Claudia Lutrop and Dirk Werner-Lutrop
Claudia Lutrop and Dirk Werner-Lutrop, the founders and directors of Diversion Dive Travel got motivated to start a dive travel agency after working as dive instructors in Papua New Guinea and on the Great Barrier Reef. “We met so many overseas tourist who were not happy with their dive trip because nobody back home told them about the available options so they could compare and make a suitable choice. With our specific knowledge about the dive destinations we were able to provide people with better information before they travel. ” says Dirk. Since 1995 their website diversionOZ.com has been the major source of information for scuba divers around the world. Diversion Dive travel started using the internet very early and set the standard for online travel as the Internet slowly developed and matured. “Our primary focus was overseas clients travelling to our region. The internet helped us to get the word out.” For the first 10 years Diversion Dive Travel concentrated all their marketing on their biggest source of travellers: Europe and the USA. “The secret to delivering customer satisfaction is to match customer expectation to the experience they will receive on their vacation” says Nina Joost, a senior consultant with Diversion Dive Travel. “With our information available to the whole world, we got noticed at home as well and slowly built up a loyal clientele in Australia”, says Nina. Most of their Australian clients are from the capital cities and hardly ever see their consultants in the Diversion office in person. This does not seem to deter them. “The fact that we rarely meet our clients in person forces us to be very clear and specific about our products. The combination of e-mail, phone and internet is a great tool and people seem to like this a lot”.
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.
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!
For the last two years I had spent my holidays in Sulawesi, diving at Bunaken and Lembeh Strait. To break the growing addiction to muck diving, I decided to check out the dive scene in Bali, and to join Mermaid I on a seven night live-aboard to Komodo.
To get away from the Kuta/Legian crowds, and to avoid having to spend 3+ hours each day traveling to and from dive sites, I decided to base myself in Padang Bai, half way up the East Coast of Bali. Padang Bai is a small fishing village, and until recently, most visitors only came here to catch the ferry to Lombok.
12 very excited divers and snorkellers boarded 
