Dive Review of Misool Eco Resort in
Indonesia/Raja Ampat

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Misool Eco Resort: "Healthy reefs and abundant fish life", Feb, 2020, by David E Reubush, VA, US ( Top Contributor 66 reports with 33 Helpful votes). Report 11440 has 2 Helpful votes.
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Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	My wife, I, and my dive buddy spent 12 days at Misool Eco Resort in early February as participants in Burt Jones and Maurine Shimlock’s “retirement” trip. Misool is an amazing place and a tribute to what can be done in the middle of nowhere when people don’t know what they can’t do. One evening we were treated to a talk about how Andy, Marit, their partners, and staff built the resort from nothing; including cutting lumber from salvaged trees that had washed up on islands in the area. They have leased a large area of the surrounding ocean and established a no-take marine reserve, where the biomass continues to increase, and engaged members of the local community to serve as rangers to ensure that there is no fishing in the reserve. I first visited the area 10 years ago on a liveaboard and have been there a number of times since then. I can testify that the fish life has increased and the reefs are healthier. The only downside, if it is a downside, is that 10 years ago we never saw another liveaboard the whole trip, now the resort has to schedule dive site visits by anywhere from 8 to a dozen liveaboards that are in the area at any given time. Staying at the resort for an extended period of time gave us the opportunity to visit all of the famous dive sites such as Magic Mountain, Boo Window, Whale Rock, Nudi Rock, Tank Rock, etc., some multiple times. It also allowed my wife, who has retired from diving, to come along and enjoy snorkeling. The resort runs boats to snorkeling sites as well as having steps down from the water cottages to the house reef where snorkeling is as easy as walking down the steps from your cottage into the water and putting on your fins. A typical dive day starts with first breakfast at 6:30, first dive leaves at 8:00 with a 1 hour bottom time, second breakfast after the dive, second dive leaves at 11:00 with another 1 hour bottom time, lunch after the dive, a rest period after lunch, third dive leaves at 3:00 with another 1 hour bottom time, and dinner at around 7:00 to 7:30. There were two days when we visited some of the sites further from the resort where we went out at 8:00, did our first dive, then had second breakfast and surface interval on an island beach, followed by the second dive. Evening/night dives were available on request, if there were enough people interested to make it worthwhile. We only did one night dive during the trip as most people were tired after the three day dives. We visited Magic Mountain three times on this trip. The current was typically strong, so we just hooked in and watched. (Make sure you take a reef hook.) There were mantas being cleaned on two of the three visits. However, while we would have liked to see mantas on every visit there were always big napoleon wrasse, schools of yellow snappers, sharks, tuna, and a variety of other big fish to enjoy. While Magic Mountain is the signature manta site we visited a number of other sites with manta cleaning stations such as Wara Ridge, Eagles Nest, and Gus Ridge. From large to small Misool has it all. There were lots of sites with big sea fans and pygmy sea horses. We generally saw both denise and/or bargibanti pygmies at Fiabacet, Café D’ Break, South Kalig, Sixth Sense, Selat 2, Cape Boo, Rep Kima, Warra Ridge, Boo West, and probably a couple of other sites that I neglected to note. On our night dive at Café D’ Break things were pretty slow for about the first 45 minutes of the dive with the only excitement being a 5 foot long barracuda, which has learned to use the dive lights as a hunting aid, zooming in out of the darkness to startle, even when you knew to expect it. The last 15 minutes turned things around as we found 5 walking sharks who had finally decided that it was time to hunt. The one thing I was disappointed in was 10 years ago there was an abundance of nudibranchs all over the place. Now the number and variety of nudibranchs has declined significantly. While this may be due to the increase in fish life no one seemed to know for sure. All things considered, I believe Misool has probably the healthiest reefs and most fish life of any of the places I have dived, their dive boats are comfortable, although none have heads, and all the staff is great. The water was warm and visibility was good, but not great. The water was hazy, being full of particulates and plankton which was food for the small creatures and filter feeders. The weather was dry and sunny with the exception of one afternoon near the end of the trip when we had rain. While I really liked the diving at Misool I would have been happier if the food was better and the dinnertime service a bit quicker. Breakfast, with a variety of eggs available, was always good. Lunch and dinner tended toward Indonesian food which I was not a fan of. After dinner you were offered a choice of, generally 3 alternatives, for the next night’s dinner and, if you didn’t like any of those, there was a list of a number of dishes that were always available. Unfortunately, the only really western choices were pizza and sliders. I got tired of eating those two for most of the trip. I did try tuna on a couple of occasions and found that it was typically overcooked.
Websites	Misool Eco Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Australia, Belize, Bimini, Bonaire, Caymans, Curacao, Fiji, Galapagos, Indonesia (Wakatobi, Raja Ampat, Komodo, Lembeh, Bali, Banda Sea, Ambon), Philippines, Red Sea, Solomon Islands, Southern Bahamas, St. Thomas, Turks & Caicos
Closest Airport	Sorong	Getting There	Fly to Jakarta, take the Garuda after midnight flight to Sorong, and take the resort shuttle boat for 4 hours to Misool.
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny, dry	Seas	choppy, currents
Water Temp	83-86°F / 28-30°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	60-80 Ft/ 18-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	1 hour dive times, come back with some air in your tank.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	Squadrons
Dolphins	Schools	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
UW Photo Comments	Spacious camera room with lights and outlets at each place. Dive guides carried cameras to/from the boat and put them in the rinse tank next to the camera room after the dive. Boat crew handled the cameras carefully and quickly learned whose camera was whose and had yours ready when you surfaced after the back-roll into the water. No rinse tank on the boat.

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Misool Eco Resort in Indonesia/Raja Ampat

Misool Eco Resort: "Healthy reefs and abundant fish life", Feb, 2020,

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 Misool Eco Resort in
Indonesia/Raja Ampat