billt4sf
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Trip Report – Crossing Trip
Mermaid I, 04 – 20 Dec 2016
If you are looking for a trip report with lots of great pics and a detailed accounting of dive sites, you will find this report woefully inadequate. If you are looking for a trip report that gives a general sense of the experience of such a trip on this particular boat, I hope you will find this helpful.
The Boat & Accommodations
This was my second trip on Mermaid and I enjoyed it even more the second time. The staff is so committed to helping you enjoy yourself, anything you need, just ask – if they haven’t done it already for you. With few exceptions, they are really great. I went on this trip solo, but I plan to go back with my wife in February.
Having reached a certain age, with an uncertain back & hip, the most important thing for me was never to carry the gear and have easy ins and outs from boats. CHECK! I have a BP/W with integrated weights and a large tank – no problem. The staff carried my tank to and from the dinghy every time, and the boatmen helped me put it on (harder than a jacket BC). Credit the crew!
Dive deck fully adequate – almost never crowded. Showers on the dive deck – I never used my cabin shower – so a clean water shower after every dive is no problem.
Nice aircon restaurant area and (non-aircon) lounge areas, sun deck up top (though too hot for me).
I had a budget cabin which I was to share with an “unknown female” roommate. In the event, one couple did not get through Indo immigration (don’t know why) and I had one of the two budget cabins to myself – which was fantastic. Still, being 6’5” (195cm) I had to duck a fair amount of the time. I could not stand fully upright in my budget bathroom, nor in certain places in the restaurant, and also moving between decks.
Aircon in the rooms was good, although there were times when I felt hot, but it seemed to cool off reasonably rapidly. I found that if I left wet or damp clothing in the room, it got too humid, so I clipped my bathing suit on the deck rails to dry (as recommended).
Best thing on the boat – sunsets on the bench outside the wheelhouse. Enjoyed that many evenings!
The Diving
We traveled ?? nautical miles from Maumere in Flores to Sorong in West Papua. So that’s through the Banda Sea and then through part of Raja Ampat. There were noticeable differences between the two areas: In Banda Sea we never saw other boats except locals selling stuff and at of course at Banda Neira; in RA plenty of other boats and sometimes we couldn’t dive certain sites in Misool (the resort controls access). In Banda Sea we had mostly walls, in the Ceram Sea mostly sloping reefs (I wonder why). In Banda Sea, no trash in the water once we left Flores and Alor, except at Banda Neira, in RA trash every day (but not a lot). More current to deal with in RA, sometimes strong, but never washing-machine. Negative entries were sometimes necessary in RA.
My computer said temps were 28 – 30C. Viz was mostly fine, sometimes excellent, and several times milky (like maybe 8m at the minimum?) which was in Misool and in Flores. As a result the dives were fine, but never “epic”, you might say. I did 40 dives in 14 diving days, most people did more. 49 was the max.
There were also noticeable differences in marine life but I would be very hard-pressed to give details, except that we found hammerheads in the Banda Sea and Wobbegongs in the Ceram Sea. I personally saw three Wobbegongs and one hammerhead, and around 6 back or white tips. Others saw more, some said many more (remember my dives were shorter than others’). We also saw mantas a few times, including oceanic mantas. The snake dives were cool, many schooling fish – I call it “rivers of fish” in that there were very often multiple schools going different ways. We saw a couple whales and a couple pods of dolphins from the surface, and of course plenty of great coral, barrel sponges, anemones with clownfish – so many great dives.
The DMs seemed to know the dive sites very well, and much to my relief I never felt the least bit of risk of being picked-up (even when I surfaced solo) – credit the crew. I carried an SMB and whistle (which, of course, everyone should have on every dive), a DiveAlert, and a Nautilus Lifeline.
I think the trip would not be appropriate for a beginning diver but should be fine for anyone with, say, 50 dives, and also fine for others who may be “naturals”. I may be more conservative than most about this. Typical depths were 30m (100 ft), and mostly light or moderate current – a few dives had strong current, though nothing that we could not swim against, however slowly, if need be.
