Dive Review of Arenui in
Indonesia/Raja Ampat

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Arenui: "Raja Ampat worth the trip. Arenui staff superb.", Mar, 2024, by Timothy C Barden, PA, US ( Sr. Reviewer 9 reports with 13 Helpful votes). Report 13004 has 3 Helpful votes.
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Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
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Comments	Raja Ampat had been on our diving bucket list for some time. We anticipated that doing it aboard the Arenui would make the entire experience one we would treasure. Most parts of the 12-day trip met or exceeded our expectations. I’ll start with the diving while we were there. Following that are comments on all the other aspects of the Arenui because they contribute just as much to a live-aboard trip, especially this one. Let me emphasize at the onset that it’s certainly possible for people on the same trip to have very different experiences. These are just mine. The travel to and from was brutal and not for the faint-hearted. Figure on a full 30 hr in the air with either Emirates (through Dubai) or Qatar Airlines (through Doha) with two long layovers in route. The one in Jakarta was long enough to justify booking a hotel. There are two in the terminal that are comfortable and surprisingly cheap. Incidentally, Cipro is no longer the go-to drug for traveler’s diarrhea due to resistance. Pack Zithromax or Amoxycilin. COVID doesn't seem to be a concern anymore. I didn't see any masks during the trip and I don't think it was mentioned during our first briefing. There are four cabins below deck in the bow and four at deck level behind the galley. We were given an adequate general safety briefing as we set sail. They noted that the wheelhouse was manned 24hr/day and showed us the general layout of the Arenui, the emergency exits and assembly point, then described the emergency signal and listed the charging station rules. The locations of the life vests and smoke detectors were pointed out in our cabin. There was a dedicated dunk tank for cameras on the dive deck and adequate banks of charging stations on the camera tables in the air-conditioned salon. Our cabin just behind the bow had beautiful carvings and lots of cabinet and drawer space, but it was annoying that much of it was already taken up with general ship supplies. DIVING OPERATION Diving is done from two 10-person, fixed-hull tenders that can be winched up to hang from the stern for traveling. Once set up, the main diving gear of the 16 guests remains on the tenders. Air/nitrox refills are done by long hoses on the Arenui stern. The divers are divided into four groups, each with its own guide who remains with them the entire week. This strings out the water entry and pickup a bit since each tender must make two runs to and from each dive site. On the plus side, there was plenty of room on the tender with only 4 divers plus the DM and driver and the dive sites were never more than a 5-minute ride away. This also kept commotion on the dive deck lower with fewer divers in the final stages of getting ready or just coming out of the water at any time. Each guest had their own cubby with seat space on the dive deck for accessories. A divemaster was sent out before every dive to report the current conditions during the pre-dive briefing. The crew projected a drawing of each dive site onto two large screens and gave a good description of the dive plan and what we might see in that area. The whole operation seems efficient, but I’ll take issue with the nitrox measuring protocol. For efficiency, one of the staff is assigned to checking the nitrox content in each tank after nitrox refills. He is to record this and dutifully gets the signature of each diver before every dive, apparently just attesting that they’ve read what he’s written down. Curiously, I never saw a reading other than ‘32%’ the entire trip. Too, I discovered that my tank was bone-dry before one (just one, luckily) of the dives. How did he measure the nitrox content with no nitrox in the tank? Other questions about ‘representative sampling’ come to mind including the advisability of continuing to use a completely empty tank without an inspection. It was literally bone-dry. Otherwise, the tank fills were consistently at 3000psi with only a couple at 2800. We were asked to come up with 300psi in our tanks, but I don’t think this was enforced or monitored. Dives were a standard 60 minutes and we all went down and came up together. There was a depth target given during the briefing, but I saw many divers below the divemaster on dives. Four dives were scheduled for most days, two in the morning, one in the afternoon and one just before dinner that started at dusk and finished after dark. We were told to each carry a safety sausage and reef hook. I saw no need for the hook during our trip. It was all planned drift diving. The current varied