Please note that due to its length, this trip report is split into two parts. This is part I; part II can be accessed via the following link:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/in...eport-raja-ampat-paradise-dancer-part-ii.html
Reflections on Raja Ampat and the Paradise Dancer
The following is a report from a trip that I took on the Peter Hughes Paradise Dancer on 6-17 March 2010. A few pictures of the boat and underwater sightings are forthcoming. Regarding the underwater photos, I should note that I have always been interested in underwater photography but had never actually taken the plunge for fear of being “trapped” behind a camera and no longer being able to enjoy the dive as I would be so focused on photo composition, etc. Well, towards the end of the trip, one of the other divers got a bit sick and let me use her camera…I am afraid that I am now hooked and have a couple of marginally acceptable photos to include.
To add a bit of context to my comments below, I should say that this is my first trip to Raja Ampat, but that I have dived fairly extensively in other parts of Indonesia and throughout Asia.
Getting There
The jumping off point for almost any Raja Ampat trip is Sorong, Indonesia…not the world’s easiest place to get to. I was in Singapore on business, so it was best for me to fly Silk Air from Singapore to Manado where I overnighted at the very comfortable Swiss-Belhotel Maleosan Manado. The hotel is only a couple of years old and given the rate of USD44.50, it is a far better deal than hotels that most tour operators (including Peter Hughes) will recommend. A taxi from the airport to a hotel in downtown Manado should cost no more than IDR80,000 (USD1 is approximately IDR9,000).
From Manado I took Express Air the next morning to Sorong. The flight departs at 06:15AM requiring a 4:30AM departure from the hotel (honestly, there is no need to depart from the hotel any earlier). On this flight, Express Air uses a turbo-prop, so the weight limit is only 10KG; every kg over that incurs a IDR34,000 fee, payable in cash. As an aside, other airlines, using other types of aircraft, have different weight limits. Anyway, my flight departed on time and it was a beautiful flight over to Sorong.
Arrival in Sorong
Upon arrival in Sorong at 8:55AM (including a one hour time change – ie approximately a 1¾ hour flight), I was met by a representative of Peter Hughes and escorted to a hotel to relax for a couple of hours before I could board the boat. I made use of the internet and walked around town for a bit and then at about 12:00PM I was collected at the hotel, along with a few other guests and we were taken to the boat.
Background on the Paradise Dancer and the Trip
By late afternoon, all of the guests had arrived on board the Paradise Dancer and we were ready to depart for the northern area of Raja Ampat. Although the boat takes 18 guests, I was lucky in that we were only 12 on this particular trip. We had a nice mix of nationalities, including Australian, Chinese, German, Japanese, and me, an American living in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, my dive buddy and good friend got sick prior to the trip and had to cancel at the last minute. The only positive side of this was that I got a room all to myself.
Construction of the Paradise Dancer – a three-masted wooden schooner – began in early 2007 in Kalimantan (Indonesian, Borneo) and it was completed about 16 months later in Bali where the engineering, final woodworking and interior fitting was carried out. The boat has been operating for almost two years now and is as beautiful as the pictures suggest. At 57 meters long, there is more than enough space to move about and relax, even if the boat were full (I understand that it is the largest dive boat in the Raja Ampat area).
There are eight staterooms on the lower deck and one master suite on the main deck. All of the staterooms can be configured with either twin or a double bed and are very generous in size. I was in cabin 4 which, along with cabins 5, 6 and 7, are amid-ship. I specifically asked for this cabin as it would be more stable if the seas were choppy and would be further from sources of noise (engine room at the stern and anchor in the bow). The master suite is at the stern of the boat and is huge (nobody on my trip had booked this room, so I was able to take a peek). Being at the stern, it has an entire row of windows from which you can admire the ocean and passing islands. Better yet, you can enjoy the view from a very attractive looking bathtub. One concern that I might have about the master suite is that it sits on top of the engines and seems a bit noisy; apart from that, it should be sheer luxury.
The boat has a crew of 18, including three dive guides. All are Indonesian with the exception of Wendy who oversees the dive operations. Although not all of the staff speak English, they are without exception exceedingly friendly and those that are required to interact with the guests speak English very well.
Diving Operations
All of the diving is done from two very well designed fiberglass tenders, with each diver being assigned to a specific tender for the duration of the trip. Your equipment is loaded onto the tender in the morning and remains there until the end of the day when the staff bring it back on board the main ship. After you have completed a dive and return to the main ship, all you need to do is take your mask and computer on board (the staff will bring your camera onto the mother boat), while everything else stays in place.
