Sunshine Liveaboard, Indonesia

Don’t do it

The journey was long and nauseating, even the crew were ill. The boat is badly in need of a refit. Our cabin was small, bathroom sink leaked, only occasionally had hot water, tiles falling off, aircon was directly over bed and dripped and on the next to last day water soaked our bed and closes. Food was ok but certainly not gourmet just basic Indonesian with rice veg and a meat every meal We were told Nitrox was compulsory and charged for it as we were a long way from help. We were then only provided 25/26% as they need a new membrane The dive sites were a mixture of good and poor The crew did their best but the management has many questions to answer

Recommended for

The crew worked hard

Oversold, Under Delivered.

Sunshine Liveaboard “Halmahera Trip” by Blue Bay Divers, Sahaung, Indonesia We booked this trip on the Sunshine with high expectations after reading their promotional material. We made our original booking in mid 2019, to depart in spring 2020. The trip was put on hold due to Covid and we were offered new dates in September 2023. We started seeing poor reviews just before we set out for our vacation in August 2023, but were still looking forward to the trip hoping that the service the reviewers had experienced were isolated incidents. We had booked with a company with a European owner expecting a higher level of service than locals sometimes provide. Sadly, the Sunshine, is suffering from a lack of care and investment, her last refit was more than 10 years ago, and she is overdue for another refit. The description used on the “Blue Bay Divers” website and on Liveaboard.com in no way matches the reality of the experience provided. The local staff are friendly and caring and do their best to make the trip enjoyable. They work with limited resources which allows them to provide at best, a basic diving trip. The backgrounds of the guests on our trip of 10 guests included an ex GM of a dive company, Professional Dive Instructors, Dive Masters, and Dive Guides; most of us with in excess of 1000 dives. 2 of us own our own companies and most of us have management experience, managing employees in several countries. We have all been on multiple Liveaboard dive holidays in Egypt, Thailand, The Maldives, Australia, so we understand that life on a boat is less comfortable than on shore. The Diving. This is what we all came for. The trip is sold as being an adventure exploring unspoiled reefs in an area that is not often dived. Out of about 30 dives we only saw maybe half a dozen pristine reefs, the other dive sites consisted of reefs damaged or destroyed by dynamite fishing or on one very bad day 2 dives on just white sand with no visibility! The team on the boat are programmed to dive in the same places unless conditions make it impossible to dive. After the day of 2 sand dives, the guides were proposing to dive the same area again, at this point the guests suggested diving a different area and one of the customers took one of the guides for a ride in the tender to do some research for a better location close by; they found a lovely reef where we did 2 very enjoyable dives. The local guides did nothing more that put on a mask and put their head in the water to decide if a place was worth diving. All the diving takes place from a small fiberglass tender, divers must step from the boat deck into the tender in full kit, then on your return step out of the tender onto the boat deck. This can be very difficult when the waves are a little bigger than normal. The use of Nitrox is compulsory on the Sunshine, they charge extra for the Nitrox and the rental of a “Nitrox” cylinder, however the percentage they provide is only 25-26%! They cannot provide a higher percentage as they are waiting for a new membrane from Germany, surely if Nitrox is compulsory there should be a means of providing the normal standard of 31-33%, not having a backup membrane is poor planning. During the trip a few “O rings” failed, but the crew does not have a spares kit of such basics. Again, it was one of the guests came to the rescue supplying the required rings from his own kit. The Guides. There are 3 guides on the boat, one of whom is also the cruise director. All three are good at finding the macro creatures that we wanted to see and photograph. Sadly, two of the guides did not adhere to the standards that “Blue Bay Divers” make their guests sign up to: The statement that divers have to agree to is: I, __________________________________, am aware that I will be diving in a sensitive eco-system. In order to minimize my impact on the marine environment:  I will not touch any marine organism or their habitat and will not wear gloves.  I will be aware of my unde

Recommended for

Great Crew, Some Good Diving, Macro Life