Bookworm11
Contributor
I flew to Sorong for a trip on the Velocean. I flew from Boston to Doha, overnighted there at the Hyatt Regency (very nice), and then on to Jakarta-all on Qatar in economy. In Jakarta, I flew on to Sorong on Garuda late at night, and landed early in the morning and checked in the Swiss Bel where I overnighted. I had a single suite on the Velocean which was small, but lovely. It had picture windows along the queen bed, and a large bathrom with a big shower with picture windows. There was plenty of storage space along both sides of the suite, and a small desk. I was on the main floor where the living area, the dining area, the camera area, adn the dive area was. Above was the bar area, and the third floor had a sun deck with a broken hot tub. There were four dive groups with one divemaster each. All were groups of four, excpet mine which was a group of five. All the divemasters were regular employees, except mine who was a contract employee who fills in when a regular employee is on vacation. My local dive shop had chartered the yacht. Apparently, they don't dive on a buddy system according to the shop owner. Everyone supposedly looks out for each other. I found out that wasn't the case.
On our very first dive, the DM found a wobbegong shark. I looked right where it was for 2 minutes, but never recognized it. But still, I spotted a cuttlefish, and we saw other cuttlefish and other cool things. The water visibility was pretty poor. All the dives were done out of Zodiacs. WE did back flips into the water, and I took my BCD off before getting back into the Zodiac. I never had to do any negative entries. I used a 15L Nitrox tank the whole trip with a 3mm wetsuit and diving socks with diving booties. I use a prescription mask, too. There were 4 scheduled dives a day (one a night dive) usually unless we had one or two scheduled activities. The activities I did were snorkeling with dolphins (AWESOME!!), snorkeling in a freshwater lake with jellyfish (great), and climbing up to see a heartshape lagoon ( very hard, but so worth it!) I never did any of the night dives, and skipped a couple of the really strong current dives. However, the DM knowing he had 2 people who used up air, continued to have a dive plan that did not take that into account. He always dove deep (going to 90 feet when the other DMs didn't go that deep), or going deep and styaing deep far longer than any of the other groups, instead of going up to 50-60 feet. He rarely brought the group to 30 feet at all. If he had done this, this could have easily extended our air. He never did that at all. He also paid no attention to everyone in the group. As I was always at the end, many times by the time I caught up, whatever he was showing to the group, he would leave before I got there.
I saw so many cool things I can't possibly remember them all! New kinds of nudibranches, a couple of kinds of pygmy seahorses-including the Santa Claus pygmy seahorse, giant electric clams, black tip sharks, white tip sharks, giant Gorgonian fans, scorpionfish, new clownfish-all kinds of new coral. But the visibility the entire trip was not I am used to in Cozumel. The colors, however, were like a never-ending rainbow.
The highlight of the trip were the manta dives. We did two dives that were manta cleaning stations, Manta Sandy, and Manta Ridge. WE saw no mantas at all at Manta Sandy. We knelt in the sand holding rocks for 45 minutes and staring at the little fish by our rocks. I also got to see the damselfish that bit the diver next to me 20 times. At Manta Ridge, we saw mantas for about 10 minutes near the end of the dive. At Blue Magic, we hit the jackpot and saw mantas for 30 minutes or more. Initially they came when we were just diving. Then they stayed, so we hooked in. Seeing the mantas was the highlight of the trip.
However, I had three unsafe instances of diving on the trip. On the first, we all got into the water. I was the last in. We immediately hit super strong current. Everyone took off right away. I started swimming and got stuck and went nowhere. For 4 and a half minutes, I went nowhere. I couldn't see the group after a minute. Nobody came back. I used up 500 psi. At that point , I decided to go up. (In retrospect, I know I shuld have gone up sooner.) Right when I was going to go up, one of the divers came back for me. After the dive, I asked him if they saw me. He said they saw me the whole time, but just waited for me. So they watched me go nowhere for 3 and a half minutes! The DM knew that another diver and I were the two divers that used up air the quickest. We frequently swam above the group by twenty feet or so to save air. I let the DM know I had 1000 PSI. We were at 50 feet, perhaps deeper. He didn't stay anywhere near me and promptly started swimming very fast. He knew that I was not a fast swimmer. He also did not take the group shallower. I began swimming after him as I knew I could get low on air. I got to 700 psi and signaled another diver in the group, but he paid no attention to me. So I raced to catch up to him, at which point I was right at 500 psi. But I was lucky to catch him. As background for the third instance, I frequently would run low on air and be the one who forced the group to end their dive. I talked to the dive shop owner, who suggested that I dive 30-40 feet over the group to conserve on air. (Our DM ran deep dive profiles-descending deeper than the other three groups, and staying deeper longer.) One dive, I was doing that. I began ascending to the surface rapidly when I was at 55 feet or so. There was no one around to help stop me. I manged to stop around the 30 foot mark, and get back down. But since I had no buddy, no one saw this happen, and no one was there to help stop it from happening. After these incidents, I hired a private guide. The diving was fine, but the guide would point out 1 or perhaps 2 things in a dive. Not what you expect when you hire a private guide. The DM (the one in charge of our group) gave everyone a chart of the dives we did on the ship. He included many dives I did not do, including the two from the last day. He also took underwater pictures of the entire group in various places on diffierent dives. I never got any of those pictures. That is how much he paid attention to me. This is what they consider 5 star service to be. I consider the diving on the Velocean unsafe. (or maybe just the diving with that particular DM unsafe.) Perhaps if I had been with another DM, all would have been OK. I think it probably would have been. But this is about the diving I had on my trip-not what might have happened.
