Seasons Greetings

Welcome to this last newsletter of the 2007 season.

With the final cruise of the 2007 season coming up shortly, we can look back on Kararu's best season ever. Imagine, we have put over 600 divers on our liveaboards this year alone. It has been a record year for Kararu.

In July 2007 we introduced our latest vessel, the Cheng Ho, and the guest feed-back has been overwhelmingly positive. In fact so positive, that we decided to use the Cheng Ho as our main vessel for all future liveaboard trips

Cheng Ho will get an complete up-grade of the cabins and the general facilities when she goes into dry-dock in January. Guest's booked for the 2008 season can expect an even more comfortable and streamlined vessel for their trip!

Kararu wishes to thank all friends, guests and valued agents for their continued support of Kararu's endeavor to offer great liveaboard trips in Indonesia. Staff, crew, cruise-directors and management wish you all a great holiday season.

Coming Soon - Instant Online Trip Reviews

The Internet has developed into a very powerful medium, which can be an excellent tool for divers around the world seeking to obtain useful information before booking a trip. Sadly, certain individuals choose to post wrong, misleading and/or inaccurate information on different forums. Kararu recommends that if you come across some negative feedback on our trips, please contact us directly so we can provide you with a list of other passengers who were on the same trip in question so you can get a clearer view of all the divers opinions.

We do value any customers honest feed-back of trips, and very often their suggestions are implemented to further improve comfort and service. A random selection of comments and testimonials from guests can always be found at the guest comments and testimonials page on the Kararu website.

Starting in January 2008 we will have a dedicated page listing all recent comments from actual guests from the different trips onboard the Cheng Ho. Furthermore, guest will have a possibility of posting a portfolio of their underwater shots on-line.

Cheng Ho - Trip Report

It’s then end of another calendar year and we’re making our way back to Bali. The last year has just rushed past in a flurry of bubbles, laughs, and photographs. We made a lot of new friends, met up with some old ones, and had a lot of fun along the way.

The last few charters have found us around the Raja Ampat and Banda Sea regions, moving between Sorong in the former, and Ambon in the latter. Part of the beauty of the Kararu schedule is that we never stay in one place too long; itineraries have brought us to a greater variety of dive sites than most other liveaboards in Indonesia offer.

We cover an area that’s over 1200 nautical miles from one end to the other, spaning tens of languages and dialects, two oceans and numerous seas. We’ve seen five species of Pygmy Seahorse, Wobegong, Epaulette, and Leopard sharks, gone deep into the “blue-water” mangroves of Misool, spent our evenings with free swimming Sea Snakes on an active volcano, snorkeled and dove with Mantas that didn’t seem to want us to leave, and trekked around the history-rich Banda islands. All in all, another wonderful year at the office. So without further ado let’s recap our season…

Leaving Bali in September, we headed out east to visit our one of Indonesia’s best dive regions, Komodo National Park. Although famous for the Dragon bearing the island’s name, the three hour shore excursion to visit the big reptiles is merely a sideshow to the underwater inhabitants (albeit a good one).

This past summer and fall we brought a lot of people to Komodo, some newbies and some experienced “Komodophiles”. In the end, even the ones who’d logged at least two logbooks full of dives in the area commented on how healthy and rich it was. Massive schools of Jacks, Fusiliers, and Rainbow Runners being split by speedy Dolphins and fat Grey Reef Sharks in Gili Lawa Laut made for adrenaline pumping wide-angle. Three Frogfish, two Ornate Ghost Pipefish, two Inimicus, and a Starry Night Octopus all sharing a bommie the size of an Ottoman made for a night dive that we just didn’t want to have end. We were joined by a Whale Shark in Horseshoe Bay, Mantas galore on Komodo, and a Hairy Frogfish at Torpedo Alley. Picking up Berkley White and Dan Baldocchi’s first group of avid digital photographers in Bima we ramped ourselves up for our voyage north.

Berkley and Dan have been bringing groups on Kararu up to twice a year for six years…that’s a long time…and they keep coming back; must be the food. It just goes to show how you can dive Indonesia a hundred times but every time you’ll still find something new. With the boat sitting a few inches lower in the water from the five hundred kilos of camera gear, we headed out to sea. We stopped by our favorite Komodo sites and said our goodbyes, hoping the Frogfish wouldn’t wander too far in the next few months as we headed off to Alor, the Banda Sea, and eventually Raja Ampat.

