Dive Review of Papua Diving/Kri Eco in
Indonesia/Rajah Ampat

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Papua Diving/Kri Eco: "Wow. As good as everyone says. Worth the travel, and we'll be back", May, 2023, by Lisa Jabusch and Steve Nieters, TN, US ( Sr. Contributor 29 reports with 9 Helpful votes). Report 12416.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	This was the start of our first trip to Indonesia and we were there 2 weeks, bridging April and May. We chose Kri Eco because it was noticeably cheaper than the next door Sorido Bay Resort. They have the same diving and the same dive operator, but the latter has air conditioning and completely fresh water in the bathrooms. Kri Eco met and exceeded our expectations for a diving Eco Lodge. The food was good, albeit limited, and the staff were friendly and ran things smoothly. Others would likely prefer the A/C, even though there were fans in the rooms. The room was very large, had a desk, and lots of storage space. The large deck extending over the water at high tide was fantastic, had a couple of beanbag chairs, and served as a great drying area for clothes, as long as you SECURELY fastened them! Note that Kri Eco (as well as Sorido Bay) are mostly staffed by residents of a Seventh Day Adventist village. Thus, no dive operations from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday. Shore diving is available off the jetty during this time, as well as a night dive on Saturday. If you want hard liquor during your stay, it won't be frowned upon if you bring your own. Dive operations were smooth, quite competent, and on time. Each dive boat can carry maximum of 8 divers, but the two of us often were in a boat by ourselves, or with 2 or 3 other people. There was only one day when we were in a boat with 6 people. Given that each traveling group had its own dive guide (or more), hitting the water together did not mean that we dove as a group of 4 or 6; in fact, we always dove as a group of 2 with our guide. This was very beneficial when one of us ran into ear issues and consistently took an extra minute or two to descend. No worries about messing up others' dives, and we were thereafter scheduled for dives without ripping currents that necessitated fast descents. (Overall a good thing, as we were after macro photography subjects.) N.B. that this was in a rather low season, so you'll see fully loaded boats on other occasions. Each group had the same guide for their entire stay, which enabled the guides to quickly learn what the group was interested in. Due to a minor injury, we had another guide for a couple of days, and he also quickly got up to speed on our desire to see more tiny things. (Both Theo and his brother/substitute Alvion, were quite good at spotting critters. Theo in particular spent 3 days with another guide looking for pygmy seahorses, which were elusive at this time of year. We got spoiled by his spotting ability, I'm afraid.) In the course of 38 dives each, we saw everything from Reef Manta Rays at cleaning station to pygmy shrimp. Wobbegong Sharks were so plentiful that we eventually didn't even go out of our way to look at them--and on the last day, we actually declined to expend time and battery power to photograph yet another stationary leaf fish. Didn't see whales or dolphins while diving, but saw a multitude of dolphins and more than several Pilot and sperm whales from boats and the jetty. Very warm water. One of us comfortably went without a hood for the first time in years, and the other dove in his swimsuit and T-shirt like usual--but this time no one looked askance at that. If you want strong currents, they are here; if you don't want strong currents, that also can be sought out for you. And a shout out to Tom, the dive manager, who researched what was necessary to fix one of our Sherwood DIN first stages. That was a lifesaver, as we have many more dives scheduled over the course of this trip. Finally, I've attached a couple of videos: 1) Blue-Ringed Octopus attacked and eaten by Cheek-lined Wrasse video (pure luck to get this) [youtube.com link]; and 2) a leaf fish clumsily moving along [youtube.com link]. For more, including Mantas and Pygmy seahorse, we have a personal (no Ads) blog with one post giving a pictorial overview of this two weeks of diving. [lisajtravels.com link]
Websites	Papua Diving Kri Eco
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Fiji, French Polynesia, Cozumel, Belize, Hawaii, Cayman Islands, other Caribbean locations, Great Barrier Reef, Solomon Islands, PNG, Honduras
Closest Airport	Sarong	Getting There	We flew ATL to Singapore via Doha. Couple days in Singapore; a couple days in Makassar, then on to Sarong
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, cloudy	Seas	calm
Water Temp	84-87°F / 29-31°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	30-60 Ft/ 9-18 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	~30 meters max (didn't affect us), 3 minute safety stop, 1 hour dive. The latter was a loose restriction, and if interesting things were going on, the dive would be longer.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	Squadrons
Dolphins	Schools	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	> 2
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	No rinse tank on the boat. Staff is very careful with all cameras. Fresh water rinse tank on dock and dive shop. Did all editing and charging in room.

Subscriber's Comments

By Robin A Schiendelman in PA, US at May 10, 2023 10:56 EST

Amazing blue ring video!! Thanks for sharing.

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Dive Review of Papua Diving/Kri Eco in Indonesia/Rajah Ampat

Papua Diving/Kri Eco: "Wow. As good as everyone says. Worth the travel, and we'll be back", May, 2023,

Photos Submitted with this Report

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):

Subscriber's Comments

Dive Review of Papua Diving/Kri Eco in
Indonesia/Rajah Ampat