Blue Marlin

Komodo

My wife (~40 dives) and I (~200 dives) spent 6 days/5 nights on the live-on-board dive boat "Ikan Biru" of Blue Marlin Komodo and had a wonderful time. The dives in Komodo lived up to its promise of fantastic dynamic dives with both fabulous unspoilt animal life and spectacular topologies.And of course, unpredictable and sometimes wicked currents (best enjoyed with a bit of experience, say 50+ dives at least). Will try to add UV pics later. The boat was simple but cozy and comfortable with all amenities. The crew was great and professional. The chef baked bread every day! Sometimes donuts!!! The cruise director Paul and his henchman Shannon aka 'Zulu' were great, both skilled as well as relaxed and entertaining. The dive briefings and their whiteboard drawings alone were unforgettable. In short, I had a great time!

We went for a 5 night stay on Blue Marlin liveaboard Ikan Biru as a holiday. We are dive professionals living in Indonesia so we had high expectations on the stay and all of them was met! The boat is amazing with great facilities like hot shower, comfy beds and probably the most talented indo-chef in Indonesia, Joss. You will never miss anything on the boat, the crew will make sure all your needs are met. Special thanks to Blue marlins boys, you are a group of diamonds. The professionalism and friendliness of everyone you meet will ensure a great ambience thoughout your trip. The Cruise director, Paul, is a legend. Knowledgeable, funny and with the skill of making sure every diver on board no matter their level will experience Komodo as it should be. He is always ready to listen to the concerns and wants of the divers. This guy will truly go the extra mile for you. We had also Fai as guide with many years of experience as an instructor, brilliant at his job and with eyes like an underwater hawk. A special note to DMC Jess for a great time, awesome dives and all your attention. We are sure you are going to make an amazing instructor soon! So about the diving, is it really as good as they say? YES! Sharks, rays, macro and corals in abundance. Strong exhilirating current dives if you look for it, topography from another world and surprises around every corner. Thank you so much! We will come back to dive with you as soon as possible. Thank you for an experience of a life time and memories that going to stay with us forever (Paul, we still cannot stop talking about Pengah!) We will recommend everyone to go with them! Lots of love! Amanda and Vic

Amazing afordable luxuary experience with the blue Marlin team, definitly one of the highlights of our 2 months trip through Indonesia. This kind of trips can be a nightmare if you chose a bad diving center, fortunatly, we choose one of the best and it has been unforgetable. Since the begining, one week before arriving Labuan Bajo, Kim was really helpful by mail, providing all the info and help we needed. We particularly appreciate their concept of pick up/drop off the boat when you want, it gives you the dates flexibility we were looking for and other dive centers dont allow you. Once there, they provide you good diving material, including diving computer, torchs or reef hooks with no extra charge. Ikan Biru is a beautiful and confortable wooden boat, with some luxuary facilities you dont expect, like 2 bathrooms with hot water. The food is simply amazing, varied and abondant. The local crew is highly eficient, is amazing all the work they do without you even realize it, in order everything is always ready at time. But the best was the discovering the underwater of Komodo 🙂 We were a quite inexperienced people, 3 Advanced with less than 25 dives each, and one OW with just 5 dives! So we were a little nervous about diving in the challenging waters of Komodo... This feeling disapeared quickly thanks to the dive master and the instructor/trip director, a really competent team ( by the way, 1 dive master and 1 instructor for 4 divers is a really cool ratio). Katie the dive master was really helpful during all the trip, and specialy helping my gf, the less experienced diver and a bit anxious at the begining of the trip, to build confidence in her diving skills and to enjoy every single dive. And Sean, the instructor and trip director, was the main responsible the whole trip was so great. He is an experienced diver, very organized and responsible, and not only with huge knowledge about dive physiology, tides behaviour, marine biology, and Komodo sea, but also with love to share his knowledge. His brieffings and debreiffings of every dive were very hard to beat. In a 3d/2n he organize 9 dives, progresively increasing technical difficulty, and including some of the most famous spots like Batu Balong, Crystal rock, Castle rock or the Cauldron, and 2 nights dives. We enjoy every single dive, we learned so much in just 3 days, and at every moment we feel safe, which was one of our main concerns. So many thanks to all Blue Marlin Team. We definitly recomend to dive with them, and we will repeat if we come again. Javier and Sara

I did 3 nights on Ikan Biru live aboard which was a great experience. The Diving was incredible, we hit sites before anyone else and Sean, the cruise director, had really carefully planned timing of dives so we were hitting sites when the current was at its best. In 4 days I saw and learnt a huge amount. Ikan Biru itself was beautiful, lots of space to relax, there was a lovely breeze sleeping under the canopy at night and a very welcome warm shower after night dives. The food onboard was fantastic, freshly prepared throughout the day. I stayed at the resort either side of the live aboard and the rooms were lovely and bright with great views out on to the harbour. The Bar/ Restaurant also has a great menu and drinks and a beautiful view of the harbour.