The children of Alor and their beautiful reefs left everybody’s memory card full. At night we put up our 16 foot wide by 9 foot high movie screen on the forward deck and watched the slide show of the day’s images as the villagers turned the Cheng Ho into a drive in movie theater, hoping to catch their own big-screen premiere.As the Cheng Ho pulled anchor from Pura, our Captain’s home village, we turned north and headed out into the Banda Sea.

Reaching the volcano-island of Gunung Api, far from any other landmass and only a mile across at it’s widest point, we gave “the snake briefing”…which essentially says that, if you don’t like snakes, today would be a good day to get a massage, enjoy a bottle of wine, and work on your sun tan. Despite the briefing, the majority of divers hit the crystal blue waters the next morning ready to wrestle with these creatures of the deep (or shallows in this case) and take a few pictures as well. Inevitably, the most amusing pictures to come out of our snake dives are those of a diver slowly sneaking up on a snake, unaware that three other snakes have started to use his fins and legs as a maypole. The next best is of course the video of a snake swimming full speed into the dome port…always a winner in my book.

After exhausting ourselves, and I’m sure blinding one or two dozen snakes, we keep heading north, bringing us to the Island of Ambon. Within Ambon’s harbor lies one of the greatest muck dives east of Lembeh, Laha. Although frequented by signs of progress such as the elusive t-shirt-fish and flip-flop-fish, underneath this rough and tumble exterior lies a nest of Rhinopias, free ranging Flamboyant Cuttlefish, more Pipefish than a 4GB card can hold, and Stonefish at every old tire. Conventions of Nudibranchs hold court in the shallow reef area surrounded by Eels and Urchins of every kind.

Next stop: Mangroves. The “blue water” mangroves, made famous by David Doubilet’s National Geographic article in 2007, is a maze of “salt rivers” splitting a group of shallow mangrove clad islands west of Misool. The “blue-water” comes from the fact that the water inside the mangroves (at high tide) is crystal clear, and deep enough to allow divers to negotiate some of the longer streams on scuba.

One of the highlights (aside from wondering where the crocodiles are and if I really could walk on water) is the soft corals that grow on the roots of the fringing mangroves. At golden hour (right before peak high tide) we head out to find our orange, purple, pink, yellow or even beige soft corals and try to capture the unique environment in all its 10.5 megapixel glory.

Aside from the mangroves the surrounding reef is home to schools of juvenile fish (no pun intended) including Sweet Lips, Jacks, and various Snapper species. Closer to the mouths of these “salt rivers” a pair of Leopard Sharks and huge Black-Splotched Rays laze about on the broad white sand bottoms.

As our starting point to Raja Ampat, Misool is large and varied environment, from the mangroves off the west coast to the limestone “rock islands” of its eastern coast, almost 90 miles away. The eastern region affords us some of the most beautiful shallow reef areas around. Below the thick reefs are huge aggregations of sea fans, some literally full of different species of Pygmy Seahorse (we stop counting at fifteen on one fan). With sheer limestone slopes and rich water, the occasional Manta or Dolphin pod can been seen stopping by to get cleaned or chase the ever present bait fish.

Moving north to Waigeo and the Kri region we begin our hunt for the Wobegong and Epaulette sharks, some of the “token creatures” for the region, the latter even appearing on the new BCD tags, issued by Conservation International for the new Raja Ampat Park. The northern areas of Raja Ampat offer us a good range of dive site types, from untouched reefs, manta cleaning stations, and fishy pinnacles to Picturesque Dragonets, Blue-ring Octopus, and unidentified species of Pygmy Seahorse. Wayayg, north of the equator, provides a challenging vertical hike to a peak with a million dollar view, featured in Berkley’s article on the region as the title photo spread (taken Thanksgiving Day 2006 when Sascha, Berkley, Sterling, and I made our sunset hike).