but I never heard of any sites such as in Blue Corner in Palau where you hook in and watch the entire ocean swim by. The safety sausage, though… It’s a fine theory for the boat captain to follow the divers’ bubbles during a drift dive so they’ll be in the general area when the group surfaces. In practice, it depends on the skill of the captain. In our case, their protocol of each boat ferrying two groups to the dive site complicated matters. Early in the trip, there were several times when we bobbed on the surface for a while waiting for him to find us. In retrospect, I’d have to say that he was pretty good at it because he always had to pick up our bubble trail in mid-dive after he dropped off his second group. Not easy when there’s a little chop. The overall itinerary called for us to start in Sorong and travel in a rough arc before departing from Ambon. We were to spend a couple days diving in Raja Ampat, transit to Misool for several more days, then swing through Koon and Banda before the final couple of days around Ambon. We didn’t know beforehand, but this required a 12hr overnight transit to Misool, 15hr to Koon and a full 24hr to Banda before a final overnight trip to Ambon. Obviously, these planned crossings and some advertised land excursions cut into the amount of diving we could expect during our nearly 2 weeks aboard. The Arenui is a fine, lovely craft but is better suited for a shorter travel itinerary, in my opinion. Even moderate amounts of unfavorable wind and currents during most of our crossings seriously impacted plans for the next day. The storm during our crossing to Koon completely turned the rest of the itinerary sideways. Ours was the foremost cabin, so the entire extended passage wasn’t fun with the repetitive bow rising, then an abrupt fall that left me in mid-air before I fell back to the bed. I went up to try and sleep in the salon. We only did the one dive in Koon and skipped Banda entirely to get back on schedule. As I was writing this, I read in the April Undercurrent about a Komodo-bound group that was stuck in the harbor due to a storm that appeared to coincide with our Koon crossing. Maybe we should just be thankful to have come out the other side of that storm. As much as I love to dive, I was sad to miss all the land excursions. Our revised schedule called for a little more time around Ambon Bay at the trip end. The camera buffs in the group were somewhat mollified by spending two full days muck-diving. UNDERWATER Our weather in early March was in the mid-80s with generally partly cloudy skies during the day and some evening showers. There was some wind but we mostly were able to anchor and dive on the lee side of the many islands. We had to motor through a severe storm system mid-trip that completely upended our remaining itinerary. The water temperature was a consistent, comfortable 84 deg F with the occasional thermocline. The visibility all week rarely exceeded 60 feet +/- at depth. There was generally a light or moderate current that sometimes varied during the dive. All the divemasters were locals with many years of experience. Their ability to find interesting critters, large and small, was phenomenal. The diving ranged from simply great to spectacular. I’ve sadly grown accustomed to seeing reefs covered with algae, large sections of coral rubble from recent die-offs and coral bleaching from high water temps and other stressors. I saw scant evidence of any of that during the entire trip. We saw huge tangles of staghorn coral… entire reefs covered with more types of hard and soft corals than I could easily count… endless schools of bright-colored fish cruising along the edge of the reef! We looked up at one point, thinking that a cloud had obscured the sun and realize it was ONLY a large, dense school of fish! And yes, there were plenty of unusual fish and critter sightings. Here are just a few of the more noteworthy ones: wobegong sharks, blue-ringed octopus, wonderpus octopus, cuttlefish, reef squid, pygmy sea horses galore if you could make out what the DM was pointing at, 4” giant sea horses (by comparison), isty-bitsy crabs and shrimp, mandarin fish, a wide variety of nudibranchs, friendly hawksbill turtles, a few reef sharks, plenty of multi-hued anemones with clownfish, sea snakes, garden eels, ribbon eels, morays and some bright orange hairy frogfish, but no ghost pipefish on this trip. We were lucky to see a pair of mantas at a cleaning station, one of the reef type and one oceanic! My favorite areas were around Raja Ampat proper and Misool. The ‘Too Many Fish’ dive site in Koon was a nice dive but I don’t think it lived up to the advertisement. Our final two days were spent ‘muck diving’ just outside and inside Ambon Bay. We were warned beforehand to expect trash in the water and on the sea floor. There was some, to be sure, but not as much as I expected. The port had been there for hundreds of years, after all. It was certainly silty