Jakare

Jakaré is a diving boat first, but the crew keeps a full day ready for guests who’d rather stay dry: yoga on the sundeck when the morning’s calm, kayaks and a paddleboard over the side between stops, and trekking on the islands themselves for whoever wants dry land. There’s even a word in the brochure for doing nothing at all on deck, farniente, and it gets scheduled like any other activity, not squeezed in around the dives.

Yes. Jakaré runs its own guest-facing line separate from the trade side, with a named cruise director, Audrey Fougère, who handles pickups and logistics directly. It’s a smaller, more personal setup than most of the fleet, where the person who greets you at the airport is the same one you can message beforehand if a question comes up.

Yes, Jakaré allows guests to bring their own wine and spirits rather than buying only what’s on the boat’s own list. Corkage applies per bottle, charged onboard rather than added to your invoice upfront, so budget for it separately if your group plans on bringing a case rather than a couple of bottles.

More detailed than most on this water: bamboo straws instead of plastic, solar panels doing real work on the upper deck, waste sorted onboard rather than bagged together, and guests asked upfront to bring biodegradable sunscreen and soap. It reads like an actual policy the crew follows, not a sentence added for the website.

It runs on a satellite connection rather than a local SIM, which matters here because Jakaré doesn’t stay close to town: the same setup carries through Komodo’s quieter interior and the later crossing to Raja Ampat. Coverage holds more consistently than a phone-based hotspot would manage on either route, though don’t expect it to feel like home broadband.

Bring your own if you have it. Jakaré rents them out for divers who don’t, and under the boat’s own safety policy a computer is mandatory in the water, not optional kit you can skip. Worth packing rather than leaving to chance, since it’s one rental cost you can avoid entirely by traveling with your own.