Raja Ampat Cityseahorse Deb Fugitt Ondina

[twhi]

Raja Ampat Cityseahorse Deb Fugitt Ondina Subject: Raja Ampat Cityseahorse Deb Fugitt Ondina

I did an 11 day trip to Raja Ampat with Deb Fugitt CitySeahorse tours on the Ondina in November 08.
This is a review I wish I'd read before I went.

A lot has been written about Raja Ampat diving.
Here's a few words about what it isn't:
It isn't about good visibility. Average viz for us was 35-45 feet.
The local guides told us this was typical.

It isn't about big fish.
We saw just a handful of sharks, a few mantas, napoleon wrasse, jacks, and
few other pelagics.

The boat:
The Ondina is a safe, stable 100 ft vessel. Diving is done from two inflatable dinghies. The crew is excellent - friendly, competent and helpful. Cabins were basic but noisy and at least three of them had AC issues and one of them had problems with fumes and exhaust from gasoline or diesel.

The food:
The kitchen staff were delightful and the food was seriously lacking. Fried something for almost every lunch and dinner. Instant noodles appeared more than once or twice. Our airline meal on Silk Air economy class back to Singapore was gourmet in comparison.

The diving:
Most dive ops in my experience strive to offer a wide variety of sites.
Not so with our charter. On most days, Deb Fugitt preferred to park the boat for the entire day at a mediocre reef and offered 'Open Deck' diving.

No less than five of the eleven days were spent at ordinary, shallow dive sites:

Two entire days (10 hours per day), were spent at The Passage - a site with 35 ft maximum depth and 25 to 30 foot visibility.

One day (four dives) at a small village pier. Depth about 15 to 45 feet.

Another entire day (10 hours) was spent diving in a mangrove area. Brown green water looking for critters amongst muddy tree roots, 25 to 30 ft viz and max depth about 40 feet. Get the picture?

Not to mention the first afternoon spent on a checkout dive in Sorong harbor.

For a capable live aboard with so much potential like the Ondina, I found this routine inexcusable.
I translated 'open deck" to mean "lets save on our fuel costs".

Yes, we did dive Cape Kri, Mike's Point and Kaleidoscope. They were great and I wanted more. A few friends and I repeatedly requested the lead dive master and cruise director for more sites like these but to no avail. The diving was clearly not about offering choices to the guests, it was all about Deb.

So, in summary, if you are a passive, sedate, complacent or sheep-like diver, content with kneeling in 35 feet on a mundane, ordinary reef dive after dive for yet one more photo of Nemo, City Seahorse tours with Deb Fugitt is for you.

However, if you are looking for world class, high voltage, or adventure diving, you might find it at Raja Ampat but its unlikely you will find it with Deb Fugitt's charters.

Here are a few of your options:
You have been warned.

Raja Ampat and Triton Bay (Papua) Liveaboard Diving Cruises on the luxurious schooner The Seven Seas
Main page
Raja Ampat Cruises, Raja Ampat Diving
Grand Komodo - Tours & Dives

[LCF]

Ouch! This definitely doesn't sound like much fun, and it's sad that the food wasn't good, because the food we had on our trip to Indonesia ranged between good and REALLY good. On the other hand, the viz in the Lembeh Strait is about what you describe, and none of the dives there were deeper than about 60 feet, but it didn't prevent us from having five of the most amazing days of critter diving I've done yet. Were your sites devoid of life, or do you just prefer to do deeper dives?

[twhi]

Devoid of life? No that was not the problem.
The problem was dive after dive on mediocre dive sites.

I'm really not a whiner, LCF, and I love to dive.

I don't mind repeating dive sites, but they should be the exceptional ones that offer a wide range of options.
It was really pathetic.

[JS1scuba]

Just make sure you check all your credit card statements over the next 6 months. Indonesia is notorious for clipping credit card #s from travelers and buying all kinds of stuff. Credit card fraud and theft is the #1 crime in that country. The police authorities look the other way.

[DebF]

I'm tired of chasing this guy all over the net replying to this false & misleading review. He is joining every forum he can find to post this.

I'm sorry to have to do the same and join this forum to respond, but as scorpo_fish wrote on scubadiving.com :

"I've already responded to this on two other boards. I'm tired of cutting and pasting. This person is clearly angry beyond all reasonableness since he feels he must post this trip everywhere.... This is a trip for photographers/videographers. It is run just like stated on Deb's website. The very criticisms of the trip are why it is a great photographic trip. The author clearly doesn't have much experience doing photography on a dive trip." ( I won't repeat some of the rest of scorpo_fish's comments... bit embarrassing for twhi.)