and you had to be careful with your fins close to the sea bed. It wasn’t a dead zone by any means but the hard and soft corals were more sparse below 20 feet or so. The plethora of well-camouflaged critters couldn’t hide from eagle-eyed DM’s and our macro-photographers in our group went wild! The use of ‘muck’ may be just an attempt to discourage casual divers from going along and interfering with the macro-photographers’ photos. ARENUI STAFF The Arenui carries a crew of 20-23 staff for 16 guests. They advertise a ‘boutique live-aboard experience’ and certainly live up to that reputation in my view. I didn’t partake on this trip, but all the other guests who did gave glowing reviews about their massages. From the time we stepped out of the van before boarding to checking in at the airport afterwards, the entire crew seemed to be insulted if we so much as wanted to carry an empty coffee cup back to the kitchen. Arif tried to anticipate our favorite morning beverage and have it waiting when we came up for breakfast. We weren’t allowed to carry any dive gear unless wearing it. Someone was always waiting when we reboarded to hand us a beach towel and help peal off skins, booties and such which were dutifully rinsed and hung up to await the next dive. Cameras were the lone exception, but it was the diver’s choice. I saw the crew take instruction on the proper handling and they carefully rinsed and dried camera equipment before setting them on camera tables in the salon, but they’d also back off if people preferred to do it themselves. The head guide stayed with us while we checked in at the airport and it’s a good thing he did. He was able to smooth out countless problems that came up, not the least of which was that the computer system broke down forcing them to print the baggage tags by hand! FOOD Simply fabulous! Chef Mario could open a Michelin-starred restaurant in any metropolis he chose to hang his shingle. I’d make a special trip! He and his staff prepared a wide variety of delicious dishes and deserts in their tiny galley. All were meticulously plated, complete with a bit of gold leaf when needed. Our day started with a pre-dive nosh of coffee/tea, juices, fruits and toast before the first dive. Arif took our full breakfast order for after the dive: eggs as you wish, sausage/bacon, a tasty soup and more of the aforementioned. Lunch was a ‘light’ affair: salad, soup, a main course and fruit or something sweet for dessert. There were hot snacks following the afternoon dive and hot cocoa served after the dusk/night dive. Dinner consisted of yet a different soup and salad and a choice of entrees, a chicken or beef dish or something from the sea and dessert, of course. You could ask for a half portion if you were feeling stuffed. Those who couldn’t decide just went for half-and-half and accepted that their dive skins would start to feel a bit snug. Mario prepared pastas, barbeque and traditional Indonesian land dishes equally well. Seafood ranged from tuna, swordfish, scallops to barramundi. His desserts were other-worldly: rich chocolate mousse, iced cream, tarts, crepes and chilled fruit dishes. To sum up, Raja Ampat still should be on everyone’s bucket list despite the arduous journey to get there. The diving is superb! The Arenui is a beautiful boat but the sails are just for show. I was told that the rigging and mast placement would be insufficient to sail at more than a snail’s pace. That said, it is well maintained and comfortable. It’s the wonderful staff that makes the experience worth the price. My only real criticism is that the Arenui seems underpowered for an itinerary that includes long crossings between diving areas. It is too dependent on favorable wind and currents to keep close to the advertised itinerary.
Websites	Arenui
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	All over the Caribbean. Truk, Palau, Yap, Maldives
Closest Airport	Sarong	Getting There	Two day transit on Qatar Airlines or Emirates
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy, cloudy	Seas	choppy, surge, currents, no currents
Water Temp	83-84°F / 28-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	50-60 Ft/ 15-18 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Come up with 300 psi or with divemaster.
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	1 or 2
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	Adequate padded camera tables in salon for all cameras. Plenty of 120/240 power strips for charging batteries. Large, camera dunk tank on dive deck was kept clean. The dive deck had a padded drying area with pressure hoses for cameras. This was mostly used by the crew but guests also were allowed to use it.

Report currently has 3 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Arenui in Indonesia/Raja Ampat

Arenui: "Raja Ampat worth the trip. Arenui staff superb.", Mar, 2024,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Arenui in
Indonesia/Raja Ampat