La Galigo Liveaboard

I have just recently come back from a trip with la Galigo Liveaboard. Firstly i have to say i was a little sceptacle when i read the reviews below, but based on the fact of doing my own research and reading pletny of other comments, especially that on Scubaboard.com and actually getting in contact with the boat owners aswell as these bad reviews are over 2 years old.

Once speaking with the owners and the Reservations, I was happy to proceed with my booking. I was advised to arrive the day before as sometimes the airlines can be a little unpredictable, so i stayed in La Prima hotel as per the recommendation from La Galigo. When i arrvied at the hotel, the information about the pickup times was waiting for me at reception.
La Galigo collected me in the morning nice and early around 8am and we headed to the boat, already very excited to get going. When we arrived at the boat, i could see that it was nothing like in the picture on this site. The boat looked to be in great condition, and well maintained. I was greated by the whole crew and a cool refreshing drink. We was asked to leave all our baggage and head to the resturant area. Once there the Crusie Director can a small introduction and showed us to our cabins. We stayed in the Deluxe Cabin on the Lower Deck and the first impressions was very good.
Once we had finished being shown around the crew brought our luggage to our rooms. We then went upstairs to setup our dive gear for the diving ahead that day, to find that the crew had already prepared all our dive equipment as well. Wasnt expecting that.

When all the guests were onboard we then started to head into the Park, all the guests were asked to head upstairs to the main deck area where the Cruise Director, carried out a safety briefing as well as some history about the boat and how our adventures would lay out over the next few days.

After the briefing we had a great lunch in preperation for the first days diving. The crew are incredibley helpful carrying out gear to the smaller boats that we would use to get to and from the dive sites. Our first night sleep was amazing in our huge beds, I was staying in a double and manage to have a look around the boat at the Twin rooms and the 3 rooms upstairs as well and all very comfortable and a great size.

The diving during that week was exceptional with all the dive guides being very experienced and incredible at spotting even the smaller marine life. We didnt have a single issue with our room or any of the activities that went on during our 6 day adventure.

For me i couldnt recommend la Galigo enough, the pricing and the experience was for me perfect, I also spoke with a number of other guests and they all shared our same feelings as well.

I have already booked to go to Raja Ampat next year with La Galigo and cant wait for that. I hope you dont let the reviews below puttin gyou off going with these guys as i can certainly say i was super happy and the reviews left below are no longer an issue.

Having dived in South East Asia and enjoyed amazing dive sites in North Sulawesi and Komodo, I planned a Liveaboard Safari in Raja Ampat to complete my dive experience in Indonesia. Over the last ten years, Liveaboards in the Caribbean, Thailand and the Red Sea have always been an exceptional highlight, enjoying beauty of the ocean, easy life on the boat, fellow divers, diving four times a day and getting out to places difficult to reach from the shore. Despite the high costs the experience was exceptional and extremely rewarding!

Finally the big day is there: ‘’La Galigo - A luxury sailing dive cruise according to www.diviac.com travel agency and company homepage’’

Traveling 20 hours overnight to Sorong, I arrive on the boat at 8:00 am on time according to the travel plans of Diviac and the company. Fellow dive mates travelled up to 36 hours from the United States, Europe and Asia.

After the regular check in, I am shown to my cabin. The first impression is a strong toilet smell and water in the sink not running. I share my observations with the crew.

According to our schedule, we are planning to set sail around 10:00am after the last passenger arrives on the boat. We have two dives on the first days ahead of us. Everybody is exited!
Unfortunately, nothing happens the crew hanging around the deck giving no explanation. In the meantime since there is nothing to do, I am dazing on the deck as well. At 16:00pm the diesel engine of the boat finally awakes with an uproar and the ship slowly departs from the harbour.

Summary of the first day: No dives, no running water, toilet smell in the cabin, no sailing

We arrive in South Raja Ampat. The first impression of the dive operations is desolate. People choose between nitrox and regular air. I choose regular air but soon observe that there is not always 21% oxygen level in my tank. My fellow divers on nitrogen have the same observations. There is an unpredictable variance in the level of oxygen between 21% -36% in the tank. The nitrogen analysers are not reliable as they are thrown around on the deck without proper storage in boxes. This is causing malfunction of the devices due to the high humidity level in tropical regions. Nevertheless, ignoring these safety concerns I start diving. Corals, fish and the entire underwater world in Raja Ampat is awesome!

