A masted phinisi lying at anchor in still water below the forested cliffs of Raja Ampat

Silo 5 · About us

Safety Where Help Is Far Away

Misool is remote, and the nearest chamber is a long way off. That is the reason for every protocol on this page, not a reason to avoid mentioning it.

Ask a Safety Question The protocols

guests per guide: 4:1 guests per guide
member guides, EFR trained: DAN member guides, EFR trained
and full medical kit carried: O₂ and full medical kit carried
+ 50 logged dives required: AOW + 50 logged dives required

The context

Remoteness Is the Whole Risk Profile

Nothing about diving Misool is unusually dangerous. What is unusual is the distance to help. A problem that is a minor inconvenience off Bali is a serious logistical event here, which is why the standards below are stricter than the diving itself strictly requires — the entry bar, the ratio, the oxygen we carry, and the insurance we insist you carry. Several sites also run real current, and current is what turns a competent diver into an uncomfortable one.

A long timber jetty running out from the treeline over clear shallow water

Guide certification: PADI or SSI Divemaster and Instructor level
Emergency training: Emergency First Response; DAN members
Aboard: Emergency oxygen and a fully stocked medical kit
Ratio: Four guests per guide, never six
Entry bar: Advanced Open Water or equivalent, 50+ logged dives
Equipment: Maintained and checked by the crew, not by the guest

The protocols

Six Things That Are Not Negotiable

Including the two that are your responsibility rather than ours.

How we vet operators

Two guests walking a quiet white-sand beach, karst headlands and moored boats behind them

The certification bar

ours to enforce

Advanced Open Water or equivalent with at least 50 logged dives. Certifications are checked on boarding, not taken on trust. Drift experience matters more than the card on the current sites.

Four guests per guide

ours to hold

Not six, and not "usually four". At four a guide can actually watch the group; at six they are counting heads. It is also the difference between being shown a 1.5 cm seahorse and swimming past it.

Oxygen and first aid

ours to carry

Emergency oxygen and a fully stocked medical kit on every trip, with crew trained in emergency first response and rescue. Guides are DAN members.

Conditions decide the site

ours to judge

Sites are chosen each morning against the tide. A guide will move or drop a dive rather than put a group somewhere the current does not suit them — and that call is not open to negotiation from the deck.

Dive insurance

yours to arrange

Cover including emergency evacuation is a requirement, not a nicety, and we ask for proof. Evacuation from Misool is expensive and slow; being uninsured here is not a risk worth taking to save a premium.

Declaring your fitness

yours to be honest about

Medical conditions, medication and recent surgery need declaring before boarding, not after a problem. Nobody is judging; we just cannot plan around what we do not know.