Stepping into the heart of the Coral Triangle requires a stable and grand platform. The KLM Sea Safari 8 offers exactly that: a magnificent 35-metre schooner built in the revered Buginese Phinisi tradition from resilient ironwood. This elegant vessel provides a spacious and luxurious environment for exploring Indonesia's premier destinations, including the coral paradises of Raja Ampat and the unique ecosystem of Cenderawasih Bay. A practical advantage of the Sea Safari 8 liveaboard is its flexible schedule, allowing divers to book shorter safaris starting from just 6 nights, ideal for those constrained by time or budget.
The vessel’s remarkable 10-metre beam translates directly into expansive living and functional areas. Even when sailing with the maximum of 24 guests, the Sea Safari 8 maintains an atmosphere of relaxed comfort. High-quality wooden finishes enhance the interior, ensuring a sense of traditional luxury throughout the accommodation and common areas.
Guests retire to comfortable, air-conditioned en-suite cabins, situated across the main and lower decks, featuring primarily twin or double berths. Above the quarters, social time is managed with 2 distinct, air-conditioned saloons. The main deck of Sea Safari 8 hosts the welcoming dining area, while the upper deck saloon is a dedicated lounge equipped with full entertainment facilities for quiet downtime or socialising.
The above-deck space is equally impressive. The sun deck provides a peaceful area to soak up the tropical climate and observe the spectacular passing scenery. A highly appreciated feature is the open-air Jacuzzi, offering a perfect spot to relax and reflect on the day’s diving in the waters of Raja Ampat.
Diving operations are structured for safety and photographer convenience. The Sea Safari 8 liveaboard's wide beam creates a particularly generous kit-up area on the dive deck, eliminating pre-dive congestion. 2 motorised aluminium tenders facilitate swift, comfortable movement to and from the dive sites. For added security, guests are equipped with the ENOS tracking system, providing the dive guides with critical positional awareness underwater.
Underwater photographers will appreciate the dedicated facilities provided by the Sea Safari 8 liveaboard. A clear camera table and an on-board computer are available for image preparation and editing, a necessary resource when capturing the rich biodiversity of Indonesia. Combining traditional charm, modern amenities, and flexible trips, the KLM Sea Safari 8 offers a comfortable, confident base for an unforgettable Indonesian diving expedition.
The Sea Safari 8 has 12 cabins with en-suite bathrooms, including 4 double bed cabins with windows on the main deck, and 8 cabins with portholes on the lower deck. The lower deck cabins comprise 2 double bed cabins, 5 twin bed cabins, and 1 cabin with bunk beds.
All the cabins have:
- Air-conditioning
- Private bathroom with hot water shower, hand basin
- Hairdryer, toiletries and towels
- Windows/portholes
- Reading lights
- Refrigerator
- Safety box
- Cabinet, mirror and shelves
- Bedding
- Space for luggage
- 220V Electricity, 24 hours per day
- Round 2-pin plugs
- Smoke detectors and alarms
No. of bathrooms / showers - 12 / 12 - hot water
Halmahera Island
Trip highlights: turtles, great macro life/ marine diversity, schooling fish & big pelagics
Diving environment: advanced divers, drift diving, healthy reefs, off the beaten track
Dive sites and activities: Halmahera: Makian/Tidore, Sali Bay, Kusu Island, Latalata, Goraici, Lelei, Siko
Day 1
The Sea Safari 8 liveaboard awaits you at Ternate harbour. Welcome drink in hand, you get a quick cabin assignment and boat orientation. Lunch settles you in. Then comes the check dive, either at Tidore Island or Makian Island. Tidore offers a pinnacle drop with garden corals. Makian serves up black sand diving, similar to Lembeh Strait: bobbit worms, frogfish, even walking sharks if you are lucky. Dinner follows, served in the air-conditioned upper deck saloon. The boat moves overnight.
Core Days
The Sea Safari 8 spends its week unwrapping South Halmahera's secrets. This is the Coral Triangle's quieter corner. Pristine reefs, few boats, and a genuine sense of discovery.
At Sali Bay, you get a rare combination: muck diving meets coral slopes. One dive you are hunting pygmy seahorses, ghost pipefish, and nudibranchs the size of a fingernail. The next you drift past schools of mackerel, batfish, and unicornfish. Reef sharks patrol the edges. Night dives here turn up unusual shrimp and crab species, the kind of critters macro photographers dream about.
Kusu Island surrounds you with a fringing reef in near-perfect condition. Walls, slopes, caverns, overhangs, and underwater pinnacles all sit within a protected area. Soft corals in burnt orange and electric purple. Gorgonian fans stretching wide. The fish life runs from tiny pygmy seahorses to tunas, and sometimes manta rays or dolphins passing through. It feels untouched.