Back on the boat, I wake up from the dreams of the underwater world around 3.30am in the morning with water in my face dropping from the ceiling in the cabin. Water everywhere! Outside it is strong rain due to the monsoon season approach in late April.
My room mate and I realize soon that water is flowing from the upper decks into our cabin. We immediately relocate from our cabin in the lower deck to the salon/dining area to get at least some sleep. However, even in the salon water is everywhere.

On the next morning we move back to the cabin after heavy rainfall in the night. Soon we realize the smell of diesel exhaust engines in the cabin which is mixing with the excrement odour from the toilet in our cabin. Diesel exhaust fumes exposure might be caused by a leakage in the exhaust piping system of the engine. For us it is crystal clear that this is not only a comfort issue due to the smells and water in the cabin but more important a safety risk. Carbon monoxide which is part of diesel exhaust gases causes death while sleeping. We have to sleep in the salon area over the next days. The crew is very disappointed and trying to camouflage and hide things from other guests even agitating us without success. This ultimately ends in a solid dispute amongst crew and us.
Amongst those safety topics the sailing never happened and the boat was covered in diesel exhaust engine fumes during the entire trip.

On the last day we request the dive guides to prove dive certifications. After arguing back and forth, finally they admit that nobody is in possession of any certification (Fenny, Nico etc…they even do not want to disclose their full names). This comes as last hit to us.

We are asking where the owners of La Galigo ‘’A Danish Couple – Tom Simpson et al’’ are to currently located?! Nobody has seen them for months.

The La Galigo Liveaboard is not safe. It is fraud considering the advertisement and amount of money spend for a luxury sailing dive liveaboard. It is negligent as to how dive operations and the boat is run ignoring all safety standards.

Pictures and details of the boat will not be listed here, they can be found at http://www.lagaligoliveaboard.com/

Last week, I embarked on a 9 day cruise to Raja Ampat with the "luxury liveaboard sailing vessel La Galigo". For the benefit of this community, I want to provide a detailed review of this experience. Allow me to preface this horror story with the following insight: Diving in Raja Ampat is magical. The diversity and abundance of marine life has few, if any equals on this planet. Combined with usually clear waters and the sparsely populated, untouched islands, diving here is a majestically beautiful experience. You should definitely go there, just not with this boat.

The 12 guests booked on the cruise with the "Raja South" itinerary arrived on the ship, lying in Sorong harbour . Some of us had taken 5 am red eye flights to make the scheduled departure time of 9 am. For reasons that elude me to this day, we then sat in the harbour for 5 hours while the crew sorted out the boat. Consequently, the checkout dives scheduled for that day were scrapped and we went straight to Misool, Raja Ampat's southernmost Island.

Since I was travelling alone, I was paired with another German to be bunk mates. Our first inspection of the cabin watered down the promised luxury liveaboard experience somewhat: The en-suite bathroom smelled of cloaka (yes, the smell of shit that has been left out for some time) the faucet wasn't working and the shower looked like it hadn't been cleaned in ages. Three prompts to the friendly (no irony) indonesian staff later, and they finally fixed the faucet.
We could not detect a whiff of the "personal pride the owner Tom takes in his boat", as is stated in the reviews on liveaboard.com or diviac.net. Said owner wasn't on the boat. He had preferred to leave the operation in the hands of two Indonesian dive guides in order to live in Phuket. My humble self, being used to budget backpacking in somewhat remote areas, was however determined not to be dissuaded by such little foibles.