I booked a 5 nights LOB on the Ikan Biru. Komodo was on my bucket list for a while so I did a lot of shopping online to see which dive operator to use. There are more luxurious ones and cheaper ones but Blue Marlin really beats them all in terms of value for money. It's well priced and you DO get your 4 dives per day (I did). Then entire experience was great. From my first email inquiries (Kim is great, fast and helpful), to the check-in, to the transfers, the boat, the crew, the staff, the dives. There were two of us, me from Switzerland and a friend of mine (only staying for 2 nights on board) from Singapore. We had to book a quick refresher course the day before. But as we were on a day trip around the islands, the tour was super late. So I immediately informed Blue Marlin and they were super accommodating and understanding. We ended up doing the refresher in their house pool at dusk, everything was great. The next day, we were transferred to the Ikan Biru on one of their day trip boats. Everything went well. There were 4 of us joining and 4 guests leaving. A happy bunch of divers from all over the world. The crew is amazing, from the captain, to the lad who "chauffeured" us to the dive sites each day, to the cook, the cruise director Sean, his colleagues Paul, Katie and the blonde Dutch guy (so sorry forgot the name). Each dive was preceded by a super detailed briefing. In lots of cases, they would do a pre-dive check to make sure the currents are as they expected so that we would not get any bad surprises. Really professional and thorough. Food on board was amazing, a bit spicy sometimes for me but really delicious. Unlimited soft drinks and water. Two amazing hot showers and toilets. Also very important to my eyes, they are very environmental friendly and try their best to not pollute the environment and also remind us every time of the Do's and Don'ts under water. So yeah, 4 dives per day! That was just great! Sleeping was also great in the open deck. The crew makes our beds every day, switching the lounge deck into a sleeping deck. No air con needed, saves some energy there too. And it's super quiet at night, on the sea, with just the waves. Bring ear plugs if you're a light sleeper as you might have some snorers on board 🙂 and also a light sweater or jacket. It can get a bit windy and cool at night. They do provide blankets though. I still feel sorry that I didn't carry enough cash for the end of my experience for the tip box, they deserved it. So make sure you bring some with you. You'll need it as well if you plan to see the dragons. I could go on and on but really, I'd dive with them again without hesitation. And a 4 to 6 night stay would be the best I think. Plus, the small size of guests on board makes it super friendly and fun (8 guests max, in addition to staff and crew). You'll manage to basically dive all the interesting sites at least once. Big thumbs up.

I am a rescue diver and picky when it comes to choose a dive centre. But this was by far the best in Labuan Bajo &very professional and i can only highly recommend them!! It is also a bit more expensive than other dive centres but you get far more for your money. My boyfriend did there his AOW. Very friendly (local) staff. Thank you especially Stephan, Philipp and Fai for all the dives, entertainment on board, the pictures and the good AOW course. New equipment, small groups, fastest diving boat in LB which allows you to do 3 dives a day (lunch &Tea, water, fruits included). On the 1 day, I did 3 dives: on #1 i saw sharks, turtles, many colourful corals, thousands of fishes. On #2 many turtles, many corals, stingrays and some amazing fishes, on #3 two mantas! And it even got better (up to 10 Mantas) in the week we stayed there!!! Just amazing and incredible what you can see in Komodo National Park! Current can be very strong and sometimes there are small jellyfishes around (they always find me). After the dive, you can enjoy beautiful sunsets & Jalapeño poppers from their Balcony! We will come again

After extensive research I decided to book a day dive with Blue Marlin. I was so pleased with the experience that I booked a second day of diving after arriving back from my first day on Hugo! The staff was beyond amazing!! Shannon was my guide for both days and was by far the best guide I had on any of my 7 days of diving in Indonesia. Elisha was kind enough to snap a picture of me on a dive and share it with me after! The chocolate chip cookies and watermelon were perfect for snacks in between dives!! I was disappointed when I didn't get this on my dives in other areas of Indonesia! Blue Marlin is simply the best!! I'm looking forward to returning in the future (with my AOW) so that I can experience the rest that the Komodo Islands have to offer!! I can't thank the staff enough!! The best diving in Indonesia, hands down!!

Back here for the 2nd time in the year! This time we dove with Stefan, team Afro again! We find Stefan who is the local dive master the most attentive guide out of all. He really takes care of people and knows how to have a good time 🙂 Definitely very knowledgeable about the tides and dive sites so trust his judgement when it comes to currents. Definitely get on Toby because it has 600 horse power speedboat that will get to you to dive sites a lot faster and places where other slower boats/shipwrecks can't get to... One thing they could improve is the length of the ladder on Toby, it is a tad too short and climbing up from water with a tank strapped onto your back with chopping surface is not easy. Oh yes and maybe get nitrox in soon! Other than that, really well run and coordinated shop in Labuan Bajo compared to the rest!

After visiting several diveshops we arrived at Blue Marlin, where we felt immediately at ease. The atmosphere is laidback and chill. We took both the Hugo (slowboat with 2 dives) and the Toby (fast boat with 3 dives), both days will be remembered for the rest of our lives! A special thanks to Paul, Stefan and Steve but everyone else as well. At the end there was a minor issue with the payment but within a day, without any hesitation, this was fixed. Highly recommended