The best things I can say about our previous trips, is that some of those divers signed up for 2005 and 2006! We have 40% repeat guests in 2006 but always welcome new guests... and hope they are happy enough to join us again too.
Our two 2004 and two 2005 trips were a success. Our method of diving for photos appealed to the participants as did the special menu, extra dives, extra services and the improvements to the ship we requested for our trips.
For the second year, underwater photographers on our trips won the top prizes in the photo contest. Not too shabby! We don't want to give away all our secrets, so after reading our web pages, send us an email or give us a call (817.626.0636) so we can tell you all the details.
In summary, everyone loved the ship. Many said it was the best organized liveaboard for diving they'd seen. Our special menu was a hit.. again, many said it was the best liveaboard food they'd ever had.. even comparing it favorably to luxury land-based resort restaurants.
And the cabins... , all the divers really liked the cabins. They were spacious, clean and comfortable.. coming out on top of other Indonesian liveaboards for the functionality. Kudos to Ricard for his design of the ship's interior (that's everything inside the hull).
We had two excellent trips. Lots of fishy dives. If I had to choose one outstanding thing about this trip for me it would be barracuda! On many of the dives I ended up swimming in the blue with a large school of them. There were mixed schools, segregated schools and individuals getting cleaned. Expect some good barraduda shots in the 2005 gallery.
During the 1st trip, a couple of spots in the Dampier Strait were favorites for fish. Most of the group got to be surrounded by fish several times. One of the sites in Misool had a beautiful area at 25ft where a dense shoal of silversides were corralled by hunting jacks all morning.
Coming up from the first dive I stuck my head into the dining lounge and rounded up another couple of photographers to come right in. By skipping breakfast, I managed 4 dives in the "coral corral" that morning and finally left it only because I was too tired to continue diving.
On another dive, again surrounded by silversides, Ricard and I were buzzed by a school of Mobula Rays that circled past us many times. We caught the current just right at one of our favorite sites so were treated to schools of hundreds of cooperative sweetlips and at the top, massive schools of fusiliers and surgeonfish.
On the second trip we had some outstanding fishy dives too. We didn't manage to catch the masses of sweetlips and silversides seen on the first trip, but some of the dives were thick with jacks, barracuda, surgeonfish, fusiliers, chubs and snapper schools.
This was the batfish trip. At one site there was a photographer feeding frenzy on a large school of large batfish that were trying to relax in the "sweet spot" at the edge of a small island. I waited for the frenzy to end (maybe they ran out of air?) and bubbles to dissipate, then spent a few minutes alone with the batfish near the end of my dive. At another site the current was too strong so we were swept past our intended dive area and around the backside where a docile school of batfish provided ample (and excellent) photo ops for the entire group.
We were seeing Wobbegongs on many dives but somehow Hal always missed them. On the next to last day there was a Wobbegong at 12 ft in a good location for photos. I refused to leave the water, keeping an eye on it until the dive tender went back to the ship and brought Hal. Well, Hal had photographed one earlier on that same dive. A different one. But he came anyway and got some good shots of this one as well.
The only downside on this trip.. a shortage of critters compared to all the other trips I've done in Raja Ampat. We had some, but poor Paulino never saw his blue-ring octopus (although Bruce spent time with one on the next trip) and we never encountered even one ghost pipefish.
However by the end of each trip, all divers were suffering from "pygmy seahorse fatigue". I found one fan of them at 15 ft. and another area at the same site had red, yellow and orange pygs, plus plucked chicken pygs with a 1 min swim.
The land-based trips we'd done previously had us missing some exceptional night dives and limited us to only 3-4 dives per day. We treat the liveaboard as if it was an island.. not needing to move every dive... and with SMY Ondina's help we've worked out a scheme that photographers really like. We're bypassing some of the problems inherent in liveaboard diving and incorporating some of the best parts of land-based into our trips.
Web Source.
Our two 2004 and two 2005 trips were a success. Our method of diving for photos appealed to the participants as did the special menu, extra dives, extra services and the improvements to the ship we requested for our trips.
For the second year, underwater photographers on our trips won the top prizes in the photo contest. Not too shabby! We don't want to give away all our secrets, so after reading our web pages, send us an email or give us a call (817.626.0636) so we can tell you all the details.
In summary, everyone loved the ship. Many said it was the best organized liveaboard for diving they'd seen. Our special menu was a hit.. again, many said it was the best liveaboard food they'd ever had.. even comparing it favorably to luxury land-based resort restaurants.
And the cabins... , all the divers really liked the cabins. They were spacious, clean and comfortable.. coming out on top of other Indonesian liveaboards for the functionality. Kudos to Ricard for his design of the ship's interior (that's everything inside the hull).
We had two excellent trips. Lots of fishy dives. If I had to choose one outstanding thing about this trip for me it would be barracuda! On many of the dives I ended up swimming in the blue with a large school of them. There were mixed schools, segregated schools and individuals getting cleaned. Expect some good barraduda shots in the 2005 gallery.
During the 1st trip, a couple of spots in the Dampier Strait were favorites for fish. Most of the group got to be surrounded by fish several times. One of the sites in Misool had a beautiful area at 25ft where a dense shoal of silversides were corralled by hunting jacks all morning.
Coming up from the first dive I stuck my head into the dining lounge and rounded up another couple of photographers to come right in. By skipping breakfast, I managed 4 dives in the "coral corral" that morning and finally left it only because I was too tired to continue diving.
On another dive, again surrounded by silversides, Ricard and I were buzzed by a school of Mobula Rays that circled past us many times. We caught the current just right at one of our favorite sites so were treated to schools of hundreds of cooperative sweetlips and at the top, massive schools of fusiliers and surgeonfish.
On the second trip we had some outstanding fishy dives too. We didn't manage to catch the masses of sweetlips and silversides seen on the first trip, but some of the dives were thick with jacks, barracuda, surgeonfish, fusiliers, chubs and snapper schools.
This was the batfish trip. At one site there was a photographer feeding frenzy on a large school of large batfish that were trying to relax in the "sweet spot" at the edge of a small island. I waited for the frenzy to end (maybe they ran out of air?) and bubbles to dissipate, then spent a few minutes alone with the batfish near the end of my dive. At another site the current was too strong so we were swept past our intended dive area and around the backside where a docile school of batfish provided ample (and excellent) photo ops for the entire group.
We were seeing Wobbegongs on many dives but somehow Hal always missed them. On the next to last day there was a Wobbegong at 12 ft in a good location for photos. I refused to leave the water, keeping an eye on it until the dive tender went back to the ship and brought Hal. Well, Hal had photographed one earlier on that same dive. A different one. But he came anyway and got some good shots of this one as well.
The only downside on this trip.. a shortage of critters compared to all the other trips I've done in Raja Ampat. We had some, but poor Paulino never saw his blue-ring octopus (although Bruce spent time with one on the next trip) and we never encountered even one ghost pipefish.
However by the end of each trip, all divers were suffering from "pygmy seahorse fatigue". I found one fan of them at 15 ft. and another area at the same site had red, yellow and orange pygs, plus plucked chicken pygs with a 1 min swim.
The land-based trips we'd done previously had us missing some exceptional night dives and limited us to only 3-4 dives per day. We treat the liveaboard as if it was an island.. not needing to move every dive... and with SMY Ondina's help we've worked out a scheme that photographers really like. We're bypassing some of the problems inherent in liveaboard diving and incorporating some of the best parts of land-based into our trips.
Web Source.
