Raja Ampat Liveaboard for a first timer

[judyo1]

• I'm just back from a 2 week trip on the Amira. I couldn't find a huge number of reviews when I booked this trip.... so I hope this contributes...
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• The trip schedule: 13 nights, departed Biak and arrived in Sorong. Diving Cenderawasih Bay with the highlight / purpose of the trip being the whale sharks at Kwatisore. Two and a half days of diving at Raja Ampat (Dampier Straight area) at the end and trip finished in Sorong. We lost one day of diving due to crap weather. I did all of the available 39 dives.
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• The boat: The Amira is HUGE! (I can't recall the measurements, but it's big!). Plenty of space, large rooms, outdoor and indoor dining area, sun deck, dive deck, camera room. She doesn't move quickly on the longer steams, her speed is 4-8 knots and 'ungainly' is a word that comes to mind! However, very pretty. The rooms all have aircon and ensuite bathrooms and the boat is well kept. Plenty of space of the dive deck. My only (slightly) negative comment was that my dive set up was in a poorly ventilated corner so my sharkskin never properly dried out... one night I hung my bikini out there and despite there being no rain, it didn't dry overnight. (plenty of other places to hang bikini but just gives an idea of poor ventilation). Room very nice, I booked as a single and had a room to myself. The double bed was 2 single mattresses pushed together so not comfortable in the middle. GIven I had booked as a single, I can't complain about this(!) but if I had booked a double not sure that I would be so impressed.
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• The diving: Cenderawasih Bay highlight was the whale sharks. They were awesome... ethereal diving. The rest of Cenderawasih Bay was average to good. The reason you are going there is the whale sharks, otherwise it would'nt be a dive destination. I enjoyed diving a plane wreck at Biak and world war 2 landing craft wrecks. Northern Raja Ampat was more crowded but as a taster to Raja Ampat was stunning, lots of mantas... I want to go back. Macro too... found a blue ringed octopus on one of the night dives One dive guide per 3-4 punters so good ratio. I thought 2 of the guides were very good, another very average... I'm not good at spotting macro so need to have things pointed out to me. (am still not sure how I managed to find the blue ringed octopus on my own... I did literally trip over it!).
• I dived in sharkskin (no wetsuit) and was fine. The water warm enough for only a shortie wetsuit but stingers in the water so would cover up with something. No gloves.
• Nitrox fills 30-32%, 195 Euro extra for the nitrox. I really wish liveaboards would just include nitrox in the price... but acknowledge most don't and what Amira did is perfectly standard.
• Safety: very thorough and professional. We all were provided with ENOS GPS thingies... there were 3 zodiacs.. never had to wait more than a few minutes to be picked up.
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• The food: top notch. Lots of fresh fruit and veges (impressive for such a lengthy trip with no restocking during the trip). Dietary needs catered for. The food was tasty with variety but not gourmet - just perfect. Lots of Indonesian foods / a definite local flavour and things I wouldn't have normally tried so full marks to the chef. There was a lot of seafood and Idon't eat seafood, there was still plenty for me to eat but think the top
• notch food would be even more top notch if you did eat the seafood too.
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• Booking: I booked through their website, Gabrielle handled all the details and was great, helpful and answered questions promptly. She booked my domestic Indonesian flights - went without a hitch.
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• The crew: There was a crew of about 20 for15 guests. They were professional and courteous. I would give them 4 1/2 star rather than 5... at times their service felt a bit perfunctory. I've been on amazing liveaboards recently
• in the Galapagos & Fiji and on those trips the crew seemed passionate about what they were doing and really keen for the divers to enjoy their country. I didn't get that vibe here. However, that may have well been due to cultural differences... the boat is Swiss German and most of the punters were German speaking. It just may not have been the German way of doing things...?? The other thing they did which frustrated me (again, may well have been cultural!) was during the Cenderwasih Bay part of the trip they kept saying the diving in Raja Ampat better. When we got to Northern Raja Ampat they said that diving better further south and too crowded in the northern parts... the diving was good and they didn't need to talk it down.
• Language: I went on the trip as a single English speaking woman. I was concerned about being on a German speaking boat and was reassured. The crew spoke ENglish. Most of the punters conversed in German (entirely
• reasonably since it was their first language and they were on holiday!). It just got a bit lonely at times and things were sometimes lost in translation.
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• Suggestion for improvement: freshly dried towels after each dive! That this is all I can suggest probably shows that overall the trip was very good! We hung our towels up near our dive gear after each dive... due to the area on the dive deck where my gear was... the towel often didn't dry properly. First world problems I know!
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• Overall: good trip, as promised. Saw the whale sharks and got my taste of Raja Ampat as desired.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Judyo1, thanks, very good report.

