Trip Report Raja Ampat, Live Report, Nov. 7-Dec. 7, 2023

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Continued Trip Report

Why Raja Ampat.
I came here wanting and hoping to be amazed and wowed by the diving and it didn’t disappoint. I’ve exhausted my diving in the Caribbean and the reefs are dying off such that it’s not enjoyable to dive there anymore. Getting here was a chore, but it was worth it. I’m retired, and I’ve been here for 28 days, so I was able to take my time getting here and back. If I had to do this trip in a shorter time period, it would not have been as fun and relaxing. I made a good choice in doing the land-based and liveaboard diving, which gave me a nice, rounded experience of Indonesia’s diving.

Diving started on November 26th, a few hours after everyone was on board. We did a checkout dive in Waisai and began the overnight journey to the next site.

We had successful diving on November 27th & 28th, but on November 29th, there was a fatal accident at the beginning of the first dive of the day. I saw the news article in the Accidents and Injuries forum, but the article is not quite accurate. The diver’s name is correct, Steve, but the date of death is November 29th, not November 30th. He was found floating at the surface at approximately 8:30 a.m.

The dive briefing was thorough. For each dive, they send the tender boat to the site for a guide to jump in to check the current. If it’s too strong, we move to another location or drop in ahead of the current in order to ride with it. That’s what happened on this day. For about an hour after our scheduled drop-in time, we finally landed on a site. Just for some context, when the dive briefing starts or it's meal time, there's a big bell that's rung outside. So I waited in my air-conditioned room rather than in the heat to hear the bell. For some reason, I didn't hear the bell or maybe they didn’t ring it because everyone was ready to go anyway. So when I came to the dive deck to check on the status, everyone was gone, so I literally missed the boat by five minutes. There were nine divers and three guides in the water and we lost one diver.

What I tell you here is from what I have learned from other divers’ accounts and what I saw when the tender boat came back with Steve.

Within the first 15 feet of dropping in, there was a down current so strong that it took everyone down for a rapid and uncontrolled descent, 90-137 feet in less than one minute. That day, everyone was on 29% Nitrox. The depth each diver reached varied by their computer. As soon as the dive started, it was clear it needed to be aborted, but nobody could control their descent. One diver dropped her weights, emptied her BC, and still could not fin up. She ended up at 137 feet before one of the dive guides was able to stop her descent and helped her to the surface. Steve, another diver, and a guide were able to make it to the wall to at least hang onto something, but they were still being forced down. A guide was a little farther away from Steve and the other diver and seemed to be out of the worst of the down current. Steve and the other diver were at 90 feet and about six feet apart on the wall. The other diver was able to climb the wall at a rate of 1.4 feet per minute. He told us the physical exertion was enormous and he could not hang onto the wall anymore, so he pushed off. His fingers were shredded from hanging onto the wall. He was not wearing gloves.

Steve was also trying to climb the wall but was making less progress than the other diver. The last time Steve was seen alive was when the other diver and Steve locked eyes with that “I’m going to die” fear as the other diver pushed off the wall to survive. We think he probably had a heart attack from the extreme physical exertion and drowned or perhaps the force of the down current knocked his regulator out of his mouth. His regulator was not in his mouth when he was found on the surface. His mask and everything else, including his camera rig, was still attached. The other diver’s dive lasted 4 minutes from drop in to surface.

Another diver said he saw his bubbles going down and sideways but not up, and it was so confusing for him and he didn’t know if his brain was playing tricks. He could barely keep his mask on and regulator in because of the force of the down current. That diver got to 90 feet before he got out of it and was able to slow his ascent around 60 feet, then 30 feet, then did a safety stop. His dive lasted 11 minutes.

We just happened to have two instructors on this trip, so there was a lot of discussion in the aftermath, and there was nothing that could have been done differently. This was just a really bad accident. The diver that was with Steve on the wall (instructor) and the other diver/instructor got Steve on the tender boat with all his gear and tank still on. It was a heroic effort and took immense strength to pull him onto the boat. One of the instructors was the first to give him rescue measures, and he said his pupils were fixed and dilated, and there was no pulse or heartbeat. Steve was being worked on for at least 20 minutes. Since the shortest dive time was four minutes, he may have on the surface for less than five minutes.

What I saw personally was from the time the tender boat made it back to the mothership. The first tender boat came back with Steve and the people that were trying to resuscitate him. The second tender boat had the remaining divers, but there were two guides missing. Once all the divers were accounted for, the staff immediately took off to look for the missing guides. They were gone for what seemed a long time, and we were all very concerned for them, but, eventually, they were found quite far away and were safe and not injured.

