Important Things To Expect On Your Diving Adventure

At Mikumba Diving we are lucky to operate in two of the best places in Indonesia to dive – Komodo National Park and Raja Ampat. From May to November our Komodoliveaboard is based in Labuan Bajo,cruising around the National Park until towards the end of November when we head back to Raja Ampat.  We stay there until mid April when we do the crossing back again to Flores.  We call these trips “The Ring of Fire Expeditions” and they really are the trip of a life time.  We travel 2000km in 20 days and we have seen everything from whales, pods of dolphins, hundreds of hammerhead sharks, erupting volcanos and dive in places where no one has dived before.  This is pure expedition diving and our guests love it. Last week we covered what we believe to be some of the best dive sites in Komodo so now we will talk about some of the best places to dive on our budget Raja Ampatliveaboard . One of everyone’s favourites is Melissa’s Garden.  This is one of the m...

If you’re interested in some of the best diving in Indonesia , then look no further, you’ve found the right place in West Papua. Join Mikumba Diving on our budget liveaboard Raja Ampat , for one of the best diving experiences you could ever have. A typical day on our Raja Ampatl iveaboard “RatuPelangi” starts off with an early morning, and a small breakfast of toast and cereal, before we have the briefing for our first dive of the day.  We then get ourselves kitted up, and load up the dinghies to take us to our first dive site, where after a final check, we’re ready to Daily Dive Trips .  Depending on the current, the Cruise Director will choose the best sites for appropriate times of the day, where certain dives we will try to dive with little to no current, other dives are better with a stronger current, as we’re hoping to see the big stuff. People come from all over the world to dive with oceanic mantas in Raja Ampat so there’s a good chance we’ll see them. Aft...

One of the most common questions we get asked is “what is the best dive site in Komodo” .  At Mikumba Diving we operate daily dive trips in Komodo and also liveaboards in komodo as well as dragon tours at Rinca Island so we are in a good position to answer this question. Most people who visit Labuan Bajo for diving have done some research and want to dive Batu Bolong.  This is one of our favourite dive sites in the Komodo National Park as it’s like diving in an aquarium.  You will be amazed here – schools of giant trevallies hunting, massive sweetlips hanging out, humphead napoleon wrasse cruising around not to mention the turtles, sharks and tonnes of brightly coloured reef fish.  We go here several times a week and never get bored. Another favourite for both our Komodo daily diving trips and our Komodo liveaboard are the manta dive sites.  Here we have two main places where there’s an excellent chance of seeing them - Manta Point which is...

One of the biggest attractions when you visit the island of Flores, is a Komodo National Park day trip .  At Mikumba Diving, one of the more popular choices for a Komodo day trip is a combination of 2 dives, and a visit to see the famous dragons. It doesn’t matter if you’re a certified diver, or completely new, you can join us for an amazing day out.  When you choose Mikumba Diving to dive Komodo , a typical day on the boat would meet at around 7am, before going to the harbour to board our day trip boat “Nusantara”.  You’ll have a freshly prepared breakfast, and get some briefings about the Komodo National Park , and Komodo diving .  After a relaxing first dive, maybe to see the abundance of turtles and pristine coral at Siaba Besar, you can chill out on a beanbag on the sundeck for your surface interval. Most of our guests want to dive with manta rays , so a visit to Karang Makassar or Manta Point is where you’ll do your second dive.  Here you’re just...

Having found the best dive shop in Komodo and doing a couple of day trips with Mikumba Diving , I decided to sign up for their “Best of Central & North” liveaboard.  I’ve been on a few different liveaboards in South East Asia, but yet again, these guys made me enjoy my trip so much, that I really think they are the best Komodo liveaboard you can book. Our trip was 4 days and 3 nights, and at the end of it, I really didn’t want to leave!  From the moment we joined the boat, we were made to feel like part of the family – everyone was introduced to us before we even left the harbour, even though they were busy trying to take us out to the Komodo National Park , they had time to meet the guests and welcome us to our home for the next few days, “Ratu Pelangi” – which we found out means Rainbow Queen. We set off from the harbour, eager to get to our first dive – some of the others on the boat hadn’t been diving for a while, but that wasn’t a problem, we were going...

The Komodo diving is famous for being challenging. The area is quite affected to the currents running through every day but that is also what makes the diving in Komodo so amazing to experience. But it does also put pressure on being strict when it comes to safety. Even though you’ve experienced diving with currents or not we all know that it comes with certain risks. That’s why we really care about conducting safe diving where ever we go on our boat trips in Komodo . Before every trip we have a proper safety briefing to go through all safety procedures including what we do if we get separated from our group & what happens if the diving staff judges that the conditions are not safe enough. But since the currents is what brings in all the amazing underwater creatures to Komodo, that’s also where you want to be diving. On our daytrips & budget liveaboard in Komodo we always conduct a current check before every dive. This helps us to get a better idea of where we want t...