The Easter Long Weekend dive trip to Riau, Indonesia on the Seaborne was just amazing. We enjoyed 25 metre visibility at most dive sites. We did a total of 11 dives over the long weekend. I did a night dive and used a fluorescent light, it was very cool and I will buy some to leave on the Seaborne for people to try. The light really brings out the colour of the coral, and it was just very cool too.
The Rock Wall was incredible with so much to see and 25 metre visibility. It was so good we dived it twice.
Soft Coral Roundabout was also great, with schooling yellow tail whiting, a school of about 40 bat fish and some large barracuda. The coral at all sites was all in perfect shape and not broken. There were so many sea fans and whip corals, it felt like you were continually dodging them and swimming around them.
We also went and dived a new dive site. It was a bit further south than our than normal sites. I expected “good visibility”, but it was only around 5-8 metres. Despite the not so good visibility, we managed to see a lot of cool stuff, like a big grouper, pipe fish, nudis, a porcupine puffer, trevally and loads of fish. There was a lot of soft coral and many fish seemed to be hiding in them.
GS Diving PADI Dive Master, Andy, was looking after a group of 4 guys. I was diving with Claire and Richard. Masaki was looking after his 8 divers. Sara and Carsten dived together. Most of the divers had never been to Riau before and were pleasantly surprised by the good visibility and coral condition. The fish life was also good, but it was mostly small fish with a few larger ones sprinkled through the shoals. There was always thousands of small fish.
This was the best diving I have done at Riau by far, so much life, colour and everything was in perfect condition.
The food on the Seaborne was fantastic and we finished the BBQ, which has not been done in a long time. I guess having 19 hungry divers onboard helped. The company on this trip were a lot of fun and Saturday night was a eventful night.
Cheers, Gary