From what I saw, Steve was obviously dead from the look of his body. His eyes were open and he was a bluish-gray color. Chest compressions got water out of his lungs, but the rescue efforts continued without success. He was then respectfully wrapped in a sheet and placed in the camera room.

I am being very factual and matter of fact, but this was a horrific event to have been involved with. The trauma to everyone, including the crew, has been difficult. I only knew Steve for a couple of days, but he was a member of the good-guy club. He was a genuinely kind man and had a true passion for diving and photography, and he died doing what he loved. We dived together the day before, and his enthusiasm for diving was infectious. He was a very experienced diver, and he took the time to point things out to me. May he rest in peace and his soul be free.

At this point, the trip is not moving forward. We had to make the estimated seven-hour journey to Waisai to get the body to a hospital. It ended up being more like ten hours. It was the longest ten hours I’ve ever endured and it was a bit unsettling during this time to be traveling with a corpse. Once we arrived in Waisai, Steve was respectfully removed from the ship as all of us gathered on the deck to say goodbye. The marine authorities and the local police get involved and an investigation is started. As I learned from the confusing information we were given, the Indonesian authorities run on their own timeline. No one wanted to make the decision to release us, and the police chief was in Jakarta, so we had to wait until he decided to come to Waisai to make the decision. Waisai is a couple hours boat ride from Jakarta, but it took him a full day to arrive.

In the meantime, we were detained in the Waisai harbor for two more full days before the investigation was concluded. Each person who was on the tender boat with Steve had to go ashore to give a statement. We were not parked at the pier, so we, the passengers, could not come and go. We were anchored in the harbor, and our movements were restricted while the tender boats went back and forth with the divers and crew to give statements, getting Steve’s passport, computer, etc., for the marine authorities.

During this time is when the Indo Siren burned up on November 30th near where we were. There was no reason to hold us for so long, but perhaps they were being overly cautious with two terrible events in two days. On the other hand, this was not the first time a boat caught fire in Indonesia or a diver died in Raja Ampat. The Indonesian marine authority asked the witnesses who was at fault for the accident–the equipment, Steve himself, or the crew, to which the witnesses stated it was nature, which was then interpreted as an act of god. Keep in mind, these witness statements had to be translated back and forth, so it took hours for all this to get done while all the divers had to recount their experience.

I assume it was ruled an accidental death because we were released to resume the trip. One of the owners of the Damai flew in from Spain on December 1st to liase between the police and the crew, and the crew was uplifted to have him there as a support. He remained on the boat with us till the end of the trip on December 7th. He went diving with us and even led a dive and drove the tender boats. He had meals with us and took the time to get to know all the guests. Having him there as an outsider who didn’t witness the event helped us in small, but obvious, ways. For those two days while being detained, all that was talked about was the incident, which is therapeutic in itself, but he could steer the conversation away from the event so we didn’t become consumed by the event. Instead, we could talk about the stories Steve shared in his short time with our diver group. Now that we’re all on our way home, each person can begin to process and grieve in their own way.

All the divers came through this with no physical injuries or DCS, thankfully.
 
Continued Trip Report

Since the live reporting was limited by my internet connection and the events of the accident, this will now be a post-trip report. I am writing this from the airplane on my way home.

The Currents. RA is known for currents, and the currents here can be from ripping to none. The ripping currents I experienced necessitated my stick in the rock or reef hook. I don’t like using a reef hook unless I’m watching big pelagics, like in Socorro, so I mostly used my stick. Some dives, there was mild to no current, and you could float along and take your time to look for things without planting the stick. The currents can also change direction during the dive from swimming with it to swimming against it, giving up, and just going with it, all done by following the guide, of course. I didn’t experience it, but some divers described being in a washing machine-type current where it went up and down and sideways all at the same time. I’ve experienced down current in Cozumel but nothing like it was described on the day of the accident. If the current became a challenge, the guides would take us down behind the reef to duck out of it.

Something that I learned while I was there is that the currents become stronger and more unpredictable at the full moon, so I’ll keep that in mind when I schedule the next trip.

Water Temperature. Topside, it was hot and humid…no surprise for Indonesia. The water was warm at 81-86 F. One dive we were in a big thermocline of 73 F. I wore a 3-mil full wetsuit and I was too warm, but the microbial stuff in the water had me keep the wetsuit on for rash protection. Divers wore everything from board shorts and a rash guard to full wetsuit with a hood.

