Dive Review of misool eco resort in
Indonesia/raja ampat

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misool eco resort, Mar, 2012, by Hollie Lindauer, OR, US ( Sr. Reviewer 7 reports with 3 Helpful votes). Report 6480.
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
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Combining the flights and boat journey, it takes about 1 1/2 days to get to the resort from Bali and about 2 full days to return to Bali. It is similar for Jakarta. Flights (lion air, garuda, express air) from Bali are routed through Makassar to Sorong with an overnight required on the outbound and direct on the return. The outboard boats take about 4.5 hours between Sorong and Misool. Flights can be delayed and after meeting our flight, the misool staff deposited us at the local hotel until we were all ready to depart at about 3:30 pm. The port does require some climbing aboard and across the outboards from the docks. Our afternoon boat trip was very choppy to pounding on the open seas. The weather frequently changed from sun to cloudy to rain. The resort itself is gorgeous and an amazing accomplishment. It is entirely constructed of reclaimed wood. They have worked hard to incorporate many ecological features -desalinating water, creating septic gardens, water saving devices, sustainable food sources only. The rooms are comfortable and elegant with spacious decks and steps into the lagoon. The lagoon has beautiful clear water and octopus, moray, spotted sting ray, needle fish and baby sharks are often visible from the board walks. This easily accessed lagoon is a great snorkel and swimming area and part of the house reef. All the public rooms and the room bathrooms are open air, which is problematic for mosquitoes. Bring your own deet - they do have citronella for sale. There is a dehumidifier in the rooms - so they are not really air conditioned. There are fans and mosquito nets. The food is plentiful - cereal and yogurt at 8am breakfast (dive 1), main breakfast was pancakes or eggs at 11 (dive 2), lunch 2 (dive 3) and dinner (night dive) often offered indonesia /european dishes, fried calamari, fried chicken with vegetarian options - tempe, tofu Afternoon tea was baked goods, cookies or fruit/nuts (dusk dive 4). Fresh fruits and vegetables did run out. Drinks were always available, including smoothies, beer and some wines. The staff is local and very helpful/thoughtful. The dive guides consisted of 4 local crew and one briton who was fairly new to the resort. They do rotate staff for time off. Nitrox is free and measured between 26-31 %. They were always willing to add you to or remove you from any of the 4-5 dives offered daily. We went out twice alone with our dive guide. Usually there were 4 or 5 in our group. If there were 6, we had a second guide. Or if the boat had 8 we went into 2 separate groups. Dive sites are 5-20 min. away. Some days we did breakfast on an island to avoid returns. Dive entry is a roll off the side of the open outboards. They do have an awning on each boat. On return from dives, you hand up weights and inflated, fins at ladder. I thought they were a bit strict on the 60 minutes. The guests were from australia, sweden, germany, US and austria. Most were photographers. Given the unusual and variety of species with mild currents, it's pretty ideal for photographers. The guides did check for currents and made every attempt to avoid any difficulties. Corals are often feeding and I got the impression that the 60-100' vis was good. The guides did have some difficulty restraining photographers who had full lights on night critters/shark and who sat on corals while photographing. The soft corals are stunning, with huge sea fans and whips often protruding from wall faces - that makes them difficult to protect with some divers. The hard corals do show damage from monsoon storms and dynamite diving. The resort is located at an old shark finning/fishing camp. They do add their own enforcing of the marine preserve and are doing some reef restoration work along with manta research. One manta and one leopard shark was sited during our trip. We would often see one or two large black/white tips per dive, a turtle or two. There were small schools of bream, jacks, mackerel, bump heads, bat fish and snapper. Larger schools of banner, fusiliers, anthias, glass fish. Wonderful varieties of angels, snappers, damsels, butterfly, parrot, trigger, file, dart, clown and anemones - very active and unique nudibranchs, huge flat worms, mantis shrimp - and pygmy seahorses, squat lobsters, crinoid shrimp for the eagle eye - we often saw scorpion and leaf fish, epaulette and wobegone sharks. Sadly there is plastic trash floating in the water and on the beaches from the shipping lanes. Diving is very similar to Wakitobi. The resort is smaller, not as easy to get to and not as luxurious (ac, boats and food). Misool is newer and they are expanding.
Websites	misool eco resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	251-500 dives
Where else diving	red sea, caymans, palau, rangiroa, fiji, philippeans, roatan, belize, cozumel, hawaii
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, rainy, cloudy	Seas	calm, choppy
Water Temp	80-85°F / 27-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	5
Water Visibility	60-100 Ft/ 18-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	Max time - about 60 minutes - some guides were more restrictive than others. Max depth - was suggested at 90' first dive, 60'-80' second, 60' 3rd and 40' 4th dive.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
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	Desk tops with power stations, lighting and internet are provided in the dive center for each room. The dive guides try very hard to locate specimens for photos, often going separately at greater depths to find a pygmy seahorse or something, then calling photographers down to avoid deco times. They do charge for internet access.

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Dive Review of misool eco resort in Indonesia/raja ampat

misool eco resort, Mar, 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 misool eco resort in
Indonesia/raja ampat