The beautiful Mari liveaboard is a traditional wood hull Indonesian Phinisi offering year-round unforgettable diving trips in Raja Ampat, Triton Bay, the Banda Sea, Forgotten Islands, Komodo Islands and Halmahera.
Constructed entirely of ironwood and teak, the 34m Mari offers ample onboard space to prepare for or relax after 3-4 daily dives. She caters to a maximum of 14 guests in 7 charming cabins, ensuring a more personal experience and plenty of room to relax. There are 3 Deluxe and 4 Superior cabins, each offering individually controlled AC, storage space, and private bathrooms with hot water. All cabins are on the main deck, so they are bright and well-ventilated.
Common areas include the cozy open-air lounge, a well-sorted bar, and 2 spacious sun/star decks with loungers. Our highly-trained chef onboard guarantees a wide variety of fresh, healthy, and delicious cuisine will satisfy hungry divers. The al-fresco dining table is the perfect place to enjoy a hearty meal surrounded by stunning Indonesian scenery.
The Mari explores the best of Indonesia’s dive sites to offer exciting year-round adventures. Divers can explore the sea and island world in the national parks of Raja Ampat, Triton Bay, the Banda Sea, Forgotten Islands and Halmahera. During our thoughtfully mapped out safaris, divers can expect thrilling dives with majestic manta rays, reef sharks/hammerhead sharks/whalesharks/fish/creatures, corals/nubies and huge schools of fish, as they explore one of the most diverse marine environments in the world. With the chance of seeing everything from pygmy sea-horses to whales and whale-sharks, our experienced dive guides will make certain that this breathtakingly beautiful and diverse underwater world will leave an unforgettable impression.
The ship has a new management and MARI has been technically completely overhauled in the year 2023. The spacious dive deck with gear storage and individual rinse tanks, 3 large dive tenders for getting you and from the dive sites, an onboard Nitrox-Membrane-System, as well as the recently installed Solar Power System for a lower CO2 footprint, will ensure a most comfortable dive liveaboard.
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I had a wonderful time with this amazing people.
The food was great and the dives unbelievable.
The crew made a great effort to make it comfortable and safe during the hoje stay.
I really recomend this boat.
Thaks guys for everything.
My wife and I had an amazing time aboard the Mari Dive Cruise. The diving was absolutely incredible—stunning sites and great conditions throughout the trip. The crew was fantastic: friendly, professional, and always helpful. We also really enjoyed the group of fellow divers on board, which made the experience even more memorable.
The food deserves a special mention—there was always plenty, and every meal was delicious! The same meal was never repeated once and we never left the table unsatisfied by the taste and the portions. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip. While the boat is relatively simple, it’s well-equipped and comfortable, with everything you need for a great liveaboard experience.
We’d absolutely recommend Mari Dive Cruise and would love to come back again!
I love the Mari. I’m one of their frequent divers…2 trips every year. I know the staff and they know me. Every trip is different and exciting and always magical. The Mari, sea life and coral are worth the trip half way around the world! I’ve dived in many countries and this is the best. The Mari is the best too. They are helpful, considerate and knowledgeable. If you have problems with your gear, they help you out so you don’t miss dives. Your experience is important. The food is also great and they adapt to special diets. Lastly…you don’t have to carry your gear around or jump off the boat with it on. The small dive boats have all your gear setup, they help you get it on and then you rollover into the water…easypeasy! I can’t recommend the Mari more! It’s 5 stars in my book.
Amazing! Diving + Crew + Fellow Divers + Food = Travel Magic!
A truly great experience, diving with the amazing crew and guests on the Mari!! The boat is older and a traditional wooden build. It has character, that is to say it is not a gleaming white fiberglass and stainless steel mass. The cabins are small, but larger than other liveaboards we have done, and include a private bathroom. The cabins are cleaned each day during your first dive, which is a very welcome touch. Mari has everything you need to enjoy your diving trip. And diving is what you will do, starting as early as 6 am or 7am when the Mari’s wonderful Dive Director, Ungke, gives the first briefing, and finishing up after dark when you opt to do a night dive. The routine for dive liveaboards (for any 1st timers) is dive, eat, rest, dive, eat, rest…. rinse and repeat. But don’t worry about your gear, the crew will take care of that. Our dive guide was Irvin and he was great – friendly, safe and fun! We appreciated that he reminded everyone to check, check, double check your gear before the dive launches left the Mari. The launches are simple outboard boats that comfortably fit 4-6 divers. There were 13 (of 14 max capacity) guests on our trip and 2 of them were snorkeling only. So with 3 dive boat runs (one boat makes 2 trips to the sites) we had a maximum of 4 divers per dive group – yippee! The diving itself was as you would expect for Raja Ampat – Amazing! That said the visibility on our days to the south, off the east coast of Misool, was not that good at 5-10 meters. But even with limited viz there was an amazing amount and variety of coral and fish. Above water the scenery in that area is fantastic with picture postcard “gum drop” islets. The calm seas made it easy to spot the dolphins as they cruised by. We hiked up to an observation deck for a once in a lifetime view of Heart Lagoon you do not want to miss. We were on the trip for both Christmas and New Years and were treated to a Christmas afternoon visit by a whale and calf, magical. It was 1 of several whale sightings on our 12-day trip. Dives up north had much better visibility, at about 20-30 meters. But your experience may be different, diving is always an adventure. Wobbegong sharks, walking sharks, manta rays, reef sharks, turtles, eels, sea snakes, cuttlefish, squid, crocodile fish, nudibranch, pygmy seahorses (so many pygmy seahorses), schools of everything, the list goes on and on. As retired dive instructors we were blown away on a daily basis by the insane variety and quantity of marine life and the mind-blowing assortment of corals, sponges, anemones… WOW!! The kitchen staff of the Mari is fantastic, the food we had for every meal was abundant and well-prepared and delicious. And there were so many meals! We started each day with a quick breakfast before the first dive. After the first dive, there was a full breakfast (that’s right Hobbit fans there is a “second breakfast”). Lunch follows the 2nd dive of the day, and snacks follow after the 3rd. Dinner follows the night dive, when it is time to take a nap before 1st breakfast and do it all again. So much food!! But quantity aside, the chef was wonderful. We were expecting a steady diet of fried rice and fried noodles, like we have experienced in other parts of Indonesia, but that was far from our Mari experience. The chef spent years working in high-end hotels and other liveaboards, and his experience showed in the variety and quality of every recipe! The variety of meats, fresh fruit and veg, and accompaniments of rice, potato, pasta and bread was insane, given that we were on a boat in the middle of Raja Ampat. And the kitchen took special requests too, like the from-scratch sambal they made every day for our group, and the ginger and palm sugar tea that sometimes appeared for snack time. No first class restaurant would be complete without the front- of-house staff, in this case Ever, who had his hands full with our diverse group. But he took great care of us all, was charming and on to
Recommended for
Diving. Crew and Food. Fellow Passengeres.