Visibility. The visibility was not great for most of the dives, but that means a lot of nutrients in the water, which means all the fish are eating all the time! I enjoyed watching the feeding behaviors of the critters. I would like to return in a month with better visibility even if the water is cooler. I wonder what month that would be (?)

Depths and Time. There was no limit on depth or time. You could go as deep as you wanted for as long as you wanted as long as you followed your computer and decompression diving is not allowed. Having said that, four dives a day was on the schedule, and the guides would stay with you for 60 minutes and could go up if they wanted and you could continue diving on your own. None of guides ever left their group even if it was a 62-65 minute dive. A few times, we were having so much fun, we had 70+ minute dives. One of the shallow night dives, I got in 85 minutes with plenty of air left.
 
Continued Trip Report

Trash.
There’s no proper garbage disposal on land, so that trash makes it into the ocean. All the diving except for one site was relatively light on trash. The one site we had trash was after a night dive. The boat was surrounded and it was disheartening. Under the layer of trash, with a flashlight you could see a layer of nighttime fish, squid, jellyfish, bait fish.

Photography. This was a photography-focused trip through Bluewater, so there was mention during the briefing as to what kind of lens you’d need for the type of marine life we’d see. I have an Olympus TG6 with a single strobe, so this information didn’t matter to me, but those with the big rigs needed to know so they could have the proper lens for shooting. On a couple of dives, the guides either forgot or didn’t pay attention to the needs of the photographers and on a wide angle dive, they were pointing out macro critters. When it was brought up, the guides were happy to listen to the feedback and adjust. Irrelevant of the fact that this was a photo trip, I think RA gets a fair number of photographers, so they will listen to what you want to see or photograph.

Bioluminescence. I’m like a kid in a candy store when it comes to this stuff, and it was thick and colorful during the trip, especially at the new moon. At night, you could use a flashlight and see it floating like a raft in the ocean. When the boat was coming back from the night dive, the waves were sparkling green.

Night Diving. This itinerary included daily night dives, but that was disrupted due to the accident, so we only got four night dives on the trip, one muck and three reef dives. I’ve never done a muck dive, so this was my first muck dive and it was at night. While it was nice to see what I saw, I wouldn’t have been able to see most of the stuff without the guide or another diver pointing it out. IMO, the super small critters are too much work to hunt for on a sandy bottom. It’s not for me, so I know when I plan the next trip, I’ll sit out the muck diving.

I like to swim away from the reef and look for larval critters, kind of my own version of blackwater diving. I take my torch and point a narrow beam straight out or straight up and watch for the stuff that’s attracted to the light. And, boy, was there some nice things to look at. Several larval squid, salp chain, and a bunch of other wiggly stuff that illuminates under the light.

The Critters and Coral. As a first-timer here and having most of my dive experience in the Caribbean, most of what I saw was new to me. Manta rays (reef and oceanic), wobbegong sharks, electric clam, juvenile electric clam, frogfish, peacock mantis shrimp, crocodile fish, white tip shark, schooling yellow-tail barracuda, humphead wrasse, goliath grouper, lots of nudibranchs, seahorses, pipe seahorses, flamboyant cuttlefish and other species of cuttlefish, crabs from super tiny and larger, giant clams, rainbow scorpionfish, leaf scorpionfish, broad-banded pipefish, blue-spotted stingray, bumphead parrotfish, purple lobster, giant cucumbers, black tip shark, flat worms and other worms, turtles, several species of eels, schooling sergeant majors and jacks, schooling fish that I couldn’t identify, crown of thorns, pygmy seahorses, basket stars, very few lionfish, octopus, various species of shrimp. Never have I ever seen such an abundance of virtually everything underwater!

The wide variety in colorful soft and hard corals was stunning! I think I said in a previous post that every shade, hue, contrast of every color in the rainbow can be found here. The spectrum of diversity is hard to put to words. The reefs are covered and overlapping in coral, and there’s so many layers to the coral that you can’t see the bottom of where it starts to grow.

What I Wanted to See But Didn’t. Blue ring octopus, walking shark, ribbon eel. I'm sure there's more. I just can't remember right now.

The Dive Sites Visited. Some of these were repeated from my stay at SBR.
Saonek
Lau Lau
Saporkren
Cape Kri
Sawadurek
Arborek Jetty
Mioskin
Blue Magic
2 Tree
Puri Pinnacle
Four Kings
Wedding Cake
Wacko Seamount
Nudi Rock
Boo Window
Magic Mountain
Candy Store
Andiamo

Trip Costs. The liveaboard portion of the trip as a solo traveler on the Damai was $9900. This was a one-time, bucket list trip, and although I’m retired, I’m not rich, so this was a big bite off the travel funds. I traveled in business class using miles and cash for a total of $1865 for the international portion and $572 for the domestic (Jakarta to Sorong) economy class portion. I used points and cash for my various hotel stays along the way, which was roughly $500.

