Wonderful Raja Ampat Trip

[Andywat]

We spent Christmas and New Year in Raja Ampat, it was wonderful.
We were on board the MV Ambai (Wallacea Dive Cruises) and had a spectacular time.
I have been working in Indonesia (Southern Sumatra) for many years now and I was thrilled to find a part of Indonesia that was so untouched.
We were met at the airport in Sorong, West Papua and taken to the boat by dive dinghy. She is a majestic traditionally made wooden 100+ footer with 8 spacious double berths, designed for divers with Nitrox capability.
We started in the South around Misool, it was wonderful to see such an extent of untouched marine habitat, football fields of corals, like taking a stroll in an underwater garden. The dive sites were varied with most terminating in shallow reef areas of spectacular color. Crew were great, food good and the cabins were very comfortable with spacious bathrooms.
One of the highlights was our encounters with the Manta Rays, watching them pause and be cleaned at a cleaning station and also free swimming with them as they fed on the surface.

I hope this will remain the same for many years to come so others may enjoy its pristine beauty and enchanting innocence.

 

[LucyChallenger]

Hi Andywat,

My husband and I were thinking about diving Raja Ampat but had different contradicting stories about the boats working there and the diving conditions. I know that diving is never a constant experience, but I was wondering if you could explain a little more about your experience? How many people were on your boat? What was the food like? How were the different dive sites managed - were there lots of people in the water together or spacious diving? Did you see other dive boats or have to dive with other groups?

It looks absolutely stunning and originally we were looking at the WAOW, but heard terrible reviews about the boat and the experience on it. My difficulty is that I want luxury, but also incredible diving which seems a hard thing to mix!

Any extra info would be amazing!

Lucy

 

[Andywat]

Hi Lucy,
Well the isolation in Raja Ampat does not really lend itself to a luxury experience.... But it is precisely this isolation that enables you to enjoy, what is undoubtedly one of the few remaining spots on this earth of ours that is untouched and simply spectacular.....
We went as a family, my wife and 20 year old daughter and had the trip of a lifetime.
There were 15 divers on board (space for 16, 8 doubles with huge bathrooms) and we had groups of 4 to 6 divers on each dive, 3 tenders....
The boat is super well designed/equipped to make the diving experience as effortless as possible and nitrox capable (great idea). Of course a lot depends on the other people on your boat, we had a good group of Germans, Italians, Swiss, French and us (British/American/Ecuadorian). Food was good, perhaps lacking a little in variation, but also had the local tinge to it which was nice.....
The diving was exciting and incredible, we travelled between the islands starting in Misool, in the South and working our way North, had that incredible Manta experience. Visibility was not always the best but it was always more than 15 meters.... In the FL Keys here we have better visibility normally but no where near the diversity or untouched beauty......
On very few occasions did we see other dive groups at the same sites, perhaps twice and our groups of 4 to 6 were always a little separated, each with our own dive guide.
Let me know if I can help further, check out their web site.....
Cheers, Andy.

 

[moonypixels]

Hi Lucy,
I am somewhat surprised to read that you heard terrible reviews about WAOW. My name is Jerome (Jay) and I am one of the Cruise Directors on board WAOW. I have also have helped building this magnificent ship of which I am really proud of, for the entire finishing phase of 8 months in Bali and recruited our entire crew together with our Captain, an old friend of mine and an expert in the entire Indonesian Archipelago.
From the reviews I have seen on the Net, I have found a total of 2 reviews, one of which was on this Forum (I'd be glad to see more if you know of any others). The one here was also the one which was extremely biased. I could put you in touch with the other passengers who joined that particular Cruise (obviously asking them if that would be o.k.) and you would be very surprised to hear what they would have to say about this Cruise, the Ship, the Diving, the Food, the Crew and most likely also about the person who wrote this report in this forum. One particular couple were actually return guests who had been diving with us previously, whilst we were still working on another ship in Indonesia, so I guess we can't be that bad ... What you would hear from these guests would entirely change your mind about what you "heard" on this forum and show you that the report put on this forum by this particular person isn't quite the way it was and actually caused (or rather could have caused) a lot of damage to the reputation of our Ship and myself. It is sad to see that certain people are frustrated with their lives and have not much else to do, than to let out their frustration and misery on a public forum...
In fact, Raja is a magical place without any doubt and the ones who don't see or realize this, should not bother spending hours in a plane and fly around half the world to come here, never mind which ship they chose for their dive trip. This is one of the last places on our blue planet, where the diving is simply mind boggling !
WAOW is a fantastic ship and I am proud of what we have achieved as a team in our first year of operation. The amount of return guests we have already had simply speaks for itself and even our dive travel agencies are stating that they have never seen anything like that, which again simply speaks for itself. I am also extremely happy with our crew who has, with very few exceptions, not changed since we had had our inaugural trip in April 2012 and am proud to have such a good and professional team on board. Lastly, I would never be capable of keeping this ship under such good working condition without the help of my wife, the other Cruise Director on board this ship!
Whichever vessel you chose for your holiday is entirely up to you and there are a few which are certainly of a standard such as ours, without needing to mention any names. There are also, as you certainly know, a lot of "black sheep" in this industry who don't think much of maintenance and safety of their vessel. Our owner has never ever said no to anything we have asked when it came down to the safety of his ship and her passengers on board and in 15 years of working in this industry, I can't say that of many of the ships I have worked on. Should you have any further questions, feel free to drop me a line and I'd me more than happy to help, even if it is to point you in the direction of another vessel around here in order to make your dive holiday a memorable one.

Cheers for now,
Jay

---------- Post added April 5th, 2013 at 02:16 PM ----------

Hi Lucy,

You can actually read a more positive trip report of the exact same trip which had a rather bad report posted by "Diversusan" on Scubaboard's forum, by following this thread:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/indonesia/445128-trip-report-raja-ampat-waow-liveaboard-4.html
It is the latest posting, #35...
That one clearly shows that people perceive things and look at things differently and that one's "awful trip" might just as well be another one's "brilliant trip" .

Cheers and as I said, don't hesitate to drop me a line if I can be of any assistance to you,
Jay