Dive Review of Gaia Love in
Indonesia/Raja Ampat

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Gaia Love : "Raja Ampat Indonesia - Gaia Love Live-Aboard", Mar, 2020, by Jason Propsner, GA, US ( Sr. Reviewer 10 reports with 13 Helpful votes). Report 11452 has 2 Helpful votes.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	I flew from Atlanta, GA USA using Qatar Airways, transferring in Doha Qatar and Jakarta. When in Jakarta I used Garuda Airways to fly to Sorong. In Sorong the Gaia Love crew met us at the airport and transferred us to the dock. They were very professional and did a great job greeting us and getting us into two tenders out the boat. The reception on the boat was very nice. Fresh fruit drinks and cold washcloths before snacks and a tour of our rooms. The safety briefing was done for each guest on their particular floor showing the exits, fire safety and exit routes. Each room had life vests as well as more in the main salon. Once the room briefing was done, we were able to setup our dive gear on the spacious and well laid out dive deck. They served us lunch while we waited for more guests to arrive and did a more detailed briefing in the salon before dinner. The first day was a check out dive. Before the dive we had small breakfast consisting of fruits, juice, breads and cereal. The dive deck briefing was a little longer than I would have liked, and the dive briefing was even longer. Filled with risks and peril. The briefings became even worse as we went on dives with current, to the point that a couple of divers got scared and skipped dives. Once we brought this the crew’s attention the briefings became less scary and more informative. It was my impression that the crew had dealt with some new divers in the group and were tailoring the briefings for the lowest experienced. Later they held more thorough briefings with those less experienced divers off to the side. Diving a Raja Ampat is beautiful and in my opinion some of the best in the world. That said it is sometimes advanced and requires experience to get the full enjoyment out of every dive. You should have excellent buoyancy and understand how to dive in current before paying to come all the way to this remote paradise. Our dives were well planned and scheduled. We had to work with other boats and resorts in the area to get on dive sites without other divers. When we did run into other divers it was difficult to separate since most dives were drifting in the current. I spent half of one dive trying to avoid a dive guide from another boat who seemed to be purposely getting in front of me. Otherwise we had the sites to ourselves. The fish populations seemed to much less than when I was here in 2015. We came at the same time of year and visited some of the same sites, only to find less fish. The corals were beautiful, and we saw many more Mantas. We had several pigmy seahorses, a couple of Wobbegong sharks and many turtles. The water was very warm at 84 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit. The boat used aluminum dinghies to ferry us to and from the sites with a back roll entry and a ladder exit once we handed up our BCs, fins and weights. The boat drivers were great and always had one skiff remaining on the site in case any diver surfaced early. The operation was very safe. The dives were guides in small groups with one dive master per 4 or less divers. The dive masters varied in experience and some did a much better job of showing divers critters than others. We did not do much if any reef hook diving. The dive leader was not fond of it and didn’t organize any dives that would allow much reef hooking. The boat was fantastic. It was the best live aboard I have been on in my opinion. Very large rooms. The bathrooms were the size of most luxurious hotels. Unlike most boats that have tiny bathrooms where you have to shower over the toilet, the Gaia was more like a floating four star hotel than a live-aboard. Wide stairs, non-slip flooring on the dive deck, four hot showers on the swim deck for the divers to rinse. The crew worked very hard to manage every part of the trip for each guest. They washed our wetsuits in between each dive. Before the next dive, they would have our suits waiting at our station so we didn’t even have to get them off the hanger. Each station had their own rinse tank and plenty of storage. The tanks, BCs, cameras and fins were all loaded on the skiff before we boarded by the crew. We only needed to carry our masks. The meals were served on a regular schedule. Small breakfast at 6:am, dive at 7:am, then big breakfast made to order. At breakfast lunch and dinner was read aloud and each guest was asked if they wanted to make any changes. This became contentious a couple of times as the other guest gave some picky eaters a rough time. I would have preferred to have this done on a one on one basis, versus having the argue with the group or hear picky people take apart each meal. Sometimes I wanted to throw some of the picky eaters overboard. The meals were very good. Smaller portions than the typical American meal. I always had enough and could have seconds if I wanted. Each meal was served on a plate except on meal we had buffet style. Each day they offered a drink of the day which could be a specialty coffee, espresso or a cookies and cream shake one day… my favorite! The salon was full of snacks and drinks. Water, soft drinks and juice was available. Wine and beer was at cost but very reasonable. At the end of the trip the crew got us off the boat in an organized group and handled all our luggage. The had drivers take us to the airport and made sure we got through security before checking into our airlines. The boat did offer wifi, but I did not test since I am on vacation and didn’t want to be connected. Others report moderate success using the wifi. Others could get cell signal on some of the islands we transited around. Overall, I would highly recommend the Gaia Love and Raja Ampat diving. Getting there is hard, but in my opinion well worth it. I would recommend doing at least 10 days. This trip was 8 days, 9 nights and was too short for how long it took to get there and back home. My video can be seen here [youtube.com link]
Websites	Gaia Love
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Indonesia, Galapagos, Caribbean, Florida, Truk, Palau.
Closest Airport	SOQ	Getting There	Atlanta, GA USA to Doha Qatar to Jakarta Indonesia via Qatar Airways. Jakarta to Sorong via Garuda Air
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, rainy, cloudy	Seas	calm, choppy, currents
Water Temp	84-86°F / 29-30°C	Wetsuit Thickness	2
Water Visibility	20-100 Ft/ 6-30 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	60 minutes in some areas as dives needed to be schedule with other boats/resorts
Liveaboard?	yes	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	Squadrons
Dolphins	1 or 2	Whale Sharks	None
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 Gaia Love had separate rinse tanks per diver for your camera and a camera room for charging right in the salon. Each station was provided a towel and dry cloth. You get one outlet per station so bring a small travel power strip for 220 outlets. The crew handled camera with care and had great facilities to help photographers.

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Gaia Love in Indonesia/Raja Ampat

Gaia Love : "Raja Ampat Indonesia - Gaia Love Live-Aboard", Mar, 2020,

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 Gaia Love in
Indonesia/Raja Ampat