Rooms are comfortable and clean. The restaurant menu was rather limited. It would be good if they had a late night menu for the night we came back after the kitchen closed. There are no restaurants that deliver nearby. Nor were there restaurants within walking distance who were open. If there are other hotels around, rooms with balconies are much better to dry gear with.
The dive sites are varied and interesting. There was something for everyone.
I had the pleasure of joining the Dune Aurora on an 11-night liveaboard in Raja Ampat. The customer service was exceptional from start to finish.
A traditional phinisi, the Dune Aurora is inspiring to look at from afar and I enjoyed taking in the incredible craftsmanship while onboard. The Aurora’s luxurious staterooms made me feel comfortable throughout the trip, even though I was a solo traveller and shared my room with a stranger. We both had enough space for our belongings without it feeling cramped. The bathroom was well-appointed and had a porthole to look at the incredible scenery.
Food aboard the Aurora never left me wanting, with options for every taste and dietary preference. I spent most happy hours on the sundeck taking in the 360-degree views of the archipelago with a drink in hand. We gathered as a group for our meals at the long dining table where we shared highlights of our dives. The crew prepared a special beach barbeque on a small uninhabited island which unfortunately got rained out in the middle but was enjoyable nonetheless!
Diving from the Dune Aurora was well organized, with equipment shuttled between the dive deck and the tender boats by the crew for each dive. The knowledgeable guides gave detailed dive briefings, which included maps and vital information about currents. From the descent at our first dive site, Barracuda, my mind was blown by the incredible underwater scenery. It seemed as if an unseen conductor was creating a symphony of color and movement with every bit of the dive site and blue water teeming with life. It only got better from there and my favourite dive sites were Boo Windows, Anticoves, Candy Store, Mask Cave, and Melissa's Garden. Misool was the highlight for me, as the pristine reefs seemed untouched with fewer divers and no plastic in the water. The Dampier Strait was also lovely, but Misool stole my heart. Diving in Raja Ampat is well worth the cost and trek to get there.
I enjoyed the non-diving activities available on the Dune Aurora, including kayaking, hiking to the incredible viewpoint, and snorkelling through a unique cave system and in a jellyfish lake. Island visits to Arborek to meet the locals and an early morning hike from Saporkren Village to see the famous bird of paradise were great additions to the itinerary.
Having travelled in late November/early December, I experienced some rainy and cloudy conditions throughout the trip, but the weather did not impact my enjoyment. With an itinerary that covered the best of the Four Kings, spectacular diving, wonderful crew, and exceptional food, my trip on the Aurora couldn’t have been much better.
I enjoyed scuba diving in Kauai throughout an extended stay on the Garden Isle. I did 14 dives in total, which became somewhat repetitive due to the time of year and dive sites visited. A few days of boat diving from Kukuiula Boat Harbor took me to dive sites Fish Bowl, Toilet Bowl, Zach's Pocket, Sheraton Caverns, and Arches. The dive boats from the harbor are large and comfortable. I also did a number of shore dives from Koloa Landing, where you enter via a mucky boat ramp. A highlight of shore diving Koloa was using DPVs (diver propulsion vehicles, aka "underwater scooters") to reach some of Kauai's best dive sites without needing a boat.
Kauai diving is not sensational, but there is some interesting topography such as the lava rock swim-throughs at Sheraton Caverns and there are lots of turtles, nudibranchs, octopus, and fish to enjoy. My favorite thing was listening to the humpback whales underwater! Although I never saw any during my dives, I did see plenty of humpbacks from the dive boats and from shore. Kauai would be a great place to get certified or try a discovery dive. Conditions and dive sites are very weather dependent, with some dive days cancelled due to high surf or low visibility. Sadly, I was there at the wrong time of year to dive Ni'ihau, where divers encounter endangered Hawaiian monk seals, whales, and sharks.
The trip was great! I dived 25 times including 4 night dives. The reef is in good shape with plenty of life. El Aquila is a good shipwreck and an enjoyable dive. Other than one stormy afternoon which caused us to cancel two dives, the weather was great. I recommend this trip to any diver. The crew was excellent with great dive master, a fantastic cook and a top notch skipper. All of the quests were friendly and engaging, and I have even made plans to go on another trip with some of them.
Critter report – lots of macro stuff with little crabs, shrimps, nudibranchs, slugs and stuff. A dozen or so sharks which I really like. Several moray eels. Four octopuses. A number of big lobsters and huge crabs. Plus a couple of turtles.
Curacao has plenty to offer visitors, including nice weather and picture-perfect white sand beaches leading to the turquoise sea. Topside, there are a wide range of worthwhile activities from diving to historical tours to nightclubs, and I sampled a bit of everything. I think it's a great place for people who aren't looking for a dive holiday but want to do some diving while they are on holiday. I did a total of 6 dives during my weeklong stay. The diving is easy, with calm waters and plenty of dive sites to choose from. At Blue Bay Garden, I saw a pod of dolphins underwater for the first time, and only me and my randomly-assigned buddy saw them! I also dived Smokey's, Booby Trap, Mushroom Forest, San Juan, and Snake Bay. Aside from the dolphins, I saw an octopus, turtles, stingrays, puffers, and a pregnant seahorse. Topside, I enjoyed wandering through Willemstad, did a Curacao liqueur tour, a catamaran trip to Klein Curacao, and the local nightlife. Curacao is a great place to do some quality diving and has just as much to offer on land.
