Just wanted to chime in with my recent experience on the Blue Manta to Komodo in June 2023. It was excellent. The ship is perfectly set up for diving and underwater photography, with a dedicated camera room. The staff are excellent and the whole experience was luxury (for me), complete with delicious ginger tea and warm towels after every dive. In terms of the dive sites they were all excellent and showed off the diversity of underwater ecosystems, from manta cleaning stations to muck dives to reefs with too many schools of fish to count. The dive master/guest coordinator was Evan and he did an excellent job explaining each dive location, the currents and wildlife to watch for, and choosing sites based on the currents/conditions. The Indonesian crew were incredible and so helpful with all aspects of service from putting on/taking off and carrying gear, refilling tanks, even drying equipment at the end. The food was delicious and plentiful. One night we had a BBQ with so many options and live singing from the crew which was very special. And the ship is also set up well for vegetarians/vegans. Plenty of space to lounge about as well. Cabins were spotless, well air-conditioned, and spacious. In terms of the numbers of divers, the system was well worked out in my opinion; we had 4 divers with each guide, and 22 guests total, and the order of groups was worked out to where each group went with the small boat out and back like clockwork. Evan did a great job working out how to ensure we were at dive sites without a lot of other boats, and even checked in with other boats to make sure there would not be too many divers in the water at a time. The ship photographer PJ was full of helpful advice and also produced a professional video of the marine life highlights. I think I'm spoiled for life now in terms of the diving and the LOB experience with Blue Manta. The entire trip was amazing. (P.S. I realized I'm posting this on a report for Raja Ampat, and my trip was to Komodo, but just wanted to share my experience on the Blue Manta for anyone interested in the ship).
