xrcjdx
Contributor
The boat: The Duyung Baru is a moderately priced three cabin vessel, with a double bow cabin, and queen/king cabins on the starboard and port bow sides. Each cabin has thermostat controlled air con and private shower and head. There is also a "director's" cabin in the starboard bow, accessed by ladder, with a single berth and air con; if in use the occupant normally shares the crew's head. There are 3 crew including the captain, plus the owner's Yani and Vovo. Yani is the outstanding ship's chef (best food on a liveaboard EVER), and Vovo is an equally outstanding dive guide who knows Komodo Park like the back of his hand. The dining area and galley is amidship and separates the crew area from from the guests. The galley is large and meals are served at 2 slightly separated tables that comfortably seated the 6 of us plus Yani and Vovo. No one ever left the table hungry. The ship is spotless and well maintained.
How 6 guys pulled it off: We were 6 friends who chartered the Duyung Baru and sleeping arrangements were a bit tricky. We drew cards and one took the Director's cabin, 2 the bow cabin, one in a queen/king cabin, and 2 in the other queen/king cabin, sharing a bed. Luck of the draw, and we left it to the 2 sharing the same bed to figure out whether one of them would sleep on the spacious deck (weather was perfect) or not. We knew going in that we would have this issue, so it was neither a surprise nor unworkable, and it didn't present any difficulty.
Diving: I have prior experience on this boat so knew what i was getting into. Most importantly, Vovo restricts the dudes to those who have at least 100 logged dives, he's been know to ask for more (although if you charter the entire vessel he will work around it), though the more the better. Similarly, if you can't demonstrate competency getting your SMB on the surface you will check dive again and again until you can, so keep that in mind. We had one friend, J, with not quite 100 dives, and the next least experienced of the rest of us was an active diver pushing 400 dives. J buddied up tightly with me on most dives, or with Vovo, dove a big tank, and logged his 100th dive on board. The diving itself is from a tender. there are 3 dives available each day, and if we are anchored in a suitable place at night a night dive could be had. Nitrox was available, but due to the risk we would/could exceed our MOD with some regularity, seemed like a bad idea.
We had sharks - white tip, gray reef, black tip - schools of barracuda and jack, clouds of bait and colorful reef fish, eagle rays, and dozens of mantas. There was plenty of macro to work with if that's what you were after. But on this trip, the diving was not for the faint of heart - and we did not dive at slack tide except by accident. The main feature of Komodo, as far as we were concerned, was current. We got monster currents, and up and down blasts, and whirlpools on ascent and at safety stops. With the exception of what turned out to be 2 check dives and one single dive in Manta Alley, every dive was a negative entry regroup during descent. We dove once where the day boats were (Bato Bolong), and as the day divers from LBJ were moving back and forth in the lee looking into the blue we were dropping by them into the meat of the current to a deep pinnacle. We dove the Cauldron and Golden Passage a couple of times each, never at slack tide, and were mightily rewarded with playful mantas gracefully moving among and between us. As the mantas came at us we did our best to stay hooked into the current scoured bottom of the passages between 2 bays. If you are not familiar, these dives both connect bays between islands, and are frequently run at current - with, against, and across depending where you are at the time - until you pop out the other side.
Most of us had planes to catch the last day, but they were all in the later afternoon, so we took hours getting back to LBJ and stopped in the Park on the way to visit the dragons. We got back to port shortly before the first of us had to leave, so no rush there.
The bottom line: The purpose of this report is not so much to give you an idea of the diving in North Komodo, but to give some more experienced current junkies a heads up that there is a quality boat and operation out there you can sign onto to take advantage of some uniquely Komodo challenges.
How 6 guys pulled it off: We were 6 friends who chartered the Duyung Baru and sleeping arrangements were a bit tricky. We drew cards and one took the Director's cabin, 2 the bow cabin, one in a queen/king cabin, and 2 in the other queen/king cabin, sharing a bed. Luck of the draw, and we left it to the 2 sharing the same bed to figure out whether one of them would sleep on the spacious deck (weather was perfect) or not. We knew going in that we would have this issue, so it was neither a surprise nor unworkable, and it didn't present any difficulty.
Diving: I have prior experience on this boat so knew what i was getting into. Most importantly, Vovo restricts the dudes to those who have at least 100 logged dives, he's been know to ask for more (although if you charter the entire vessel he will work around it), though the more the better. Similarly, if you can't demonstrate competency getting your SMB on the surface you will check dive again and again until you can, so keep that in mind. We had one friend, J, with not quite 100 dives, and the next least experienced of the rest of us was an active diver pushing 400 dives. J buddied up tightly with me on most dives, or with Vovo, dove a big tank, and logged his 100th dive on board. The diving itself is from a tender. there are 3 dives available each day, and if we are anchored in a suitable place at night a night dive could be had. Nitrox was available, but due to the risk we would/could exceed our MOD with some regularity, seemed like a bad idea.
We had sharks - white tip, gray reef, black tip - schools of barracuda and jack, clouds of bait and colorful reef fish, eagle rays, and dozens of mantas. There was plenty of macro to work with if that's what you were after. But on this trip, the diving was not for the faint of heart - and we did not dive at slack tide except by accident. The main feature of Komodo, as far as we were concerned, was current. We got monster currents, and up and down blasts, and whirlpools on ascent and at safety stops. With the exception of what turned out to be 2 check dives and one single dive in Manta Alley, every dive was a negative entry regroup during descent. We dove once where the day boats were (Bato Bolong), and as the day divers from LBJ were moving back and forth in the lee looking into the blue we were dropping by them into the meat of the current to a deep pinnacle. We dove the Cauldron and Golden Passage a couple of times each, never at slack tide, and were mightily rewarded with playful mantas gracefully moving among and between us. As the mantas came at us we did our best to stay hooked into the current scoured bottom of the passages between 2 bays. If you are not familiar, these dives both connect bays between islands, and are frequently run at current - with, against, and across depending where you are at the time - until you pop out the other side.
Most of us had planes to catch the last day, but they were all in the later afternoon, so we took hours getting back to LBJ and stopped in the Park on the way to visit the dragons. We got back to port shortly before the first of us had to leave, so no rush there.
The bottom line: The purpose of this report is not so much to give you an idea of the diving in North Komodo, but to give some more experienced current junkies a heads up that there is a quality boat and operation out there you can sign onto to take advantage of some uniquely Komodo challenges.
