My husband and I were on the WAOW boat in Raja Ampat from January 5-16, 2013. This was our eighth liveaboard trip; our third in Indonesia. Unfortunately, I have to say this was not our favorite spot.
We had heard that Raja Ampat has great marine life diversity. Im sure it must, but we didnt see it. Pretty corals and pretty reef fish, but just the same ones over and over again. We saw few in many cases none of many of the critters we typically do in Asia: frogfish, leaf scorpionfish, blue ribbon eels, ghost pipefish, cuttlefish, turtles, blue spotted rays, etc, etc. Even scorpionfish, lionfish, and moray eels were in surprisingly short supply. We had expected to see all the usual cast of characters plus more, and in this regard we were quite disappointed.
What we did get: 1-2 manta rays on four of the dives, wobbegong sharks on a handful of dives, some reef sharks, a few nice bumphead parrotfish (but no large schools like in Sipadan), and some modest schools of barracuda, jacks, snapper, sweetlips, etc. Some of the largest puffers we've ever seen. Big schools of small reef fish like silversides and juvenile catfish. And, as I said, plenty of pretty corals and reef fish, including anemonefish, butterflyfish, angelfish, parrotfish, Napoleon wrasse, titan triggerfish, clown triggerfish, etc, etc.
The water was warm but visibility was poor averaged ~50 feet, sometimes worse, rarely better. And I didnt realize how much swimming into current would be required. Ive done dives like in Rangiroa where you shoot through the pass. And like in Galapagos where you drop down and then hook/hold onto the rocks and look out into the blue. Ive done drift dives in many places. This was different we often had to swim against a significant current for much of the dive.
On the first dive in which we faced a strong current, our group was unable to make it across a channel and had to turn back. When the cruise director heard about this after, he laughed at us and said the current was nothing. My husband is a very strong swimmer and he said it was indeed a strong current, suggesting that maybe the conditions had changed by the time we made it to the channel. The CD just laughed DH off, basically saying we were lame. Later that day, we ended up on a dive in which 4 of the 6 divers aborted almost immediately. Only my husband and I made it through, and we cant say it was a good dive. It was a slog through the current in fairly murky water and we didn't see anything of note. Dives like this continued for the remainder of the trip.
Since many of the dives were very similar, there is absolutely no reason for this to have been an 11 night/10 dive day trip. The geographic area covered was not that large and we easily could have cut out several of the least impressive/most repetitive dives. A 7 night/6 dive day trip would have made much more sense.
As for the boat, it is new and pretty nice. We had one of the two superior cabins; it was large, on the main level, with lots of windows and a semi-private sundeck. There is also an even larger master cabin on the upper level, and then 6 deluxe cabins below (with portholes rather than windows). There is a common sundeck, an indoor lounge/dining room/bar, and an outdoor dining area that merges into the dive shop. There is a leak problem in the indoor lounge right now the ceiling is lined with diapers and masking tape but they plan to fix this in May when the boat goes in for maintenance.
There is wifi on the boat and it is fairly reliable in the lounge. We had trouble with the connection in our room, but we were just pleased to have internet access at all! There is also a system on the TV in each cabin that connects to a database of movies. Not all of the newest releases, but enough of a selection to keep you entertained. A lot of them seem to be bootleg copies, though, so expect warnings flashing on the screen, or really bad subtitles, or no subtitles at all, etc.
Diving was done from small chase boats and the crew set up your BC and put your fins and camera on board for you. Divers suited up on the deck (at the outdoor dining area) and came down to the boat with their mask and anything else not attached to their BC wrist computer, etc. Entry is backward roll. There were no dive time limits. Some dives were close enough to the ship that the boat went back and forth as divers came up, but more often the first ones to come up had to wait until the last ones came up. The chase boats have no shade.
Lunch and dinner are served as sit-down meals rather than buffets. Lunch is a salad, entree, and fruit. Dinner is soup, entree, and dessert. Weve had worse food on a liveaboard and weve had better. Id rank the food on WAOW as right in the middle of the 8 boats weve been on. A birthday and a wedding anniversary were celebrated on board with special dessert, candles, singing, and lots of kisses of congratulations from the crew. Very sweet and heartfelt.
Sadly the overall vibe on this boat was not the best. We had 5 couples and one couple was not very nice
with lots of showboating. And the cruise director, while generally a likeable guy, was not particularly open to feedback and said/did a few things about/to other guests that were not entirely professional. In the end we were more than ready to depart, to chalk this one up as an "interesting experience", and to start looking forward to our next dive trip.