Personal Issues
Now to my personal issues for diving. Before the trip I was a bit nervous about currents, not least because I use air faster than others and I was pretty sure I would be coming up alone sometimes – which I was on every dive. But no worries – no dive site was beyond my skill level, and I did get to practice a few things that I was not used to, like solo blue water safety stops and a couple ascents in current from 10m. I’m definitely going to get a pony tank!
The first group & DM I was assigned to didn’t work for me. I found that the DM didn’t communicate with me sufficiently (either above or below the water) to make me feel comfortable with my high air consumption and need to ascend before others. It doesn’t take much, but I need to have the person be aware where I am and when I leave the group for the boat. I need to have them give clear handsignals, not some wavy gestures. I need a clear response (check “OK”) when I put thumb up. I need the DM to establish a depth after descent and a clear path slowly up from that point so I know where to go for my safety stop.
Every trip will have someone with issues with their DM -- what matters most is what they do after the problems are identified. The Course Director changed my group and my DM and after that, all was well – VERY well. I enjoyed it immensely. Those left in my previous group stated they were happy with the DM that I disliked, and they continued to dive with him. So all that, as I see it, is nothing but a credit to those involved.
My new DM did those things I discussed above, and beyond that he made diving with him FUN! We had SUCH a great time!! We became the “Dream Team” ha ha ha !! You can’t get better than that. Credit the crew.
One of the last dives we did was Cape Kri - on which I had an awful time last year (see my post in Lessons Learned). This time there was NO current and it was a piece of cake. I was glad to do this site over again after such a horrifying experience a year ago.
The Food
Indo food = boring in my book, so I was happy with the Western style food on Mermaid. There were some Thai noodles, etc. but most was chicken and fish at every meal, sometimes beef, always a vegetable dish, bacon and eggs for breakfast. It’s not fine dining, but it’s very good. With five meals a day, I had a hard time not gaining weight!
I think if I were a vegetarian I would have been pretty damn bored with the food though.
Summary
Sixteen days is a long time on a boat. Mermaid does it well. I can’t say enough things about the crew! We’ll be back in February.
Mermaid I, 04 – 20 Dec 2016
If you are looking for a trip report with lots of great pics and a detailed accounting of dive sites, you will find this report woefully inadequate. If you are looking for a trip report that gives a general sense of the experience of such a trip on this particular boat, I hope you will find this helpful.
The Boat & Accommodations
This was my second trip on Mermaid and I enjoyed it even more the second time. The staff is so committed to helping you enjoy yourself, anything you need, just ask – if they haven’t done it already for you. With few exceptions, they are really great. I went on this trip solo, but I plan to go back with my wife in February.
Having reached a certain age, with an uncertain back & hip, the most important thing for me was never to carry the gear and have easy ins and outs from boats. CHECK! I have a BP/W with integrated weights and a large tank – no problem. The staff carried my tank to and from the dinghy every time, and the boatmen helped me put it on (harder than a jacket BC). Credit the crew!
Dive deck fully adequate – almost never crowded. Showers on the dive deck – I never used my cabin shower – so a clean water shower after every dive is no problem.
Nice aircon restaurant area and (non-aircon) lounge areas, sun deck up top (though too hot for me).
I had a budget cabin which I was to share with an “unknown female” roommate. In the event, one couple did not get through Indo immigration (don’t know why) and I had one of the two budget cabins to myself – which was fantastic. Still, being 6’5” (195cm) I had to duck a fair amount of the time. I could not stand fully upright in my budget bathroom, nor in certain places in the restaurant, and also moving between decks.
Aircon in the rooms was good, although there were times when I felt hot, but it seemed to cool off reasonably rapidly. I found that if I left wet or damp clothing in the room, it got too humid, so I clipped my bathing suit on the deck rails to dry (as recommended).
Best thing on the boat – sunsets on the bench outside the wheelhouse. Enjoyed that many evenings!
