I'm interested what you thought of the boat/crew/food too. Did you stay anywhere else on your trip? Looks like you got some really nice shoots!
Thanks for everyones kind comments. I really liked the boat and the crew. Pelagian is a big boat with quite a bit of variability in cabin construction. I was in the aft cabin which was noisy when under power due to a problem with the propeller shaft that they are going to fix when the boat goes into dry dock in late December. The larger cabins are very big and comfortable. The two smallest cabins are a little tight. We had some late minute cancellations and only dove with 7 divers so there was almost too much room. The salon is very nice with comfortable couches, a Yamaha stereo and a 40 inch Samsung plasma TV that has a VGA cable to hook up laptops. The camera room is also excellent. Marco, one of the divemasters, has fantastic musical taste and always had someting interesting playing through his Ipod on the stereo system. Meals are served in the salon or or on the back deck. For me, the food was excellent. I do not have a discerning palate and am usually happy with a burger or pizza so I probably did not appreciate the food as much as some. There is an excellent coffee machine (Jura) that grinds and brews some really good coffee. Pre dive breakfast is toast or ceeal and there is a formal breakfast that you order the night before the dive which was excellent. At breakfast, you are given a choice of two entrees for lunch and dinner which were well prepared and varied. We also had a vegetarian on board who had vegetarian versions of the meals which was not a problem. Being eternally hungry after diving, the stewards often brought me seconds.
There are three divemasters on the boat including an Italian couple and and an Indonesian divemaster who rotate duties. Being used to Lembeh where there is always an intense critter hunt going on, I missed the constant excitement of finding something new but there are vistas here including some wide angle stuff that will never present itself at Lembeh that more than made up for it. Despite less of an emphasis on finding things, the divemasters have good eyes and we saw interesting things on every dive. There are two zodiacs that launch from the boat and usually separate to dive different parts of the reef. Each zodiac can hold 6 divers but I think this might be a little cramped. Fortunately, the rides were usually no more than a few minutes so this should not be a huge issue. We did some great muck dives at sites that reminded me a lot of Lembeh. On one dive, two different wonderpus were seen out hunting and we saw several ornate ghost pipefish and several nudibranchs that I had never seen before. The remainder of the crew was less visible and spent most of their time in the forward part of the ship. They all seemed professional and were quite friendly.
According to the divemasters, Americans make up a good chunk of their business but I was the only American on this trip (the rest were British). This is never a problem for me as I usually like diving with people from other countries as long as we can communicate.
I spent a night in Bali (Novotel Nusa Dua-no frills) before and after the trip as well as a stopover in London. On the way back, I hooked up with the rest of the people on the boat to go to the highlands to see the volcanos and some Hindu temples. If you do this, be prepared to get nickle and dimed for entrance/guides/tipping fees etc...we were a little put off after paying an entrance fee and then 10 dollars each for a guide to visit one of the temples to be asked for a tip and and then after gaining entrance to be swarmed by a bunch of people wandering around and seriously pestering you trying to sell you something. This kind of soured the experience for me.
I would do the trip again in a second. The Pelagian used to rotate down to Komodo which is an area I would really like to see. If they go there in the future, I will definitely sign up.