Latalata Island changes the terrain. Steep walls ring the edge. Pillars rise from the centre, stopping just metres below the surface. You can circle the pillars, then push out to the outer wall if you have the air. Reef sharks hang around the crater. Schools of snapper, fusiliers, and sweetlips move in close. Cowries, seahorses, and pipefish hide in the coral growth on the pillars.
Goraici Island (often paired with Lelei) presents white sand beaches and a local community that actively conserves its reefs. The payoff is immaculate hard coral gardens. Blacktip reef sharks cruise the walls. The diving feels easy here:gentle currents, good visibility, and a sense that these reefs have been looked after.
Siko Island finishes the active diving days with a wall dive. A large rock breaks the surface. Below, the terrain is rugged: steep walls, big boulders, and honest current. Soft coral covers every inch of the wall - all colours, all directions. Expect napoleon wrasse, bumphead parrotfish, and grey reef sharks.
The crew schedule only 2 dives on this final full day, then the Sea Safari 8 begins its cruise back to port.
Final Day
Continental breakfast on board. Then goodbye. The Sea Safari 8 crew help with bags. The trip ends where it started but you leave with a much better understanding of why diving in Halmahera deserves attention.
Raja Ampat National Park Central
Trip highlights: shark action, manta rays, turtles, great macro life/ marine diversity, schooling fish & big pelagics
Diving environment: advanced divers, caverns, drift diving, healthy reefs, wall diving
Dive sites and activities: from Raja Ampat: Black Rock, Penemu, Barracuda Reef, Melissa's Garden, Yanggefo, Gam, Arborek, Manta Sandy, Manta Ridge, Mioskon, Dampier Strait: Sardine Reef, Mioskon, Friwinbondan,Mansuar, Kri Island. Go in search of the Red Bird of Paradise at Sawingkrai Village on Gam, viewpoint hikes.
Day 1
The timeless rhythm of a Buginese Phinisi welcomes you as you board the Sea Safari 8 at Sorong harbour. After cabin allocation, the boatswain delivers a thorough safety and vessel briefing, honouring decades of seafaring tradition. You then set up your dive gear on the shaded deck, clipping tanks and checking hoses while lunch is served. As the afternoon wanes, dinner is plated in the air‑conditioned upper saloon. Only then does the Phinisi unfurl its course into the Dampier Strait, sailing through the equatorial night toward the central Raja Ampat dive sites.
Core Days
This tour focuses on the very heart of Raja Ampat, where nutrient-rich currents meet some of the most biodiverse reefs on the planet. The Dampier Strait is a reliable centrepiece: at Mioskon and the famous Cape Kri, recorded fish counts run into the hundreds of species on a single dive. Currents here bring schools of trevally, barracuda and fusiliers, with reef sharks often patrolling the drop-offs. Between dives, the Sea Safari 8 moves through channels flanked by jungle-covered karsts, stopping at Arborek village where jetty diving rewards patience with pygmy seahorses, wobbegongs and epaulette sharks tucked into the coral. At Manta Sandy, you settle onto the bottom and wait. The cleaning station draws reef mantas with reliable regularity. They glide in low over the sand, circling as cleaner wrasse go to work.
Further north, Penemu offers world-class hard coral gardens. Melissa's Garden demands fine buoyancy as the substrate is delicate, but the reward is a carpet of corals in colours that shift with the light. A surface interval spent trekking to the famous Penemu viewpoint puts the scale of the archipelago into perspective. At Yanggefo, sites like Citrus Ridge and Mayhem bring a different palette: orange soft corals, schooling batfish, and bumphead parrotfish cruising past. The mangroves here offer an otherworldly dive, with roots filtering light and small critters clinging to every surface. Black Rock rounds out the region with a classic pinnacle dive. Expect strong currents, big fish action, and a sense of being very far from anywhere else.
Only 2 dives run on the last full day, leaving the afternoon for a relaxed cruise back towards Sorong.
Final Day
Enjoy a final breakfast on board before disembarking in Sorong. The Sea Safari 8 liveaboard leaves you with a clear picture of central Raja Ampat - current-swept reefs, quiet mangrove channels, and the steady passing of mantas at Sandy.