On our very first dive, the DM found a wobbegong shark. I looked right where it was for 2 minutes, but never recognized it. But still, I spotted a cuttlefish, and we saw other cuttlefish and other cool things. The water visibility was pretty poor. All the dives were done out of Zodiacs. WE did back flips into the water, and I took my BCD off before getting back into the Zodiac. I never had to do any negative entries. I used a 15L Nitrox tank the whole trip with a 3mm wetsuit and diving socks with diving booties. I use a prescription mask, too. There were 4 scheduled dives a day (one a night dive) usually unless we had one or two scheduled activities. The activities I did were snorkeling with dolphins (AWESOME!!), snorkeling in a freshwater lake with jellyfish (great), and climbing up to see a heartshape lagoon ( very hard, but so worth it!) I never did any of the night dives, and skipped a couple of the really strong current dives. However, the DM knowing he had 2 people who used up air, continued to have a dive plan that did not take that into account. He always dove deep (going to 90 feet when the other DMs didn't go that deep), or going deep and styaing deep far longer than any of the other groups, instead of going up to 50-60 feet. He rarely brought the group to 30 feet at all. If he had done this, this could have easily extended our air. He never did that at all. He also paid no attention to everyone in the group. As I was always at the end, many times by the time I caught up, whatever he was showing to the group, he would leave before I got there.
I saw so many cool things I can't possibly remember them all! New kinds of nudibranches, a couple of kinds of pygmy seahorses-including the Santa Claus pygmy seahorse, giant electric clams, black tip sharks, white tip sharks, giant Gorgonian fans, scorpionfish, new clownfish-all kinds of new coral. But the visibility the entire trip was not I am used to in Cozumel. The colors, however, were like a never-ending rainbow.
The highlight of the trip were the manta dives. We did two dives that were manta cleaning stations, Manta Sandy, and Manta Ridge. WE saw no mantas at all at Manta Sandy. We knelt in the sand holding rocks for 45 minutes and staring at the little fish by our rocks. I also got to see the damselfish that bit the diver next to me 20 times. At Manta Ridge, we saw mantas for about 10 minutes near the end of the dive. At Blue Magic, we hit the jackpot and saw mantas for 30 minutes or more. Initially they came when we were just diving. Then they stayed, so we hooked in. Seeing the mantas was the highlight of the trip.
However, I had three unsafe instances of diving on the trip. On the first, we all got into the water. I was the last in. We immediately hit super strong current. Everyone took off right away. I started swimming and got stuck and went nowhere. For 4 and a half minutes, I went nowhere. I couldn't see the group after a minute. Nobody came back. I used up 500 psi. At that point , I decided to go up. (In retrospect, I know I shuld have gone up sooner.) Right when I was going to go up, one of the divers came back for me. After the dive, I asked him if they saw me. He said they saw me the whole time, but just waited for me. So they watched me go nowhere for 3 and a half minutes! The DM knew that another diver and I were the two divers that used up air the quickest. We frequently swam above the group by twenty feet or so to save air. I let the DM know I had 1000 PSI. We were at 50 feet, perhaps deeper. He didn't stay anywhere near me and promptly started swimming very fast. He knew that I was not a fast swimmer. He also did not take the group shallower. I began swimming after him as I knew I could get low on air. I got to 700 psi and signaled another diver in the group, but he paid no attention to me. So I raced to catch up to him, at which point I was right at 500 psi. But I was lucky to catch him. As background for the third instance, I frequently would run low on air and be the one who forced the group to end their dive. I talked to the dive shop owner, who suggested that I dive 30-40 feet over the group to conserve on air. (Our DM ran deep dive profiles-descending deeper than the other three groups, and staying deeper longer.) One dive, I was doing that. I began ascending to the surface rapidly when I was at 55 feet or so. There was no one around to help stop me. I manged to stop around the 30 foot mark, and get back down. But since I had no buddy, no one saw this happen, and no one was there to help stop it from happening. After these incidents, I hired a private guide. The diving was fine, but the guide would point out 1 or perhaps 2 things in a dive. Not what you expect when you hire a private guide. The DM (the one in charge of our group) gave everyone a chart of the dives we did on the ship. He included many dives I did not do, including the two from the last day. He also took underwater pictures of the entire group in various places on diffierent dives. I never got any of those pictures. That is how much he paid attention to me. This is what they consider 5 star service to be. I consider the diving on the Velocean unsafe. (or maybe just the diving with that particular DM unsafe.) Perhaps if I had been with another DM, all would have been OK. I think it probably would have been. But this is about the diving I had on my trip-not what might have happened.
