Damai I (Dive Damai Liveaboard)
In March of 2009 my daughter and I flew to Kaimana to board the Damai I for a trip to Triton Bay and then onto Misool. The trip got off to a rocky start because pirates were not allowing boats to go into Triton Bay so that part of our itinerary was deleted. Unfortunately the first two days of the trip were then spent cruising to the Misool area where the real good diving got underway. We did do some diving in route, but it was not all that great.
Much has been written about the actual diving in this area and you can see my region review elsewhere here. I also highly recommend the Burt Jones book on Raja Ampat diving. They had this available for sale on the boat and it is fantastic. It gives very detailed description of diving at each site and we used it throughout our trip to know what to expect.
The Damai boat is beautiful and at the best in the world class. The two cabins in the back (we had one of them) have balconies out the back. If you want to combine a honeymoon and a dive trip together, this would be the best. The bathroom was also enormous. All of the toiletries were great, kind of unusual for a dive boat.
The food was very good with a lot of variety. We had at least two choices for every meal with lots of fruit and salad items to go with the main courses. They had great post-dive snacks which were warm, chocolate, and tasty.
The Damai had two skifs for taking divers to dive sites. They were each designed to make it especially easy for divers to get in and out of the boat. If I am still diving at 80, I would want to dive on these boats. Safety was a big concern at all times and the divemasters always went out to each site before we dove to make sure that currents were acceptable. Even with that caution, currents in this area change quickly and we did have some strong challenges in the Misool area.
One of the real treats on board was that the boat offered pretty much open access to the on board massage service. It was great and my daughter got about two per day.
Because the boat only has 10 passengers, the groups were always small. We had one divemaster for each group of 4 or 5 people. They spent most of their time looking for pygmy seahorses or some other small things.
Tanks and gear stayed on he boat (designed by divers I am sure), so you never had to carry anything back and forth to the boat. As a result, the dive deck was calm and civilized.
Laundry was done every day and the boat would always wash anything that you wanted. It really cuts down how much you have to bring with.
Pretty much everyone on board was an underwater photographer and the boat had a large room with personal space for everyone. It was the best that I had ever seen on a boat. Of course, the subject matter under the water is simply the best in the world.
The ending was also nice. we had one bill which covered everything including airport taxes. So we didn't need to do anything but get our butts on the plane once we left the boat.
