Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in
Indonesia/Sulawesi & Borneo

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Aggressor Fleet: "Transit from Lembeh Straits to Borneo", Jul, 2024, by John Morgan, AZ, US ( Reviewer 6 reports with 3 Helpful votes). Report 13032 has 1 Helpful vote.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food	N/A
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	It was 13 days on the Raja Ampat Aggressor. They run this trip as part of their transition from Raja Ampat to Borneo. We ended up traveling 2,000 nautical miles. That is a lot of sea miles. We started the trip at Lembeh Straits for 2 days. It lived up to it's billing as the world's best muck diving. I took 1,200 images in 8 dives here. Among the things I saw- frogfish, sea horses, cuttlefish,squid,eels, octopus, mantis shrimp and countless nudibranchs.The highlight for me was gently picking up a stick that a sea horse was clinging to. As I picked it up, he calmly moved and wrapped his tail around a nearby leaf stem. Starting on the 2nd evening the captain started moving the boat to the west. We did a day at Bangka Island and a day at Bunaken National Park (lots of turtles here). The highlight for me here was a pigmy seahorse at Bangka. A few comments on the Raja Ampat and it's crew. It's the best crew I've ever seen. The food was great, the divemaster 'Pep' is first rate. He was a good mixture of strict when it came to the rules and our safety, and keeping things light with jokes and card tricks. I really appreciated how the crew handled my expensive Sea&Sea camera system. I never had to move it from the camera table. They would place it in the zodiac, rinse tank, and then back to the table. The Raja Ampat Boat is well maintained, but an older boat. The rooms and dining area is a bit dated. Our room was fine, but the bathroom floor was always wet. Whoever did the tilework did not set it right. We ended up using flip flops every time we went went in there. After leaving Bunaken we spent 3 days transiting the north end of Sulawesi Island. We dove a couple reefs that did not even have names. For a couple of these days we did 2 dives per day. That was understandable as we had a lot a miles to go. Everyone enjoyed those middle days. It gave us a chance to rest our ears. It was a highly experienced group of American divers on this trip. Most of them were from Northern California. As a fellow cold water diver (Southern Calif), I can appreciate this. The tropics is easy compared to the cold, murky waters of California. As we transited from Sulawesi to Borneo we were on the hunt for Whale Sharks. The Whale Sharks here hang out under the floating fish platforms. Eventually we found a platform with 2 Whale Sharks and it was incredible. Spending 70 minutes with 2 Whale Sharks is always a good thing. The last part of the trip was diving in the Derawan Islands. The day dives here were heavy current drift diving. We saw Eagle rays, barracuda and a few distant sharks. The highlight for me was the Zebra Shark. I had never seen one. We're drifting along and Pep signals us to follow him. We dive down 60 feet fighting the strong current all the way. There is the Zebra Shark in the sand. I got one good picture of it before it took off like a rocket. We had 2 Non-Diving activities in the Derawans. The first was a visit to a turle nursery. We got to see the little guys hatch from the sand and then they released another batch into the sea from the beach. 1% of baby turtles make it to adulthood. We watch the birds take a few right off the beach. Then we did a snorkel at a jellyfish lake. It's very similar to Palau, execpt the lake is bigger and there are not very many jellyfish. We finished the trip at a great macro spot right off a resort dock. We had 2 crocodille fish and a stonefish on that last dive. WEATHER REPORT FOR THE TRIP-The first 2 days were cloudy with a little rain, but nobody cared and it certainly did not effect the muck dives at Lembeh. After that it was sunny for the whole trip, but we often had strong wind. The choppy water made for some rough zodiac rides. Choppy water made for some dicey entries into the zodiac too. SUMMARY-We all agreed it was a great trip. It was more like a voyage than a traditional 1 week dive boat. The deck & zodiac crews were first rate. We often got a quick shoulder massage right after the dive. I thought that was a nice touch. The macro diving was incredible. The big stuff sightings were a bit slim. Besides the Whale Shark dive, we did not really see much pelagic action. The sharks and eagle rays we did see were always too far away for a decent picture.
Websites	Aggressor Fleet
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	California, Hawaii, Palau, Red Sea, Carribean, Maldives, Cocos, Socorros, Sea Of Cortez, Philipines, Indonesia, Coral Sea
Closest Airport	Manado	Getting There	LAX to Singapore to Manado
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, windy	Seas	choppy, currents
Water Temp	80-81°F / 27-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	30-80 Ft/ 9-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	?
Enforced diving restrictions	Buddy diving. SMB required
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	1 or 2
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	N/A
UW Photo Comments	The crew does a very good job handling cameras. We had several big, expensive rigs on this trip, so that was very important. The camera tables had plenty of room and the boat had 2 large tables in the salon for charging-plenty of charging ports.

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Dive Review of Aggressor Fleet in Indonesia/Sulawesi & Borneo

Aggressor Fleet: "Transit from Lembeh Straits to Borneo", Jul, 2024,

Photos Submitted with this Report

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 Aggressor Fleet in
Indonesia/Sulawesi & Borneo