Mermaid I is one of the very well known Thai boats, which spends June to October in Indonesia, offering 7 night live-aboard trips to the Komodo National Park. Mermaid I is probably one of the most comfortable boats I have been on. The cabins are spacious, with ensuite facilities, a small fridge, and TV/DVD. A nice mix of Thai, and western cuisine tantalises your taste buds, and there is always plenty of fresh fruit to finish off a meal.
Saturday departures and arrivals are at Bali’s Benoa Harbour, which is easily reached from Kuta/Legian, Sanur, Nusa Dua or directly from Denpasar airport. Mermaid arranges these transfers, and the cost is included in the total price.
After an overnight steam, passing the north coast of Lombok, we woke up to a light breakfast and our first dive at Moyo Island, from where we continued our trip in an easterly direction. I was amazed by the wealth of soft corals throughout this trip. A dive site called “golden wall” was exactly that – a wall covered in soft coral in every shade of yellow, orange and gold, just incredibly beautiful. Although there were some sharks, they didn’t seem to be terribly abundant, which I think is a legacy of shark fishing/finning world wide. We saw mantas, eagle rays, and after our last dive at “angels window”, two mola-mola appeared out of the blue and stayed close to the boat for quite some time. Some hearty souls jumped back into the water with 
mask and snorkel, but the strong current and the alertness of the fish made a close encounter impossible. Diving at Sangean Island was one of my favourites as the dive site is a volcanoe crater with black sand. It reminded me a little of Lembeh (without the rubbish/trash in the water)! As added bonus I saw some nudibranch which I had not seen before. Most diving was done off the two tenders which, I am happy to say, had ladders to climb back onto after the dive. We also had the opportunity to actually visit Komodo Island and came face to face with a three metre Komodo dragon!http://diversionOZ.com/en/sea/mermaid.htm
