I'm trying to plan a liveaboard trip (10-17 days on the "boats") to the Raja Ampat area for Jan. - Feb or March of '25.
My once in a life time trip !!!!
Starting in St. Louis, Mo.
Going through Seattle - Taipei -Jakarta - then Sorong.
That's 11,873 flight miles over 67 hours in airports - traveling alone.
Kind of "dicey" but do-able.
I'm concerned about being totally worn out from the ride just getting there (just hit 70) & then having to sleep for three days just to recover from the "jet lag".
So if anyone else has had this type of experience, please share your ideas with me as to:
1. Did you stop for a "day or three" somewhere & dive or tour or just rest or ????
2. What liveaboards did you like or not ? Found one that has a 7 day & then the next trip is 10 more days = 17 days back to back.
3. I have the time to add a week on the front end of this trip so ideas & comments would very much be appreciated.
I don't care about on the way home but on the to Raja Ampat - I'm worried about: delayed luggage, lost gear & just being wiped out.
Thanks
I looked at alot of options in term of staying somewhere before getting on the liveaboard in Sorong.
I thought about Jakarta, but I was told it was just a industrial city with traffic jams anywhere you try to go, whether it is to the hotel or sites to visit. I thought about flying to Manado where I can dive a few days, some in Lembeh and others in west Manado. It was too much pure diving and its a big distance between east and west. I settled for Bali, where I can do dives and cultural/natural tours, and a hop over to Nusa Lembongan/Penida for some mantas (timing didn't work out).
So at the end I did 5 nights in Bali area (did Dive safari (dive with same dive shop over multiple islands, they take care of all the transfers), but they still couldn't fit my requirements of diving where I wanted (Bali just opened from covid lockdown, so all guides went back home and haven't returned)), then flew over to Sorong and took my LOB, after LOB, few back to Bali for another couple of days (was suppose to be 1, but orig LOB got cancelled at last min, so booked another one that was 1 day shorter and changed return flght to Bali that was 1 day earlier). I never stayed in Sorong, as there was a dearth of things to do.
My old trip report from Dec. 2022:
Trip Report - Raja Ampat 10-Night Indo-Siren Liveaboard Dec. 2 – 12, 2022 Trip Report
On a positive note, now the idea of a 3 to 4-hour flight to Bonaire sounds like no big deal!
P.S.: Nearly a year later the boat I went on burned; sad, I really liked it.
I was to board Indo Siren right after your trip, but got a message on the 11th that my boarding on the 13th was cancelled. They originally offered a credit on equiv sailing on the Siren within a 1 or 2 year period. Since I don't think I would be back on this side of the world within that period, I got my travel agent to fight hard to get us a refund (lots of slow emails back and forth from Bali to California to UK and back, where nobody is in the same time zone), then finding a new booking of existing liveaboard that fits within my original window (more search and slow emails from Bali to Californa to Bali (where Mermaid's HQ is) and back) Good thing I did, since the Indo Siren is no more, that is unless the credit applies to the Indo Master, which would have been a upgrade bump (still have to come back though).
You would think Bonaire is straightforward, but I booked with AA/Insel Air, in which the Insel plane had engine had problems in Curacao, so we were told to wait for 5 hours for the next plane to arrive. I headed to Charlotte for a couple of hours, and by the time I came back to the airport, they booked all the empty avail seats to other stranded passengers so I was put in a airport motel for a few days until their next flight arrives. I had to eat at Cracker Barrel every night since eating anywhere else would have surpassed the alloted food expense. I was able to shift my stay at Bonaire to a couple of days later and rebook my AA flight too(for a fee). I even won a raffle while on Insel Air for a free ticket to Bonaire, but I never redeemed it as I had to fly with them again. They didn't even compensate me for the rebooking fee.
