Hi, What is NAD? I am not much for Muck diving. I am looking for clear water with nice reefs and sea life. Have you heard much about Papua Paradise Eco Resort? I've done a few live aboards but they seem crowded. Looking for a great land based resort with access to amazing diving in Jan or Feb. Thanks D
@av8torx
Others will recommend various landbased resorts in Raja Ampat. I wanted to address the liveaboard vs. land based diving...
In Raja Ampat specifically, land based diving is never crowded (it's a large area, with relatively few operators), and you do get to dive some of the best dive sites that are local to that dive operation. However, diving from liveaboards is also not "crowded" - event with 12-18 divers they are not dropping this number of people all at the same time, on the same site. Most liveaboard operations dive with 2-3 groups, alternating dive time by 5-10 minutes, and occasionally splitting dives between different sites. On a liveaboard in Raja Ampat you rarely see more than just your group underwater.
So from a comparison stand point, specifically in Raja Ampat, both land based and liveaboard diving is as crowded (or not as crowded) as the other. There is virtually no difference...
However if you switch to the advantages of liveaboard diving (specifically in Raja Ampat) there is a difference (vs. land based). There are a number of absolutely world class dive sites throughout Raja Ampat, however these are not located close together (two simple examples: Cape Kri and Boo Windows). These dive sites are both amazing, both represent some of the best diving that can be done, however they are hours apart by boat. To dive both sites (or the surrounding areas) you either have to change resorts (transit of several hours, potentially back through Sorong), or choose to dive the region by liveaboard.
Having dived the region both by liveaboard and land-based, the differences are fairly clear. A liveaboard will give you a much better overview of the diving in the region, including the opportunity to dive a number of these great sites. Conversely, Land-based diving lets you focus on a much smaller region (without access to more of these great sites that are not local). As an example, We chose to stay near Cape Kri so that we could dive it ~5 times over a 10 day stay, because it's that great a dive site, and is different based current, tide, moon phase, etc. A liveaboard would never enable the opportunity to do that.
There is also usually a cost delta (liveaboard diving will be more expensive), can be more comfortable depending on the boat (unless you really don't like boats), and liveaboards tend to attract more serious divers (very few people choose to spend a week+ on a dive boat unless they are there to dive). Liveaboards have one other significant advantage - liveaboards can/will alter their dive schedules to put divers on the best sites at the best times (current, tide, etc.), including often getting divers to sites before land based operations can (due to distance from resorts.). For some locations (like Komodo, and a few sites in Raja Ampat) this is a *huge* advantage. It can be the difference of diving a site at its very best vs. just whenever a land-based operator can get you there.