Tipping. Their policy for tipping is similar to SBR. Personal money given to the staff is strictly prohibited and causes tension among the staff. You can, however, give giifts to a single person or as a group. I brought gifts and added some cash to it. They have a raffle of sorts for gifts that the guests leave. The owner of Damai gave us the rundown of the tipping procedure. He said all the money goes into a pool and it’s divided equally among everyone, including the office staff in Bali, but not the owners. IMO, the office staff is not on the boat having a face-to-face interaction with the guests. Anyone offsite from the boat shouldn’t be receiving a portion of my tip. As I said in my post about SBR, a poor performer gets the same share as an outstanding performer, and that’s just not fair. Also, to be fair, the staff on this boat were all top performers.

During the three days of the incident, there were no diving activities to tip on. The crew had retreated into their quarters except if they were called upon for questioning related to the incident. The rooms were not cleaned and serviced. We were given meals, but otherwise, the ship was absent of staff. Do you tip on that? (Rhetorical question.)

This number of 10% is thrown around a lot for liveaboard tipping, and that’s on the base fare only, not extras like fuel fees, port, harbor & marine park fees, Nitrox, courses, rental gear. Personally, I’m not going to tip on $9900. I’ve already paid the penalty for being single and that’s spread around the company to pay for the staff in Bali, the owners’ profit, the operational costs. I think a better formula is a per day guideline. We were a group of Americans that paid American pricing for a third-world country trip. Ten percent on American pricing in Indonesia is unbalanced. Just my opinion.

Is Damai Responsible for My Loss? The owner of Damai took the time to ask each guest in private about their experience, how it was handled, how are we doing mentally, and if Damai is responsible to give us compensation. In talking with the others, we all agreed Damai did nothing wrong. All safety protocols and briefings were done well. My comment to the owner was that, no, legally, they are not obligated to compensate me for the lost days, but my hope would be that a gesture of goodwill compensation would be fair.
 
Continued Trip Report

Financial Loss Due to the Accident. At a daily cost of $908 per day, I lost three days on this trip, $2724. Yes, I still had a bed and meals, but this was a diving trip and there was no diving for three days. Bluewater Travel has worked out a compensation package with Damai for all the guests, which doesn’t cover the full loss. I don’t think it’s important to mention the dollar amount. The important thing is Bluewater advocated for the group and got us something. We will be given a Bluewater Travel credit, so we are not tied to using the credit with Damai. I commend both companies for recognizing our trip interruption.

We all still had to pay the fuel surcharge of $250, even though we went nowhere for three days. That’s $3000 more that Damai took in. I disagree with fuel surcharges in principal anyway, and it’s a profit generator, but I think that should have been reduced. The cruise director waived the internet fee of $150 for everyone on the first day of being detained, which was day four of the trip. I think that is overpriced anyway and should be free for a high-end liveaboard like Damai.

Travel and Dive Insurance. If this isn’t a beacon for having travel AND dive insurance, I don’t know what is. I have both. I have DAN dive insurance, the Guardian plan, with the most coverage. I always buy a separate travel insurance policy that covers everything beyond diving specifically for the trip. I also have an annual travel insurance policy through Travel Guard that covers the basics for one annual price. In addition, I used credit cards for payments on the trip that include travel benefits.

I have a PDF copy in my computer of the travel insurance policy in case I need it during travel. I’ve never had to look at it during a trip until now. From what I can tell, there is no coverage for this, but I’m still going to make a claim anyway. Most trip interruption benefits have a long list of inclusions and exclusions, and since the deceased is not my traveling companion, my trip was not interrupted because of that. This gets into some dry insurance discussion, but I have my research to do when I get home to try and recoup some losses.

Keep in mind, insurance companies look to deny coverage first They don’t want to pay out on a claim. Getting documentation at the time of the event/loss is very important, especially if you’re not in the U.S. Insurance companies want proof and documents and more proof and more documents. And save every single receipt from the time of the loss.