Raja Ampat National Park South & Central (9 Days / 8 Nights - 23 Dives)
Trip highlights: shark action, manta rays, turtles, great macro life/ marine diversity, schooling fish & big pelagics
Diving environment: advanced divers, caverns, drift diving, healthy reefs, wall diving
Dive sites and activities: Raja Ampat - Misool: Farondi, Fiabacet, Boo; Penemu, Yanggefo, Gam, Arborek, Manta Sandy, Dampier Strait: Mioskon, Friwinbondan, Cape Kri, Mansuar. Trekking, view points.
Day 1
Take a deep breath, you’ve arrived. Board the Sea Safari 8 at Sorong harbour, where the crew greets you with cool towels and a smile. After cabin allocation, you join a gentle vessel tour and safety orientation, no rush at all. Then comes a check dive in calm waters, which doubles as your gear setup session - perfect for dialling in your weights. As dusk settles, dinner is served in the air‑conditioned upper saloon, accompanied by soft conversation. The boat then quietly prepares to head south, sailing overnight through smooth seas toward the southern and central Raja Ampat regions, where tomorrow’s dives await.
Core Days
This dive cruise combines the remote southern waters of Misool with the current-swept channels of the Dampier Strait. The Sea Safari 8 spends its first days in Misool, where the limestone karsts rise sheer from green water. At Farondi, the submerged pinnacles are draped in soft corals and sea fans. Expect schools of fusiliers and the occasional grey reef shark passing the wall. Fiabacet offers a gentler drift over hard coral gardens, home to pygmy seahorses and the well-camouflaged wobbegong. Boo completes the Misool trio with its famous windows: swim-throughs cut into the rock that open into blue water, often patrolled by tunas and trevallies. Between dives, the crew leads a trek to a viewpoint overlooking the lagoons and a perspective that etches itself into memory.
Moving north into central Raja Ampat, the diving changes pace. Penemu delivers world-class hard coral cover at sites like Melissa’s Garden, where buoyancy control matters as much as reef life. Yanggefo brings mangroves and critters: ghost pipefish, mandarinfish, and the strange elegance of epaulette sharks hunting among the roots. A stop at Gam and Arborek offers jetty diving at its finest. You drop into a garden of staghorn corals, scanning for ornate ghost pipefish and the tiny pontohi seahorse. At Manta Ridge, you settle onto the sand and wait. The reef mantas arrive with a predictable rhythm, circling low over the cleaning station as wrasse pick at their gills.
The Dampier Strait rounds out the week with its famous current dives. Mioskon, Friwinbondan and Cape Kri are names that need little introduction to liveaboard regulars. Fish counts run into the hundreds, with barracuda, giant trevallies and schooling snapper filling the water column. Mansuar offers a slightly more sheltered alternative, with sloping reefs and excellent macro opportunities.
Only 2 dives run on the last full day, leaving the afternoon for the Sea Safari 8 liveaboard to cruise back toward Sorong.
Day 9
Enjoy a final continental breakfast before disembarking in Sorong. The Sea Safari 8 has shown you 2 faces of Raja Ampat - the remote south and the action-packed central straits.
[Information is best estimate in ideal circumstances and subject to changes beyond our control. The itinerary is a guide only and may be adapted to best suit the weather, tides, currents, availability and other prevailing events. Price is for the cruise, not for an exact number of dives].
The pleasure of diving with the Sea Safari 8 liveaboard is closely tied to the pleasure of eating well, upholding the philosophy of 'sleep - dive - eat (well)' for divers in Indonesia. The schedule provides four dives daily, expertly punctuated by abundant, varied meals and snacks.
The routine begins with a continental breakfast, followed by the first dive of the day. A full cooked breakfast is then served, including options like hot coffee, cereals, eggs, fresh fruit, pancakes, and local dishes such as kweytiaw (noodles). This ensures guests are ready for the second morning dive. Meals and snacks are continuously served before and after every dive.
Lunch, served buffet-style, precedes the third dive in the afternoon. The fourth, optional night dive takes place just before dinner. The menu is consistently varied, offering a blend of Indonesian, Chinese, and Japanese cuisine alongside Western selections, with a buffet choice of at least five different dishes per sitting. The chef prepares fresh fish and meats daily, and themed evening meals like Italian, Chinese, and BBQ nights are highlights. Specific dinner examples include Steamed prawn with onion sauce, Beef With black pepper sauce, and Eggplant moussaka, as well as Sauted vegetables with bean sprouts & salted fish.
Complimentary beverages such as coffee, tea, and drinking water are available continuously. Snacks, including biscuits, candy bars, ice creams, and fruit, are also provided free of charge. 3 cans of soft drinks or beer are included per day, with additional beer and wine available for purchase.
The Sea Safari 8 cruise dining service commences with lunch on the first day. Dietary requirements can be accommodated with prior notice.