I did my open water and advanced certification in Thailand. All of my diving was on the west coast around Railay Beach, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Lanta, and the Similan Islands. Seeing my first shark is what got me hooked, and why I did 24 dives in as many days. The marine life I encountered on those dives spoiled me, with lots of eels, leopard sharks, barracuda, turtles, rays, cuttlefish, ghost pipefish, seahorses, and reef sharks. I enjoyed the diving and the variety of conditions I got to experience while on a liveaboard in the Similan and Surin Islands. I also enjoyed all of the day trips from various laid-back backpacker spots. Topside Thailand holds just as much (if not more) thrall for me - the food, the people, and the stunning landscapes are some of my favourites in the world. It's worth taking time to see more of Thailand than just the southern beach and diving areas, so try to visit Northern Thailand for different cuisines and experiences.
I enjoyed doing my Advanced course on a Similan Islands liveaboard over Christmas. The liveaboard itinerary had a wide variety of dive sites that were well-suited to the five course dives, which included fish identification, night, and drift dives in addition to the mandatory deep and navigation dives. It was my first liveaboard and I loved the easy routine of "dive, eat, sleep, repeat" and how many dives I was able to complete in such a short timespan. I saw a wide variety of marine life typical to the region, including leopard and reef sharks, stingrays, turtles, and loads of fish and macro life. I was not an experienced diver with only 6 logged dives at the time I embarked the boat, but I found the conditions suitable to my comfort level (aside from the night dive, which I swore I would never do again but am now a Night specialty instructor). We got to experience some topside activities, including a hike to a strangely perched boulder on a small island and I recall passing the beach from "The Beach", completely overcrowded with tourists and boats. If you're in Thailand, a liveaboard to the Similan Islands is a great way to get some dives in without breaking the bank or taking too much time. It's easy to get in and out of Phuket, where many boats depart from.
I have done a lot of diving in Bali, over 850 dives covering every corner of the main island and its smaller outlying islands. Diving in Bali is suitable for all levels and offers many unique dive experiences, including wrecks, macro, reefs, walls, and raging currents. Menjangan Island is my favourite place to dive in Bali because of its spectacular coral walls and the dive sites are practically void of divers compared to other areas. The best dive sites at Menjangan are Eel Garden, Underwater Cave, POS 2, and Bat Cave and you can see sharks, electric clams, pygmy squid, seahorses, and tons of nudibranchs and fish. I have had great dives in other areas: Pemuteran, Secret Bay, and Puri Jati in the Northwest, Kubu, Tulamben, and Amed in the Northeast, Padang Bai and Candidasa, and Nusa Penida and Lembongan (though they are much too crowded for my taste). Bali's topside activities are many and varied, from river rafting to waterparks to temples and birdwatching. The people are wonderful, helpful, and friendly. The food is outstanding, especially if you like spicy food. Look for small streetside warungs busy with locals to find the best food in Bali. Be sure to visit some Hindu temples such as Uluwatu. If you surf, there's lots of action for you in South Bali.
This is a very honest review of Koh Tao.
As an experienced diver based in Indonesia, I found the diving in Koh Tao completely underwhelming. I only did four dives during a weeklong stay, and that was at least two more than I needed to get a good picture of the diving scene in Koh Tao. I will caveat this by explaining that the visibility was poor in late October, sometimes down to just a few meters. The four sites I visited were Red Rock, Green Rock, White Rock, and Twins. The most interesting part of the dives tended to be when we headed up for our safety stop, and there were hundreds of Christmas tree worms, which were not at all disturbed by me getting up close for a good look, unlike those in Indonesia that tend to hide if you get close. I mostly encountered other divers underwater, with instructors hauling DSDs directly overhead or large groups of new divers cutting directly through the middle of our group. Every dive site was crowded.
In my experience, the dive operations are a bit chaotic. We boarded the enormous wooden boat from a small tender that left the beach in front of the dive resort, and once onboard, we would go upstairs for a boat briefing, then down to set up our equipment, and back upstairs for the duration of the cruise to the dive site and a site briefing. Fortunately, the boat was far from full when I was there because I definitely would not have joined a second day if it were at capacity. The dives were all led by inexperienced, newly-certified, mostly American divemasters. As such, the dive experience varied between guides. The surface interval was spent on the boat, with cookies, tea, and coffee available. The chaotic logistics began after completing the second dive, when we headed for a major pier (we were not forewarned and had not brought shoes). The boat then tied onto another boat and we were instructed to form a chain across several huge boats to pass the bags of dive equipment to the pier. This was very unexpected. Once we climbed through several boats, we disembarked on a rusty pier and walked to a parking area, where local taxi trucks picked us up and delivered us back to the dive resort. All of this was fine for me but would be problematic for anyone with mobility issues.
I visit Thailand regularly because I love the food. Koh Tao did not disappoint on that front, and I savoured dishes like laab moo, the best masaman curry I've had, a Southern attempt at khao soi, and a variety of tasty western dishes at the restaurant located at our hotel. I spent most of the time working on my laptop in my room or at the beachside restaurant, so this was a cheap destination that suited my purposes while my friend was out diving daily. It was relatively easy to get to, flying to Samui via Singapore, then booked a taxi and ferry with Lomprayah at the desk at the airport. There were ATMs at the Samui airport, as well as a money changer. The ferry was not that comfortable, with hard plastic seats, and we had to carry our suitcases to the front of the ferry and then collect them while everyone else was trying to do the same and disembark. On the return, we booked a catamaran instead, and it was much more comfortable and organized, although the boat swayed more than the ferry (for those who get seasick, the ferry would be a better option). Koh Tao was almost entirely cash only, which caused some problems for us because the ATMs ran out of cash midway through our stay.
Overall, I can see why Koh Tao is so popular with young backpackers looking to party and try scuba diving or get certified. I recommend skipping for experienced divers, mature travelers, and those with higher budgets.
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