The Diving
We traveled ?? nautical miles from Maumere in Flores to Sorong in West Papua. So that’s through the Banda Sea and then through part of Raja Ampat. There were noticeable differences between the two areas: In Banda Sea we never saw other boats except locals selling stuff and at of course at Banda Neira; in RA plenty of other boats and sometimes we couldn’t dive certain sites in Misool (the resort controls access). In Banda Sea we had mostly walls, in the Ceram Sea mostly sloping reefs (I wonder why). In Banda Sea, no trash in the water once we left Flores and Alor, except at Banda Neira, in RA trash every day (but not a lot). More current to deal with in RA, sometimes strong, but never washing-machine. Negative entries were sometimes necessary in RA.
My computer said temps were 28 – 30C. Viz was mostly fine, sometimes excellent, and several times milky (like maybe 8m at the minimum?) which was in Misool and in Flores. As a result the dives were fine, but never “epic”, you might say. I did 40 dives in 14 diving days, most people did more. 49 was the max.
There were also noticeable differences in marine life but I would be very hard-pressed to give details, except that we found hammerheads in the Banda Sea and Wobbegongs in the Ceram Sea. I personally saw three Wobbegongs and one hammerhead, and around 6 back or white tips. Others saw more, some said many more (remember my dives were shorter than others’). We also saw mantas a few times, including oceanic mantas. The snake dives were cool, many schooling fish – I call it “rivers of fish” in that there were very often multiple schools going different ways. We saw a couple whales and a couple pods of dolphins from the surface, and of course plenty of great coral, barrel sponges, anemones with clownfish – so many great dives.
The DMs seemed to know the dive sites very well, and much to my relief I never felt the least bit of risk of being picked-up (even when I surfaced solo) – credit the crew. I carried an SMB and whistle (which, of course, everyone should have on every dive), a DiveAlert, and a Nautilus Lifeline.
I think the trip would not be appropriate for a beginning diver but should be fine for anyone with, say, 50 dives, and also fine for others who may be “naturals”. I may be more conservative than most about this. Typical depths were 30m (100 ft), and mostly light or moderate current – a few dives had strong current, though nothing that we could not swim against, however slowly, if need be.
Personal Issues
Now to my personal issues for diving. Before the trip I was a bit nervous about currents, not least because I use air faster than others and I was pretty sure I would be coming up alone sometimes – which I was on every dive. But no worries – no dive site was beyond my skill level, and I did get to practice a few things that I was not used to, like solo blue water safety stops and a couple ascents in current from 10m. I’m definitely going to get a pony tank!
The first group & DM I was assigned to didn’t work for me. I found that the DM didn’t communicate with me sufficiently (either above or below the water) to make me feel comfortable with my high air consumption and need to ascend before others. It doesn’t take much, but I need to have the person be aware where I am and when I leave the group for the boat. I need to have them give clear handsignals, not some wavy gestures. I need a clear response (check “OK”) when I put thumb up. I need the DM to establish a depth after descent and a clear path slowly up from that point so I know where to go for my safety stop.
Every trip will have someone with issues with their DM -- what matters most is what they do after the problems are identified. The Course Director changed my group and my DM and after that, all was well – VERY well. I enjoyed it immensely. Those left in my previous group stated they were happy with the DM that I disliked, and they continued to dive with him. So all that, as I see it, is nothing but a credit to those involved.
My new DM did those things I discussed above, and beyond that he made diving with him FUN! We had SUCH a great time!! We became the “Dream Team” ha ha ha !! You can’t get better than that. Credit the crew.
One of the last dives we did was Cape Kri - on which I had an awful time last year (see my post in Lessons Learned). This time there was NO current and it was a piece of cake. I was glad to do this site over again after such a horrifying experience a year ago.
The Food
Indo food = boring in my book, so I was happy with the Western style food on Mermaid. There were some Thai noodles, etc. but most was chicken and fish at every meal, sometimes beef, always a vegetable dish, bacon and eggs for breakfast. It’s not fine dining, but it’s very good. With five meals a day, I had a hard time not gaining weight!
I think if I were a vegetarian I would have been pretty damn bored with the food though.
Summary
Sixteen days is a long time on a boat. Mermaid does it well. I can’t say enough things about the crew! We’ll be back in February.