Entry into the water is via a back-roll. When the dive is completed, you remove your weights, BCD and fins in the water and pass them to the dive staff in the tender. They hoist your equipment on to the tender and you climb on board via a ladder. Once you are back on the tender you are offered a glass of water.
The journey from the mother ship to the dive sites in the tenders was never more than 15 minutes and is usually only 5 or 10 minutes. Upon return to the Paradise Dancer after the dive, there are showers on the main deck, two large rinse tanks (one for cameras, computers and torches, and the other for everything else) and, perhaps best of all, you are given a warm towels and a five minute neck and back massage by one of the two masseuses.
In my opinion, the entire dive process – ie use of the tenders, handling of equipment, etc – worked very well.
Diving in General on the Paradise Dancer
A typical dive day consists of four dives, including a night dive. The first dive is at about 7:15AM and is followed by breakfast and then a second dive at about 10:30AM. The afternoon dive is usually at 2:30PM and the night dive at 6:15PM, followed by dinner. On two days however; there were only three dives because we were moving from the northern part of Raja Ampat to the south, a 14 hour steam, and then on the day when we repositioned from the south back closer to Sorong for the final day of diving. On the final day of diving, there were only two dives before lunch…but they were great dives.
On most days, although certainly not all, the Paradise Dancer stays moored in one location and we visit different dive sites from the tenders. This never presentated a problem as there are plenty of dives sites to choose from and they are uniformly good to excellent.
As mentioned earlier, there are three dive guides. Wendy leads the dive guide team and I had asked to have her as my guide because I know how good she is from when I dove with her at Wakatobi in 2006. The other two guides, Yan and Acho are equally as good at spotting critters, so you really can’t go wrong with any of them.
Dive briefings are done on the main boat and are sufficiently thorough. While the briefings are being delivered, one of the crew offers you a glass of water so that you are properly hydrated for the dive. Related to the briefings, I found Burt Jones and Maureen Shimlock’s new (October 2009) book entitled “Diving Indonesia’s Raja Ampat”, to be a good resource for the region as a whole and the dive sites in particular.
Probably my most significant negative comment about the Paradise Dancer and the diving (note that there aren’t very many negative things to say about the Paradise Dancer) concerns the number of dive guides…they really need a fourth guide on board and I could even make a case for a fifth. Why? Well, with two tenders and a full boat of 18 guests, that means nine guests per tender. If there are only three guides, in one of the tenders one guide will be responsible for nine divers and in the other tender there could be two guides for nine divers. In reality, the situation is not even this good because the guides typically only dive three dives per day. So that means that on most dives one guide is sitting out, leaving one guide per tender and as I said, for a full boat of 18 guests, this means nine divers per tender. In my opinion, for a boat of this quality and price, the guide to diver ratio should be no more than five-to-one, not nine-to-one as is potentially the case now (especially when most of the diving is macro oriented). If there were five guides, it would give one of them a chance not to dive and instead deal with the myriad of other things that need attention to keep the operation running smoothly, while the other four guides led the 18 guests on the dive at a ratio of 1 guide to 4.5 divers.
In my case, since we were only 12 guests on board and all of us were fairly experienced divers, things worked out ok; but I can imagine that with any more guests or inexperienced divers, the demands on the dive guides would be too much and as a result the diving experience for some people would suffer. To illustrate the importance of this point, another boat of similar quality, the Arenui, uses four dive guides for 16 guests.
Interestingly, I spoke to the three guides on the Paradise Dancer about my thoughts on this issue and they all agreed with me that an additional guide is needed.
Coming back to the dive tenders, with a full boat, there would be nine divers in each tender and hopefully two guides, plus two boat boys. This could make the tenders – in my opinion – a bit crowed.
Nitrox is generally available on the Paradise Dancer for a fee, but for my trip and at least the one immediately prior, there was a mechanical problem that did not allow it to be offered.
Given the type of diving you will experience in Raja Ampat, two pieces of dive equipment will come in handy on your trip. The first is a “dive pointer” that helps with balancing and stability while you are looking at the small animals (rather than putting your hand on the reef). The second item is a magnifying glass. I highly suggest getting one with a glass lens with as powerful magnification as you find. I carry one in my BCD pocket all of the time and was constantly letting others use it on this trip (there are some magnifying glasses on the boat, but the plastic lenses render them basically useless).
