What is life aboard the Jelajahi Laut like?

We returned to Sorong from PapuArts in Waisai, Waigeo Island on Thursday, January 9th to spend one night at the Aston Hotel before we boarded our dive boat. The hotel was very nicely appointed and included an extensive breakfast buffet with our room rate, We paid $1,572,000.00 Rupiah for the one night stay (the equivalent of $97 in US dollars).

Friday morning, January 10 we were picked up at our hotel by Mikumba Diving and driven to our rallying point at the dock to meet the cruise directors, Eric and Cami from our dive boat, the Jelajahi Laut, which translates to "Explorer of the Sea". We shuttled our group from the dock to the vessel and were warmly greeted by the crew on board.

Eric did his initial welcome briefing with us above the dive deck while the crew brought our gear aboard. This area would prove to be a favorite place to relax between our dives because of its shade protection from the sun and comfortable sea breeze.

The boat can accommodate up to 12 guests total. We were fortunate to book the entire boat for this week with our group. A more comprehensive briefing took place in the main salon to cover safety issues and finished with a tour of our new home for the next week.

Eric (standing) and Cami (seated to the right) were our cruise directors for this adventure on board Jelajahi Laut.

This is the Sun Deck where the life rafts were stored and where I would place my Starlink antenna above our cabin during our stay on board.

We had one of the two deluxe cabins with large picture windows off the port side and a private bathroom.

This is our view outside our stern view balcony. The two boats in tow are our dive dinghies used to take us to and from our diving sites during the week.

The dive deck is expansive with plenty of room for two tanks per diver with wet storage underneath each dive station. Oversized tanks (15 L) were available along with extra equipment and Nitrox.

During our briefings the crew moved our luggage to our cabins then we removed our diving equipment to be rigged up on our assigned diving stations on the dive deck. Karen and I were assigned the "Turtle" cabin for stay on board. We were two decks above the dive deck on port side of the vessel's stern. Following the briefings and tour we enjoyed a wonderful lunch in the dining salon then relaxed enroute to the first dive site for our afternoon "checkout dive".

Life aboard the Jelajahi Laut is looking exceptional. Now, would the diving meet our expectations? Time would tell us soon enough.