The next few days passed rather uneventfully. Raja Ampat's breathtaking diving spots really do make up for a lot of minor annoyances. Now, esteemed reader, if you've indulged me this long, we will get to the juicy bit: several grave and inexcusable security risks.
On a longer, overnight journey we woke up at 3:20 am, because it was raining in our cabin. The ceiling wasn't watertight, and the rain had decided to come into our room. In hindsight, we were quite happy to be woken like this. My bunk mate and I had splitting headaches and smelled an incredibly strong odour of diesel exhaust gas in the cabin. Fearing the fumes from the ancient truck diesel engine might also contain highly toxic carbon monoxide, we dragged our mattresses into the mess hall and continued to sleep there. Next morning's examination of the engine and guesses about the exhaust system have led me to believe that an exhaust pipe routed underneath our cabin must have leaked or broken that particular night. The diesel exhaust smell was present before, but far less distinct.

After the rough night, we had a friendly and sensible conversation with the two guys running the boat and told them of our concerns. They were understanding and apologised. The next night we again slept in the mess hall due to the strong diesel exhaust smell in our cabin, already present in the evening. The following morning, we were woken in a very unfriendly manner by an agitated dive guide (fendy was his name) who shook us awake and yelled at us we had to leave the mess in 3 minutes. After telling him we would leave if he would let us open our eyes for a few minutes, the yelling became louder and he even threatened to drag us down at some point. The things he agitatedly shouted at us revealed that he had not understood the subject of our earlier conversation, that the diesel exhaust gas could pose a serious health problem. I could go on about these exchanges, they were numerous. But I'm afraid I will only bore you, dear reader. And we have bigger fish to fry:

Namely grave safety issues with the dive operations. "Plan the dive - dive the plan" wasn't really a thing here. Entry points and routes were frequently completely different from what was discussed in the briefing. Maximum depths were frequently exceeded. I'm fine with diving deep, I just want to know about it beforehand.
The biggest issues where however with nitrox diving. The ship offered to dive EAN32 and several guests took up that offer. However the gas mixtures usually varied between 29% - 34% v/v oxygen. In my experience, dive masters force you to analyse your tank yourself and sign, to confirm that your measurement matches the one from the gas blending apparatus. This crew just tossed a few analysers on the dive deck and left the choice up to you.
I decided to analyse my "air" tank. It varied between 21% - 24% v/v oxygen. Presumably they didn't purge the apparatus before filling the air tanks. One grave error stands out: A dive was planned with a maximum depth of 25m. The crew said EAN32 tanks were given out. However one customer was given a tank that contained EAN36, which she only found out after having analysed the tank herself. At 24,4 m depth, pO2 reaches the toxic level of 1,4 bar. This error could potentially be fatal.

Let me close this story with a little highlight, the last conversation I had with the dive guides. On the last day, I was quite sceptical toward this operation. So I asked the dive guides so sign my logbook, stamp it and write down the divemaster verification number of all 3 guides. The guide Nico answered he had forgotten his number. No problem, just go and have a look at your card then surely? He claimed, he didn't bring the card with him. So I asked for the verification numbers of the other guides. They had all forgotten them as well. I then asked if he was a dive master. He answered yes. Hmm...
So i asked which organisation and School he trained with. He named CMAS, but didn't give the name of a school. Next, I asked him to write down the full names of all dive guides and the organisations they were certified by. I said I would then call them to verify the number myself. He refused. Then the yelling started again. He accused me of "always making trouble". I remained calm and insisted on wanting to verify his qualifications. Still agitated and yelling, he admitted that none of them had formal training or certifications.
That leads us to the conclusion that not a single trained divemaster or instructor was to be found on this diving cruise. Said dive guide also lied to my face about his qualifications. So did the La Galigo homepage. I shudder to think what would have happened in the case of an actual diving accident.

So yeah, 'luxury' liveaboard cruises with La Galigo. Walk away. Or swim away if that is no longer an option.
You might ask why the La Galigo has excellent reviews on e.g. Liveaboard.com.
I booked through this site and wanted to submit a review. However there is no way to post a review directly to the site. The only way is to write them an email with the review and hope that they post it. I have submitted this review to them as well. Let's see if it appears on their site. If not, these reviews are propably editorialised, since the booking sites get a concession.

Wow, this review has gotten long. Guess there was a lot to tell. Thank you for sticking with me till the end.
But please go to Raja Ampat. It is the best diving spot I have seen so far. Breathtakingly beautiful nature.

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