Repatriation of Remains. This is a coverage item in travel insurance policies and I bring this to light because when the accident first happened, Steve’s emergency contact couldn’t be reached because the phone number on the pretrip form was not in service or out of date. Once the family was reached, the question was asked of how the body should come back to the U.S. Embalmed in a coffin or cremated remains? In addition to receiving this shocking news, they didn’t know what Steve wanted. Then there was talk back and forth with the Indonesian government and U.S. Consulate as to whether it was legal to transport a body from Indonesia. Somewhere along the way, they embalmed the body, then somebody wanted an autopsy, hen the family wanted cremation. It all became a mess and I don’t know how it ended. So the next time you take a trip, tell your loved ones how you want your body handled should something happen to you.

Final Thoughts. Putting aside the tragedy that struck this trip, I will be returning to Raja Ampat. The biodiversity in marine life and corals is unmatched to anything I've ever seen. What I would spend for three Caribbean trips I could probably go back for another month. Now that I've gone through the pains of the first-timer, like the ATM issues and other minor nuisances I've mentioned, I think the next time will go a lot smoother.

During this trip, I surpassed 500 dives! I know this was a long trip report and I hope there's some benefit to the readers out there. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. No trolls, please.

The End
 
Continued Trip Report

Why Raja Ampat.
I came here wanting and hoping to be amazed and wowed by the diving and it didn’t disappoint. I’ve exhausted my diving in the Caribbean and the reefs We had successful diving on November 27th & 28th, but on November 29th, there was a fatal accident at the beginning of the first dive of the day. I saw the news article in the Accidents and Injuries forum, but the article is not quite accurate. The diver’s name is correct, Steve, but the date of death is November 29th, not November 30th. He was found floating at the surface at approximately 8:30 a.m.
Thanks for taking the time to provide the objective facts on the accident and sorry that folks had to go though that experience - condolences to the family and friends of Steve: sounds like he was a nice guy and, as you said, at least died doing what he loved!

Thanks as well for the detailed trip report!
 
I know this is not the trip report you envisioned and wanted to write. But life hit hard. You did your best in writing it up. Be nice to yourself after this traumatic event. Thank you for sharing it.
 
Thanks for writing this very thorough trip report. I’m glad to hear that you are on your way home safe & sound.

RIP Steve. Condolences to his family & friends.

It’s a surprise to me to hear that they went out diving without you. This never happened to me in 30+ liveaboard diving, including 6 in Raja Ampat. The cruise director would check on the briefing board for people who plan to skip diving, count who wound be diving before starting the dive briefing. If someone is not present, he / she would ask one of the DMs to knock at the guest cabin door to make sure that the guest is not going to dive.
 
Thanks for writing this very thorough trip report. I’m glad to hear that you are on your way home safe & sound.

RIP Steve. Condolences to his family & friends.

It’s a surprise to me to hear that they went out diving without you. This never happened to me in 30+ liveaboard diving, including 6 in Raja Ampat. The cruise director would check on the briefing board for people who plan to skip diving, count who wound be diving before starting the dive briefing. If someone is not present, he / she would as one of the DMs to knock at the guest cabin door to make sure that the guest is not going to dive.
I was surprised, too, but I believe it was fortuitous that I didn't go because I don't know that I would have survived. I would have been in Steve's group. All the surviving divers thought they were going to die. It was THAT bad.
 
I was surprised, too, but I believe it was fortuitous that I didn't go because I don't know that I would have survived. I would have been in Steve's group. All the surviving divers thought they were going to die. It was THAT bad.
What dive site did the accident occur at? We encountered a few sites with quite strong, but manageable currents (reef hooked in) on my trip earlier this year.

However, one day many of the tenders passed on the planned site (Nudi Rock) as it was very obviously swirling/chaotic looking on the surface as we approached it. Instead, we hit an adjacent site and had a fantastic, more relaxed dive (amazing coral and life and had a manta swim by).

Those that did dive Nudi Rock that day questioned their decision back on the boat as they said it was a washing machine - up/down/left/right currents and very unpredictable - plus they did not see anything really special that made it worth the hassle.
 
Indonesia archipelago is like a filter which streams from Pacific Ocean to Indian Ocean passing through, hence lots of strong currents are expected, Indonesian Throughflow - Wikipedia. So you need to get your reef hook (mine has 2 clips on each end of coiled rope to minimize potential entanglement, as shown below) ready to deploy quickly whenever you dive in an area that is known to have strong (up, down & around) current.

For quick deployment of reef hook, before the dive, I clip the reef hook end of the coiled rope to my chest D-ring and the other end on to my waist D-ring. To deploy it, I just unclip the reef hook off the chest D-ring and hook it on crevice (of rock or dead hard-coral). The rope would automatically uncoil and hold me like a kite.

It saved me numerous times in Bali, Komodo, Maldives, Palau, and Raja Ampat.

IMG_2650.jpeg
 

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