Dive Review of Peter Hughes -- Komodo Dancer in
Indonesia/Komodo

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Peter Hughes -- Komodo Dancer, Aug, 2011, by Philip johnston, Bayswater, AU ( Reviewer 6 reports with 1 Helpful vote). Report 6251.
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	The Komodo Dancer is a wooden hulled schooner, although the sails were basically only for show as we motored from place to place. The boat is in good condition, the passengers in 1 cabin complained of a leaking toilet but I didn't have any problems myself with the boat or any of the fittings. The cabins were a little on the small side though. I rated the crew as excellent. All of the 14 passengers took the same flight from Bali to the departure port of Labuan Bajo, however the luggage of 5 or 6 of them was simply not loaded onto the plane. Despite the next day being a national holiday in Indonesia the cruise director Jimmy & the local office managed to quickly track down the missing bags & arrange for them to be collected from the airport (when they did eventually arrive)& delivered to the boat immediately, which was a pretty good effort. For those who had no dive gear in the interim, rental gear was provided at no charge. I found all crew members attentive & helpful without fail, particularly the dive crew who consistently carried camera gear to the dive tenders for us. The divemaster did a preliminary dive on all dive sites to ensure currents were not unreasonable. Food was of good quality without being gourmet, & in good quantity. Unlike every other live-aboard I have been on, beer & soft drinks were free of charge. Diving was a good mix of reefs, sea mounts & a few critter/muck dives. I would rate 4-5 of the dive sites visited (including Cannibal Roack & Crystal Rock) as world-class, with the rest being reaonable to good. I can recall only 1 dive (an exploratory dive at the southern end of Komodo) as being a dud. We dived one well-known site (GPS), & whilst it was good & a few pelagics & sharks were seen the divemaster indicated that the shark life there is now a shadow of what it was 10 years ago....may all those who eat shark fin soup choke on it.... Mantas were seen in good quantities at 2 dive sites, once or twice approaching within touching distance. I would have liked a few more critter/muck dives however the cruise director generally deferred to the majority wishes of the passengers, who were generally disinterested in muck dives despite their quality. After diving Cannibal Rock twice we dove a nearby site called Yellow Wall, I would have preferred to have done the critter dive at the small bay near Cannibal rock (which we did later that day as a night dive). Fans of muck dives should ask specifically to dive that small bay as the critter life there equalled anything I have seen at Lembeh. We visited a beach on Rinca to see Komodo Dragons.....whilst it was good to be able to see these creatures in the wild & reasonably close-up whilst on the beach, a fair degree of caution should be exercised as the dragons proved to be quite aggresive & at one stage had to be pushed away from us with poles by the crew. Overall, I rated the cruise as a professionally run operation, with excellent levels of service from crew. Highlights? - good numbers of interactions with Mantas, & one of the divemasters showing me a Rhinopia he had found at Cannibal Rock - the first (& only) Rhinopia I have seen in almost 30 years of diving.
Websites	Peter Hughes -- Komodo Dancer
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Australia, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia (Bali, Rajah Ampat, Lembeh), Cocos, Cozumel, Galapogas, Tahiti, Tonga
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	calm, currents
Water Temp	22-27°C / 72-81°F	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	20-40 M / 66-131 Ft
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	No-decompression diving
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	Squadrons
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
UW Photo Comments	Good amounts of space for photographers, the crew were good in transferring cameras to/from dive tenders etc. All power points were Indonesian but a number of adaptors were provided free of charge for European/American (but not Australian) rechargers.

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Dive Review of Peter Hughes -- Komodo Dancer in Indonesia/Komodo

Peter Hughes -- Komodo Dancer, Aug, 2011,

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 Peter Hughes -- Komodo Dancer in
Indonesia/Komodo