Indo Siren
S/Y Indo-Siren Review:
Great boat with a lot of space. 2 dingies for dives. Staff were very professional, equipment was in good working order. Rooms were spacious . Computers in each room with a flat screen to download and view photos - what a luxury.
Food:
Food was great and the chef accommodated for a range of dietary requirements. I particularly liked the desserts. The dining area was comfortable and spacious.
Camera room:
There is a dedicated camera charging area with tonnes of space for strobes, domes etc. There was never a shortage of power points.
Diving:
Nitrox was available on request.
Our Irish dive coordinator, Deidre was great, and was very thorough with her briefings. She had a wealth of experience around Raja Ampat. Staff was very helpful, and once gear was organised on the first day everything else was straight forward.
There was a large table area covered in towels to place camera gear, masks etc between dives.
Raja ampat is a magnificent part of the world. All types of diving - mangroves (watch out for crocs!), muck diving, amazing night dives, drift, manta cleaning stations...I particularly liked manta alley. A block of reef on sand with numerous large mantas! There are not a lot of big fish in Raja ampat, but certainly enough for some nice wide-angle photography. The real treat though is macro. You can fix on several square meters of reef for a whole dive there is so much to see.
Staff were very considerate with camera gear - getting in and our of dingies etc.
Water temperature is nice and warm in Raja Ampat. So no need for a 5mm wetsuit...
Marine life:
Including manta rays, eagle rays, pygmy seahorse, wobbygongs,thumb-cracker shrimps, frogfish, nudibranchs, sponges, tunicates, and lovely coral.
Overall:
Certainly one of the best macro diving locations in the world. The staff were excellent. Certainly a trip I would like to do again some day.
