Dive Review of
Komodo Dancer in
Indonesia/Bali, Komodo, Flores

USA (FL,IL,NC,TX,MO,CA,Alaska),
Canada(BC,Nanavut),Greenland,Carribbean(Bahamas,Turks&Caicos,Curacau,Bo
naire,Belize,Mexico)Pacific(Socorro,CocosIsland ,Galapagos,Tahiti,Truk
Lagoon,Palau,Yap,Sipadan,Bali,N.Sulawesi,Phuket,Burma,PNG) Australia,
Antartica, Mediterranean (Costa Brava, S. France, Corsica, Sardina, Italy),
Red Sea

Dive Conditions

The biggest problem was quibbling over precision of the hour limit of
dives.  Rigidity in this "rule" was unreasonable and irritating
and ultimately caused a breakdown of harmony. Divers should not be
subjected to a hassle over a few minutes one way or the other.  

Good charging station, adequate staging area for cameras and housings prior
to diving. Towels for drying and covering housings and cameras.  

Overall Rating

This was a return trip with my husband after a great solo trip on Komodo
Dancer the previous September. I had gotten great videos and photos during
that trip. The visibility had been perfect, diving superior, the service
excellent, guest-staff interaction entertaining and delightful, and the
trip very enjoyable. I wanted my husband to experience the same. So, I had
high expectations. Many of those expectations were met, others were not.
Some were due to chance like visibility and dive conditions. I guess it is
impossible to compare two trips because you never see the same thing the
same way. I did manage to accumulate an impressive collection of rather
spectacular photos of various underwater scenes and creatures.       
     One difficulty during this trip was a feeling of restriction from the
imposition of a 60-minute limit on dives especially after having more
freedom to dive one's own capacity during our two immediately previous
liveaboard trips in North Sulawesi. It is one thing to know that there is a
certain quantity of gas in one's cylinder and to be able to choose how to
manage it in order to control the dive time and quite another to have an
artificial limit placed on the dive. The preset time becomes a deadline
that looms like a threat creating a sense of urgency and pressure that
disturbs the tranquility of the dive. It robs the diver of one more element
of discretion about shaping each underwater experience. At the end of a
dive it can cut off a last minute opportunity to capture something special
that may appear. That potential contributes to a state of anxiety. Every
diver cannot magically exit the water in exactly 60 minutes, so the
divemasters should not make a big issue about whether a diver ends the dive
at 57 minutes or 64 minutes. The dive master and tender should be there to
service and assist the divers, not act like a drill sargeant issuing
orders.
     The bottom line of a dive trip is that you can be on the best boat in
the best waters with the best marine life around, but if the dive staff
makes you feel uncomfortable about some aspect of diving and becomes
overbearing, it is difficult to enjoy the trip. If the September trip had
been like the August trip, there would have been no August trip for us.   

Questions?
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