With agent Cindi LaRaia on board, we decided to head back into the Banda Sea, going this time to Manuk, also an active volcano popular with sea snakes. Don’t ever go to Manuk, forget I ever mentioned the name to you, it was horrible…don’t read on. Manuk is an amazing place. The north western side of the island is a huge shallow hard and soft coral bazaar, with some of the massive bommies topping twenty feet high. The sand in places is black with yellow sulfurous streaks running through it, marking spots where hot water is pumped from the slumbering volcano below us. In the late afternoon, the snakes come out to hunt, putting on quite a show for us. Schools of Trevally, Tuna, and Jacks swim by in the deep blue water that is punctuated by cold murky fingers of deeper upwellings. Manuk has moved up my list of places that rock (a list that has become way too long since we moved to Indonesia).

Andy Sallmon was let back on the boat for a Sorong to Ambon cruise (must have misspelled his name on the office’s blacklist). Andy is one of the many über-talented photojournalists that we get to host on-board our little floating dive heaven every year. This time he brought his handler with him (thank you Ronda) to keep him in line. In addition to Andy, this year has brought us Mark Strickland, Chris Newbert and Brigitte Wilms, Norbert Wu and Eric Cheng, Berkley White and Dan Baldocchi, Willem Gignagel, Jeffrey Yonover, Pierre Constant, Tanya Burnett, Tim Rock, and many more talented and highly published photographers and journalists from all over the world. In addition we’ve had too many friends to name come back and visit us again and made many more along the way.

Kerri, Steve, and I would like to thank everyone who joined us this year on the Voyager and the Cheng Ho and hope that you have safe and happy holidays and come join us again soon. Happy diving!

Captain Hergen Spalink
Cruise Director - Cheng Ho

Available Trips in 2008

Diving the exotic and remote Raja Ampat area should be on every divers "wish list". Join us for a very special "VIP" trip to this much talked about destination.

02-08 Sorong/Ambon (Feb. 24 - March 06)

We have restricted the maximum amount of divers to 14, now only with a few spaces left open. This 11 night's trip will take you to the best of what Irian Jaya has to offer. Special terms apply, please contact us for further details

Featured Team Member - Steve Fish

Featured this month is Steve, he has been diving a lot with Kararu Dive Voyages in 2007, and have decided to join us full time for the next season. We are happy to announce that Steve will officially be part of the Kararu team from 2008 as our resident video & photo pro onboard the Cheng Ho.

Steve Fish is a Professional Photographer, Filmmaker and Author with over 35 years of diving experience (yes, his name really is Fish). His photos have appeared in magazines and books around the world. His UW video footage has been used in broadcast projects on 3 continents. From 1976 to 1992 he worked as a Commercial Photographer specializing in magazine ads and brochures for High Tech industries.

In 1982 he founded Photo Tek, Inc., a full service Commercial Studio and Photo Lab. Since 1993 he has worked full time at dive resorts and on liveaboard dive boats around the world as UW Photo/Video Pro in residence. Steve has taught seminars on UW digital photography and UW digital videography at major industry trade shows. He is the author of two books on UW photo and video techniques.

Fish Tales Underwater Films and Photos, is owned and operated by Steve. It’s Still Photo Library has a mix of Caribbean and Indo-Pacific Macro and Wide Angle 35mm transparencies. The Digital Library, both still and video, consists mostly of Indo-Pacific Macro and Wide Angle.

Steve Fish’s Professional Experience and Qualifications:

• 35 Years experience in Scuba Diving
• 32 Years experience in Professional Photography
• 17 Years experience in UW Video Production
• 20 Years experience in Computer Software Design
• 15 Years experience as a Marine UW Naturalist

Steve will also be doing a wide range of different photo and video courses. Ranging from entry to advanced level, his practical and hands-on oriented courses are a must if you want to learm more. Contact us for more detailed course information.

Next Issue

We will be featuring Chris Newbert's back to back trips taking him to both Fak Fak and Raja Ampat in the next issue. Don't forget to check out some of the amazing guest comments on our new dedicated guest comment page - details on link will follow in January!

The Kararu team and management looks forward to welcoming you on board our vessels for the liveaboard scuba diving expedition of a lifetime. Please feel free to contact any of us at any time or see the 2008 and 2009 cruise schedules at our web site. www.kararu.com/schedules