Please see part II of this trip report for specifics on the diving, fining, and the conclusion of the trip.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/in...eport-raja-ampat-paradise-dancer-part-ii.html
Reflections on Raja Ampat and the Paradise Dancer
The following is a report from a trip that I took on the Peter Hughes Paradise Dancer on 6-17 March 2010. A few pictures of the boat and underwater sightings are forthcoming. Regarding the underwater photos, I should note that I have always been interested in underwater photography but had never actually taken the plunge for fear of being “trapped” behind a camera and no longer being able to enjoy the dive as I would be so focused on photo composition, etc. Well, towards the end of the trip, one of the other divers got a bit sick and let me use her camera…I am afraid that I am now hooked and have a couple of marginally acceptable photos to include.
To add a bit of context to my comments below, I should say that this is my first trip to Raja Ampat, but that I have dived fairly extensively in other parts of Indonesia and throughout Asia.
Getting There
The jumping off point for almost any Raja Ampat trip is Sorong, Indonesia…not the world’s easiest place to get to. I was in Singapore on business, so it was best for me to fly Silk Air from Singapore to Manado where I overnighted at the very comfortable Swiss-Belhotel Maleosan Manado. The hotel is only a couple of years old and given the rate of USD44.50, it is a far better deal than hotels that most tour operators (including Peter Hughes) will recommend. A taxi from the airport to a hotel in downtown Manado should cost no more than IDR80,000 (USD1 is approximately IDR9,000).
From Manado I took Express Air the next morning to Sorong. The flight departs at 06:15AM requiring a 4:30AM departure from the hotel (honestly, there is no need to depart from the hotel any earlier). On this flight, Express Air uses a turbo-prop, so the weight limit is only 10KG; every kg over that incurs a IDR34,000 fee, payable in cash. As an aside, other airlines, using other types of aircraft, have different weight limits. Anyway, my flight departed on time and it was a beautiful flight over to Sorong.
Arrival in Sorong
Upon arrival in Sorong at 8:55AM (including a one hour time change – ie approximately a 1¾ hour flight), I was met by a representative of Peter Hughes and escorted to a hotel to relax for a couple of hours before I could board the boat. I made use of the internet and walked around town for a bit and then at about 12:00PM I was collected at the hotel, along with a few other guests and we were taken to the boat.
Background on the Paradise Dancer and the Trip
By late afternoon, all of the guests had arrived on board the Paradise Dancer and we were ready to depart for the northern area of Raja Ampat. Although the boat takes 18 guests, I was lucky in that we were only 12 on this particular trip. We had a nice mix of nationalities, including Australian, Chinese, German, Japanese, and me, an American living in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, my dive buddy and good friend got sick prior to the trip and had to cancel at the last minute. The only positive side of this was that I got a room all to myself.
Construction of the Paradise Dancer – a three-masted wooden schooner – began in early 2007 in Kalimantan (Indonesian, Borneo) and it was completed about 16 months later in Bali where the engineering, final woodworking and interior fitting was carried out. The boat has been operating for almost two years now and is as beautiful as the pictures suggest. At 57 meters long, there is more than enough space to move about and relax, even if the boat were full (I understand that it is the largest dive boat in the Raja Ampat area).
There are eight staterooms on the lower deck and one master suite on the main deck. All of the staterooms can be configured with either twin or a double bed and are very generous in size. I was in cabin 4 which, along with cabins 5, 6 and 7, are amid-ship. I specifically asked for this cabin as it would be more stable if the seas were choppy and would be further from sources of noise (engine room at the stern and anchor in the bow). The master suite is at the stern of the boat and is huge (nobody on my trip had booked this room, so I was able to take a peek). Being at the stern, it has an entire row of windows from which you can admire the ocean and passing islands. Better yet, you can enjoy the view from a very attractive looking bathtub. One concern that I might have about the master suite is that it sits on top of the engines and seems a bit noisy; apart from that, it should be sheer luxury.
The boat has a crew of 18, including three dive guides. All are Indonesian with the exception of Wendy who oversees the dive operations. Although not all of the staff speak English, they are without exception exceedingly friendly and those that are required to interact with the guests speak English very well.
Diving Operations
All of the diving is done from two very well designed fiberglass tenders, with each diver being assigned to a specific tender for the duration of the trip. Your equipment is loaded onto the tender in the morning and remains there until the end of the day when the staff bring it back on board the main ship. After you have completed a dive and return to the main ship, all you need to do is take your mask and computer on board (the staff will bring your camera onto the mother boat), while everything else stays in place.