I have also replied in detail to this review on several other forums, as have his shipmates and divers from the subsequent, nearly identical, trip who were very happy with their trip and tear down this review point by point. You can see those comments from divers who have experience on the trips and in the area on this thread at

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=27720

twhi was disappointed, but that is no reason to insult the other guests on his trip (more experienced) who thought it was the best or one of the best trips they ever made.

He chose the wrong trip for HIMSELF and is unreasonably angry (at the wrong people!) He had access to extensive documentation about the trip including the website

http://www.cityseahorse.com/rajaampat

which details what these special trips include and contains links to articles, galleries, videos, the websites of former trip guests, and details on the ship, the diving and Raja Ampat.

Instead of asking serious questions about the trip before booking he sent jokes. On the form provided to gather information about his goals for the trip (what sort of diving he likes, food preferences, etc.) more jokes... otherwise I could have flagged his as someone unsuitable (would not be happy) with this special trip. The trips are always full.. we would all be happier had he chosen the Galapagos, Cocos, or another high voltage diving / high percentage of pelagics trip.

He didn't speak to me or the cruise director about the diving. Not that we could have changed it from what was advertised without the consent of the group. If he didn't like the food, he could have asked the kitchen for something different. He didn't. The other comments I got in November were that it was the best food they'd ever had on a liveaboard and better than (mentioned by name) several top dive resorts in Indonesia.

Its too bad that instead of being open minded and trying to see why his shipmates were in the water all the time and asking to stay longer at these "mediocre" sites, he couldn't have gone to see what all the fuss was about. Maybe he could have had one of us show him why the other divers on these trips think those sites are the best and want to stay longer! twhi stayed in his cabin most of the time, skipped about 1/2 the dives.

I organize special charters for underwater photographers, videographers and those who love marine life. Each trip is limited participation to only 12 guests. I hire extra very talented guides and a cruise director for the trips (guide to diver ratio is 1/3 or 1/4), plan a special menu and accompany/oversee each one, yet the cost is the same or less than standard trips.

One of these trips is a chance to make a mini "Blue Planet" special in 11-12 days.. in still photos, video or just in one's memory.

Each trip includes a huge diversity of dive sites. Each site we dive is one of the best in Raja Ampat. We visit fishy reefs, beautiful coral gardens, mangroves, deep bays, rock islands, unusual reef & rainforest sites where the forest hangs over the seas and corals grow right up to the surface. There is no set itinerary. We move the ship to get the best diving for each trip and that is based on visibility, direction and strength of currents and weather.

These are not trips for people whose goal is to go fast, dive deep and tik a different dive site off their list each dive. They are for people who want to see a variety of environments (muck to high voltage) and love creatures both big and small (mantas & sharks to pygmy seahorses & nudibranchs).

None of the above is a secret. Divers who are interested in a Raja Ampat or City Seahorse trip have plenty of information available plus I ask for their personal information to be sure the trip & diver are compatible.

Getting a good match diver to trip does require the guest diver to be responsible for reading the doc provided, providing correct personal info and participating in the research to insure they book onto the right trip for themselves. If twhi had acted responsibly, we would all be happier.

[Snowbear]

These are not trips for people whose goal is to go fast, dive deep and tik a different dive site off their list each dive. They are for people who want to see a variety of environments (muck to high voltage) and love creatures both big and small (mantas & sharks to pygmy seahorses & nudibranchs).

Wow... sounds like my kinda trip!! One of the things I've come to despise is the time limits imposed by many charter ops. I'm not a pro photographer, but I do like to take snapshots (especially macros) of the critters I see. I especially like the small stuff that crawls around or just attaches itself or hides in/on other stuff.

I can easily spend an hour or (usually, unless it's too cold) more per dive poking around the same dive site and not get bored as long as there's life there. What's frustrating to me is the "guided" dives with time limits that don't want me to just stop and watch stuff..... I hate it when I'm expected to "keep up with the group" rather than enjoy my own dive at my own pace!

Anyhow, sounds like as you said.... this guy picked the wrong trip for the kind of diving he prefers! Thanks for coming here to tell us the other side of the story and I hope you stick around to give us non-pro's some pointers and insights

[LCF]

As someone who doesn't do any sort of photography, but can be kept completely amused in a ten foot square area if there is enough life there, I can understand his frustration. I have the opposite problem -- guides always want to rush through a site, trying to get to the next "big special thing", when I want to watch the porcelain crabs eating algae, or sit and watch the action at a cleaning station.

I had the feeling from the original post, that the poster was unhappy with HIS experience, but the experience for others might well have been different.

