Dive Review of Grand Komodo -- Nusa Tara in
Indonesia/Komodo & Rinca Islands

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Grand Komodo -- Nusa Tara, Dec, 2012, by Jennifer Widom, CA, US ( Contributor 12 reports with 4 Helpful votes). Report 6845.
No photos available at this time
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 $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	(Note we submitted the same review to Tripadvisor) In short: Highly recommended inexpensive first-rate liveaboard trip Now the long version... The Diving: We've been diving for more than 20 years in many places considered among the world's best, so it's tough to find a new location that lives up. Komodo definitely met the challenge. The diving is considered "advanced" due to strong currents, cool-water upwellings, and variable visibility, and we agree it shouldn't be undertaken lightly, although with 3mm wetsuits (plus occasional hoods), strong legs, and reef hooks on hand, we were always comfortable. The reefs are very healthy, with abundant macro creatures, medium-sized goodies like frogfish, leaffish, cuttlefish, crocodile fish, octopi, etc., and plenty of turtles, sharks, rays, and other pelagics. I don't know if we were exceptionally lucky, but one of our manta dives easily beat any we've done elsewhere, with constant companionship of numerous mantas. We dove north Komodo in December-January, meaning visibility was down in the 30-50' range on some dives, but it didn't bother us. We did four one-hour dives each day, with two dives the day we boarded, and two morning dives our last full day on the boat -- the dragon trip (below) filled the afternoon as we off-gassed before our flights the following day. The Boat: The Nusa Tara is inexpensive even for an Indonesian liveaboard (not counting the rundown ones catering to the backpacker set). It has two quite small double cabins and one quite large one, which turned out to be ideal for our family of four: We paid the single supplement for our teenage kids, meaning we had the entire boat to ourselves with comfortable accommodations for all. The cabins are nothing fancy and again two of them are quite small, but they're air conditioned, ensuite with large bathrooms, clean, and everything works. The boat has a pleasant salon that would be plenty spacious even for six, a shaded upper deck perfect for relaxing and reading, and a roomy enough dive suiting-up area (most diving is from the dinghy). We really enjoyed the boat and could easily have spent another week on it. Crew, Service, and Food: The four of us had a crew of seven (!): captain, engineer, trip director and head dive guide, assistant dive guide, cook, dinghy driver, and server/cleaner. The crew were immensely cheerful and helpful -- we could hardly lift a finger. If there was anything to complain about, their English skills were fairly minimal, with even the trip director just getting by. We had no problem communicating what was needed on our very smooth trip, but it's hard to know how it would have gone had serious difficulties arisen. As for the food, we loved it: Every meal included several different, elaborately-prepared, delicious dishes -- primarily Indonesian with occasional Western thrown in, including chicken, freshly caught fish, shrimp and calamari, and vegetarian. Hot drinks were always available; soft drinks and beer for a reasonable price. Dragons: We took the standard ranger-led walk on Rinca Island (there's a similar one on Komodo), where we saw a number of dragons lounging by the cookhouse and a few in the wild. However, a beach on the south side of Rinca where we anchored for a couple of nights also had several dragons wandering around. Sitting in the dinghy at the edge of the surf was a great chance to safely observe and photograph them. Agent: We used Worldwide Dive and Cruise to book the trip. We came across their website at random, but it was their agent Ksenia who asked a few questions about where we'd been and what we like in a dive trip, then suggested Komodo. She was spot on. She also gave us a 5% discount and booked our domestic flights. We'll definitely use them again. Other Activities: Our international flights were in and out of Bali so we spent a couple of nights in pleasant Ubud. Our major activity aside from the diving was a four-day trek up Mt. Rinjani on Lombok Island -- challenging and highly recommended for those of you who like some hiking to complement your underwater activities.
Websites	Grand Komodo -- Nusa Tara
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Worldwide
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	rainy, cloudy	Seas	calm, currents
Water Temp	77-83°F / 25-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	30-80 Ft/ 9-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	None that bothered us
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	Squadrons
Dolphins	1 or 2	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	[None]

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Dive Review of Grand Komodo -- Nusa Tara in Indonesia/Komodo & Rinca Islands

Grand Komodo -- Nusa Tara, Dec, 2012,

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 Grand Komodo -- Nusa Tara in
Indonesia/Komodo & Rinca Islands