I doubt this will make you feel better but I've been on a boat that was almost exclusively German divers, though the crew was all local. There were no other divers aboard with English as first language. Meals were a lonely time for me too. Heehee but diving with them was great! Very organized, never intruded on anyone else's space, did things very orderly and though there was a rack for drying wetsuits, there was never any chaos because each one hung their suit on exactly the same hanger every time! I knew this to be rare as I'd been on the same boat before with different nationalities.

 

[judyo1]

Judyo1, thanks, very good report.

I doubt this will make you feel better but I've been on a boat that was almost exclusively German divers, though the crew was all local. There were no other divers aboard with English as first language. Meals were a lonely time for me too. Heehee but diving with them was great! Very organized, never intruded on anyone else's space, did things very orderly and though there was a rack for drying wetsuits, there was never any chaos because each one hung their suit on exactly the same hanger every time! I knew this to be rare as I'd been on the same boat before with different nationalities.

Cheers.

Maybe that is where I went wrong.. tried to hang my sharkskin somewhere else to get it dry... lesson learnt for next time(!)
The whole trip felt quite 'intense'...

And sorry, something went wrong with the formatting on my post - I'll blame jet lag & dubious internet connections.

 

[chillyinCanada]

I didn't notice any formatting problem.

 

[Wingy]

Lol ... language barriers. I spent two weeks diving Sulawesi with a bunch of very very old French guys...they said one word to me the whole time - "Kangaroo?"

Oui Monsieur Je suis un kangourou plonguee

 

[Dan]

& wear this T-shirt

 

[Wingy]

Haha Dan that's great - I take it the kangourou is only OW due to the 18m limit

 

[Dan]

Ssttt, don't tell the DM that he went to 32m that day.

 

[travelnurse777]

@judyo1 - thank you for the very detailed trip report!

 

[helarno]

@travelnurse777 Was on the Tambora in Jan and like Wingy, would highly recommend it. A couple of points addressing issues you raised:

1. A/C in each room, ensuite toilet/shower. Quite comfortable. Soundproofing in rooms is pretty decent as long as you don't get the double bed rooms (over the engines, so a bit noisy). Fellow divers in the regular rooms said that they couldn't hear the engine at all in those rooms. You won't hear the engine in the dining area or any of the sun areas.

2. Less hardcore - we had 2-3 OW divers with us on the trip and they were just fine. They divide the 14 guests into 4 groups of hopefully similar ability levels and the guides lead the groups accordingly. If the group isn't so experienced, they avoid the high current areas and dive the sheltered areas. If the group is decent, they can take you to the ripping currents for a great view. They rotated the guides every 2 days while I was there.

3. Land excursions, snorkeling and kayaking - there was land excursion during the 8 day trip we took, climbing up to a scenic point between dives. They also boated around a few really awesome lagoons after they picked us up from our dives, but didn't go on land since we were all still in wetsuits. No kayak on this boat I think (Waow had one) and while you are free to jump into the water anytime the boat is not underway, the boat usually anchors too deep to do much snorkeling. No one went snorkeling on our trip, probably because we were all busy diving

If you're lucky, they will have their satellite internet sorted by the time you get on the boat. They were testing a new provider and it was a bit spotty when I was there.

Was an awesome boat and I would definitely would go with them again given the chance!