Entry into the water is via a back-roll. When the dive is completed, you remove your weights, BCD and fins in the water and pass them to the dive staff in the tender. They hoist your equipment on to the tender and you climb on board via a ladder. Once you are back on the tender you are offered a glass of water.
The journey from the mother ship to the dive sites in the tenders was never more than 15 minutes and is usually only 5 or 10 minutes. Upon return to the Paradise Dancer after the dive, there are showers on the main deck, two large rinse tanks (one for cameras, computers and torches, and the other for everything else) and, perhaps best of all, you are given a warm towels and a five minute neck and back massage by one of the two masseuses.
In my opinion, the entire dive process – ie use of the tenders, handling of equipment, etc – worked very well.
Diving in General on the Paradise Dancer
A typical dive day consists of four dives, including a night dive. The first dive is at about 7:15AM and is followed by breakfast and then a second dive at about 10:30AM. The afternoon dive is usually at 2:30PM and the night dive at 6:15PM, followed by dinner. On two days however; there were only three dives because we were moving from the northern part of Raja Ampat to the south, a 14 hour steam, and then on the day when we repositioned from the south back closer to Sorong for the final day of diving. On the final day of diving, there were only two dives before lunch…but they were great dives.
On most days, although certainly not all, the Paradise Dancer stays moored in one location and we visit different dive sites from the tenders. This never presentated a problem as there are plenty of dives sites to choose from and they are uniformly good to excellent.
As mentioned earlier, there are three dive guides. Wendy leads the dive guide team and I had asked to have her as my guide because I know how good she is from when I dove with her at Wakatobi in 2006. The other two guides, Yan and Acho are equally as good at spotting critters, so you really can’t go wrong with any of them.
Dive briefings are done on the main boat and are sufficiently thorough. While the briefings are being delivered, one of the crew offers you a glass of water so that you are properly hydrated for the dive. Related to the briefings, I found Burt Jones and Maureen Shimlock’s new (October 2009) book entitled “Diving Indonesia’s Raja Ampat”, to be a good resource for the region as a whole and the dive sites in particular.
Probably my most significant negative comment about the Paradise Dancer and the diving (note that there aren’t very many negative things to say about the Paradise Dancer) concerns the number of dive guides…they really need a fourth guide on board and I could even make a case for a fifth. Why? Well, with two tenders and a full boat of 18 guests, that means nine guests per tender. If there are only three guides, in one of the tenders one guide will be responsible for nine divers and in the other tender there could be two guides for nine divers. In reality, the situation is not even this good because the guides typically only dive three dives per day. So that means that on most dives one guide is sitting out, leaving one guide per tender and as I said, for a full boat of 18 guests, this means nine divers per tender. In my opinion, for a boat of this quality and price, the guide to diver ratio should be no more than five-to-one, not nine-to-one as is potentially the case now (especially when most of the diving is macro oriented). If there were five guides, it would give one of them a chance not to dive and instead deal with the myriad of other things that need attention to keep the operation running smoothly, while the other four guides led the 18 guests on the dive at a ratio of 1 guide to 4.5 divers.
In my case, since we were only 12 guests on board and all of us were fairly experienced divers, things worked out ok; but I can imagine that with any more guests or inexperienced divers, the demands on the dive guides would be too much and as a result the diving experience for some people would suffer. To illustrate the importance of this point, another boat of similar quality, the Arenui, uses four dive guides for 16 guests.
Interestingly, I spoke to the three guides on the Paradise Dancer about my thoughts on this issue and they all agreed with me that an additional guide is needed.
Coming back to the dive tenders, with a full boat, there would be nine divers in each tender and hopefully two guides, plus two boat boys. This could make the tenders – in my opinion – a bit crowed.
Nitrox is generally available on the Paradise Dancer for a fee, but for my trip and at least the one immediately prior, there was a mechanical problem that did not allow it to be offered.
Given the type of diving you will experience in Raja Ampat, two pieces of dive equipment will come in handy on your trip. The first is a “dive pointer” that helps with balancing and stability while you are looking at the small animals (rather than putting your hand on the reef). The second item is a magnifying glass. I highly suggest getting one with a glass lens with as powerful magnification as you find. I carry one in my BCD pocket all of the time and was constantly letting others use it on this trip (there are some magnifying glasses on the boat, but the plastic lenses render them basically useless).
Please see part II of this trip report for specifics on the diving, fining, and the conclusion of the trip.
