Blue Marlin Dive Komodo — PADI 5 Star IDC Centre & Ikan Biru Liveaboard, Labuan Bajo

Blue Marlin Dive Komodo opened in Labuan Bajo in 2013 as part of the Blue Marlin Dive family, a name that has been part of Indonesian diving since the early 1990s. PADI lists the Komodo centre as a 5 Star IDC Resort, and its multilingual team teaches in English, French, German and Swedish.

Day trips use fast speedboats, so the boats are often first on the dive sites and back in Labuan Bajo earlier than most. A standard day includes three dives, breakfast at the shop's partner restaurant before departure, lunch after the second dive, snacks and drinks, and free Nitrox for certified divers. Dive sites are chosen the evening before, with regular trips to the central part of the park and supplements for the north and the colder, macro-rich south. A two-dive option adds a guided walk to see Komodo dragons.

For longer trips, the centre runs its own traditional liveaboard, Ikan Biru, on 3- to 12-day itineraries inside Komodo National Park with three or more dives a day, sunrise dives and manta cleaning stations.

Courses run from Discover Scuba and PADI Open Water through Advanced, Rescue and EFR to Deep, Drift, Sidemount and Enriched Air specialties, Divemaster and the Instructor Development Course (IDC). Certified divers need to have dived within the last 12 months or take a refresher.

At the time of writing, the published price for a three-dive day trip was IDR 2,950,000 including meals and Nitrox, with Komodo National Park and harbour fees extra (north +IDR 150,000, south +IDR 550,000 per trip). Check the website for current rates.