We used to charter sailboats in the Virgin Islands, and the charter broker took enormous pains to place us on THE right boat for us. But we were honest about what we wanted. Sometimes it's hard, I think, for divers to know exactly which boats or resorts will match THEIR particular interests. I know enough to stay away, for example, from the Galapagos; though others find the diving there phenomenal, I know it is not for me. Sounds as though the OP should have done more homework.

[DebF]

Wow... sounds like my kinda trip!! One of the things I've come to despise is the time limits imposed by many charter ops. <snip>

What's frustrating to me is the "guided" dives with time limits that don't want me to just stop and watch stuff..... I hate it when I'm expected to "keep up with the group" rather than enjoy my own dive at my own pace!

The things you mention are exactly the reason I started organizing dive trips in the first place. Arbitrary time limits, forcing divers to keep up with a group, moving to a bad or so-so dive site instead of doing multiple dives on a really great site, only doing night dives if there is a minimum number wanting to do one, whatever... really frustrated me as a recreational diver. After all, divers who are paying for an expensive holiday should get to do what they enjoy as long as it is safe, not doing any damage or annoying the others in the group.

1-2 divers can't sway a dive operator who imposes silly rules. But a group (with the right trip organizer) that takes a whole boat or resort can. I always negotiate with the dive operator to be sure we can do what we want before I sign a contract with them and write those essentials into the contract. Freedom and flexibility are at the top of my want list. If a dive op has arbitrary senseless rules they won't set aside for my group, I locate a "better" one that doesn't.

Another part being a trip organizer (as opposed to a group leader who may have organized nothing for the trip and doesn’t' know the area) is understanding what is possible & safe and what is not.

Sometimes I've had divers on a trip that didn't understand weather conditions were hazardous so we had to skip a stop on a planned itinerary, or that it is not possible to move the ship 200 miles in an afternoon even when we pulled out maps and had the captain show them.

Working within the limitations of required cruising time and current weather and current conditions, divers in my groups get to stay in the water as long as they like, stop and smell the mating nudibranchs, etc. I aim for a 1:3 or 1:4 diver/guide ratio and since a lot of photogs like to do their own thing and people do skip dives (since we offer 5/day), we'll sometimes have 2-3 guides spotting for 1 or 2 divers.

In Nov. we had one guy that got into the water for a Mandarianfish dive at 5:30pm (shallow) and stayed until the end of the night dive (an early one that ended at 8pm). Interesting that both the diver and his guide had a great time... for 2.5 hours!

[DebF]

You may want to review the thread on Wetpixel that ended with twhi (who posted the original report) writing this:

Rather than rehashing replies to my previous post, I would like to offer some lessons that I learned from my experience.

By way of introduction, I’m a diver first and photographer second.
From the nature of most of the replies on this web board, it appears that most members here are the reverse.

Obviously, I selected a trip that was not in line with my expectations. I should have done more homework.
Out of the frustration that followed, I stumbled onto this forum and hastily posted my review with the desire that others not make my mistake.
I could have stated thiings differently.
I didn't.
In the process, I insulted a number of people, including Deb. For that, I apologize.

I have been on a number of liveaboards, most with lots of avid photographers.
I used to be one of them.

In light of these blunders, out of fairness to Deb and to inform all those photography-first divers out there as to what Deb's trips have to offer,
I would like to offer that which I left unsaid.

So here it goes:
From my first-inquiry email until the last day on the boat, Deb was always there. She replied to every email promptly and clearly.
When she knew she was going to be without Internet access, we were notified and given an alternate contact.

As things progressed, she sent out updates. She researched airfares and offered hotel and resort recommendations.
She cheerfully responded to all of my serious and non-serious email requests.

Organization and management are her strong points and she has them in spades. I have considerable work experience as a manager and have spent a fair of time in developing countries.
In looking at our trip with these challenges in mind, our trip was nearly flawless.

For those of you with high end camera rigs, you will appreciate her attention to detail. The layout of the dive deck, camera table and rinse tanks are nearly perfect.
She specifically recruits a cruise director and dive master for all of her trips and they are excellent at what they do.

The dive briefings were appropriate and to the point. The process of getting dive ‘teams’ in the water that she has developed and refined was effortless to follow. And of course, the all-important dive tenders – good-natured, friendly and totally competent – I can't say enough about them.

It is clear that Deb and I differ as to what constitutes a good dive site.
But that is entirely subjective and could be debated forever.

What is not at question for me is her integrity. She is responsible, reliable and competent at what she does.

If you are a photographer-first kind of diver who appreciates all of the intangibles that high-level photography requires, I can assure that you will find it with CitySeahorse as long as Deb is in charge.

Signing off.
Sincerely,
Tom

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php...st=40&start=40

Unfortunately he has not gotten around to posting it to the other dozen forums that include his original report.