 area. Indonesia Finalizes Safe Travel Bubble Plan with 5 Countries

But indeed anybody working in tourism could get a vaccination and many of us did. I am very happy to get my second AstraZeneca shot next Monday. However, the hard reality is that until now only 6% of the Indonesian population has been fully vaccinated. The target is to vaccinate 180 million out of the 270 million people here. So, a total of 360 million shots. Until now the daily number seldom reaches 360.000, although the aim is 1 million daily. The numbers of daily infections are on the rise, as expected because of the holidays which ended 3 weeks ago. Further there is much concern within the government that the Delta variant is spreading here. Most of our schools are (trying to) teach online now since last year March. The plan is that next month some sort of face to face school will be limited possible again. For this reason all teachers also have been vaccinated. By the time international tourism starts again many resorts, restaurants and boats have been completely out of business for some years. Fortunately many of their (ex) employees found other jobs in the meantime. There is no help from the government at all. Nothing. Actually the opposite is happening and the tax offices are looking in all ways to get some more taxes out of the almost bankrupt businesses. Opening a resort again after being hardly or not active for some years will take a huge investment.
I can not guess what will happen with international tourism into Indonesia. Maybe people fully vaccinated will be allowed to enter soon? If this happens, it will be first at Bali. Maybe it will be with testing upon arrival and some sort of quarantine. But what will be the policy of the home countries of those tourists? The largest numbers of tourists used to come from Singapore, Malaysia and China. Will travel insurances from Europe cover trips to Indonesia anytime soon? How afraid will visitors be to come across and new variant here? Sorry, many questions to which I do not know the answers as well. But I do know that for Indonesia this pandemic is far from over.

I feel for the people, and have wondered how the business owners of boats and resorts have been faring.

Regardless, we into scuba travel must keep hope alive or eventual recovery will take even longer.

 

[jjmochi]

Yeah! I had all these places saved for 2020 lined up with a work promotion that came with a month off sabbatical and what a mistake lol, I am never going to carry over max vacation days again and just going to go as soon as the countries reopen.

This sounds more reasonable & more likely for you to make them.

Dan I saw your trip reports in the Maldives thread and now I'm very tempted to book a trip. It gives me faith to see someone actually make it to a trip (not to mention 3 back to back!), and sounds like there hasn't been any closures since they reopened in July 2020. Going to hold off on anything tho until I'm sure Indonesia won't reopen by Dec as it seems like there's tons of spots available anyway.

 

[Dan]

Yeah! I had all these places saved for 2020 lined up with a work promotion that came with a month off sabbatical and what a mistake lol, I am never going to carry over max vacation days again and just going to go as soon as the countries reopen.


Dan I saw your trip reports in the Maldives thread and now I'm very tempted to book a trip. It gives me faith to see someone actually make it to a trip (not to mention 3 back to back!), and sounds like there hasn't been any closures since they reopened in July 2020. Going to hold off on anything tho until I'm sure Indonesia won't reopen by Dec as it seems like there's tons of spots available anyway.

Six trips since last December (Cocos, Socorro 2x, Belize, Maldives 2x).

5 more to come for the rest of this year (Malpelo, Guadalupe, Cocos, Tiger Beach, Tromso)

Fingers crossed, knock on wood, still not contracting the dang virus.

 

[SeaWarden]

In Sorong there are about 20 Pinisi boats in the water, but none of them are being maintained at the moment.

 

[chillyinCanada]

In Sorong there are about 20 Pinisi boats in the water, but none of them are being maintained at the moment.

Do you know their names?