We stayed at Villa Markisa in Tulamben in March 2023 after three weeks diving in Raja Ampat and one week diving in Amed, which is just down the road from Tulamben. There was some minor overlap in dive sites between Amed and Tulamben, primarily the Liberty Wreck, but both areas have many close by dive sites.

We had pre-booked our five day stay at Villa Markisa, including three days of diving (two tanks per day) through our travel agents, Anne and Scott with Blue Water Dive Travel (who did a great job).

Villa Markisa is located in very quiet area. There are very few restaurants within walking distance so we were glad that we had booked the full board package. The food was excellent. We met people who were staying a lot longer than us and no one seemed to be tired of eating at Villa Markisa. The open air dining area is quite elegant.

Villa Markisa is a small operation. We got the impression that at least one of the owners is on site most, if not all, of the time. It shows. All aspects of the resort run like clock work including food service, housekeeping, grounds maintenance and the top notch dive operation.

We stayed in Room #4. It was luxurious with a comfortable king size bed, a giant bathroom and a nice front porch with a big daybed overlooking the pool and ocean. The internet worked fine for the most part.

The on-site dive operation caters to very serious divers and even more serious photographers. While almost all of the other dive operations in Tulamben and Amed offer primarily shore diving, Villa Markisa specializes in boat dives.
Villa Markisa has two modern, high speed dive boats. Most the dives are immediately offshore and are typically only a few kilometers from the resort. We find boat dives more comfortable than shore diving so were were happy to see the dive boats after spending a week in Amed doing shore dives (although we are not complaining, the shore diving in Amed was also great).

Villa Markisa also specializes in muck diving and blackwater diving. Some of the more serious photographers did mostly muck diving and blackwater diving, both of which are apparently particularly good in the Tulamben area. We usually just did reef dives when the others were doing muck or blackwater diving. Although, the muck diving we did was very interesting.

One of the Villa Markisa owners is apparently the lead sponsor of the Mero Foundation which operates a marine biology training center just down the beach from the resort. The center appears to specialize in training young Indonesian women to become PhD level marine scientists. Ask if a tour is possible. We really enjoyed meeting the young scientists.

In summary, Villa Markisa is a great option for those looking for world class diving and a high end, all inclusive resort that is easy to reach via the international airport in Denpasar.

Cove Eco Resort

We were visiting Raja Ampat as part of a 45 day trip to Indonesia. We spent 11 days at Sorido Bay (reviewed separately) before our stay at Cove Eco, which was also 11 days.

Anne and Scott with Blue Water Dive Travel assisted us with our trip planning. They did a great job. Our goal was to dive us much of Raja Ampat as we could staying at land based resorts rather than on liveaboards. Splitting our time between Sorido and Cove Eco allowed us to dive much of northern Raja Ampat with very little overlap in dive sites.

Cove Eco is more remote and less polished that Sorido Bay. It is located on Yeben Island very close to the Fam Islands, which turned out to be one of our favorite places to dive in Raja Ampat (it may be our favorite place on the planet).

The staff is all Indonesian with most coming from the surrounding islands, although some of the dive staff were from Sulawesi. The staff could not have been more delightful.

During our stay, the Cove Eco guests generally seemed to be less experienced divers than the guests at Sorido. However, the dive operation, run by Obin, is top notch and would not disappoint even the most experienced diver. Each evening everyone would gather together before dinner and Obin would present the plan for the next day. He moved people around from boat to boat to make sure that everyone got to visit the best dive sites and to accommodate personal preferences.

Many of the guests were snorkelers rather than divers. Obin ran separate dive and snorkeling boats every day. That seems to work better than having divers and snorkelers together.

The boats were reasonably fast outboards with plenty of shade and good ladders. Each diver was assigned a storage bin under his/her seat, which was handy. Our divemaster, Raquel from Sulawesi, was outstanding. Elvin, our boat captain at Cove, turned out to be the husband of Usal, our diver guide at Sorido. Raja Ampat is indeed a small place.

Each morning was a two tank dive, typically involving a 30 to 45 minute boat ride in either direction. Most mornings we went to either to the fabulous Fam Islands or the remote and mostly pristine western part of Gam island.
The afternoon dives were single tank dives a short boat ride away. We seldom duplicated a dive site. Many days, my wife and I were the only divers doing afternoon dives. It was luxurious.

In general, we found the area around Yeben to be much more deserted that the Kri area with far fewer liveaboards. Although, we frequently encountered other groups who had made the trip to the Fam Islands. As near as we could tell other than a few homestays, Cove Eco is the closest dive resort to the Fam Islands. That is a big point in Cove Eco’s favor.

We found the dives from Cove Eco to generally have better visibility and less current than the dives we did in the Kri area. Although, the diving from Sorido was also world class in every respect. We only used reef hooks very occasionally on the Cove Eco dives and we would have been fine without them. We saw fewer Mantas on the Cove Eco dives, but to be fair, we saw so many Manta’s on the Sorido dives that by the time we got to Cove Eco, we were more interested in seeing other things. We did not seek out Manta dives as some other guests did. Those who wanted “Manta dives” saw plenty.

In mid-March, the water temperature ranged between 83 and 84 F. We never wore wet suits, but most people did. Most dives were around an hour, which was plenty. Nitrox was not available during our stay, but Cove Eco is going to add it. We would have dived Nitrox is available, but really didn’t miss it.

Cove Eco is the only “civilization” on Yeben Island. We were able to swim or hike anywhere on the island that we wanted to go. That was nice. The large house reef is quite good, especially for night dives or snorkeling.

Cove Eco, by most standards, and certainly by Raja Ampat standards, is high end. However, the facilities are a notch below Sorido’s. The place is just so remote that it must be very hard to maintain. That showed a bit but was not a problem for us.

We had one of the large “Superior” cottages with an enclosed open air shower and sink room. The A/C worked great and we slept well in the largest bed we had ever seen — ours was configure for a couple but they can be configured for up to four people.

All of the cottages are directly on the water with wide ocean views. It is truly a spectacular setting. We loved lounging on the covered front porch on our cottage after a day of diving. The outdoor furniture, which included a cushioned sofa and a large day bed, was very comfortable. Unfortunately, there was a lot of plastic and other trash that washed up on the beach every time high tide came in. However, the staff would walk the beach as a group and pick up as much of the trash as they could. We appreciated that but it is a shame that it was necessary.

Some people used bug spray but we live in Florida and are used to bugs. We hardly used the provided bug spray. The Raja Ampat bugs are lightweights compared to the heavy hitters in Florida.

Cove Eco has a beach resort feel. The open air (but covered) outdoor lounge and dining areas had white sand floors. It was a laid back vibe. If you never put on shoes, most of the staff and other guests would probably not even notice. Meals were served plated, rather than buffet style. The chef and her very able staff offered a few special options for each meal and there were always standby options available if one did not like any of the special items on the menu. The food and service were outstanding.

The resort offers shared cell-based internet, but it only worked sporadically and, even when it did work, it was painfully slow. Our iPhones with Telkomsel SIMs cards rarely got enough of a data connection on Yeben to be usable. Although we found that we could sometimes use them during our surface intervals on days when we dove other islands.

In summary, Cove Eco is a great option for those looking for spectacular diving, comfortable accommodations and great food in place so remote that its hard to believe that a resort can function at all, let alone excel as Cove Eco does.

Note: The photos included with this review are not necessarily my best photos. I took hundreds. I am still sorting them out. These are just a representative sample.