What a great year is 2011!

Although you would not think so if all you do is watch the economic news... Forget about that, it will all come back, it always does, just go on a trip and check again after that! Fortunately that is the way most of our guests are dealing with it. And thanks to the great spirit among our guests, their optimism and positive attitudes, we have truly had an incredible run of superb cruises this year. Thanks also to a great crew of course, who haven’t missed a beat and managed trip after trip to impress our guests, as is clear from the testimonials left in our guest book. Mix all that with some improved itineraries, excellent planning by our cruise directors and some more work done on the boat during the most recent docking, and it all came together again this year!

We now have well over 600 original testimonials from happy guests, so take a minute to click here and to see some comments on our latest cruises (seems Aurelio and his group will be back!). If you did not realize this yet, Seven Seas has also been on Facebook for a while, with regular updates and the latest news in between our not so regular newsletters. Some of our guests have made some great posts on our Facebook page as well. Thanks for putting the photo of your group there, Barbara - that was a great trip with a great group, we are looking forward to have you all back soon!

Click here for Barbara's comment about the trip.

Our Komodo Season has been an absolute BLAST again (taking it off the beaten track here and there, with some stunning new sites added by our team, including one by little Laura), and is now coming to an end with our last cruise there before we move to the East of Flores and on to the Banda Sea and Raja Ampat. Expectations are high for cruises to come! Seven Seas has so far had an incredible string of charters and dive cruises in 2011 and that is set to continue in the final quarter of this year, and of course beyond, thanks to all your return bookings and new guests joining all the time. The boat is doing incredibly well, and we are certainly getting back from her what we are putting in. She has never looked better than right now!

New Itineraries, Schedule and Availability

We are making constant additions and changes to our itineraries and have been able to make major improvements again recently. Worthwhile also for our own private charters to go back again and again for more exploration as well as re-visiting our favorites! Our Komodo cruise is constantly evolving and can now be done in many different ways and seasons. One exciting new addition will be the Deep South of Komodo which you will find in our on-line schedule as "South Komodo". This will be an itinerary for a new season, October through April, and our first organized charter on this itinerary will be in October 2012 with old friends of the Seven Seas, Island Times Scuba, who have previous explored the Forgotten Islands with us. This has also been turned into a scheduled (and VERY special) destination from 2012 onwards. Another further improved itinerary is East of Flores which we can also do in different ways in different seasons, and which will also be available in a Deep South version for the period October - April. For more on that and other options for customized charters, send us an email well in advance of your preferred travel dates!

Destination Videos:
The Komodo National Park	East of Flores

Options to join us in 2012 are becoming limited but there are still some cherries to be picked! Take a look at our on-line schedule to see what the plans are for 2012 and beyond, and to get an idea of what is still available. A couple of big trips for 2012 are ON HOLD and are likely to turn into charters. A few full boat charters remain available between now and December 2012, as well as limited options for individual bookings. More availability again for charters and individuals in Raja Ampat from December 2012 onwards. And then it will be 2013 already...

Seven Seas Banda Education Project

Good news from our Banda Education Project! The Bandanese student, who received a scholarship from Seven Seas and co-funded by Seven Seas’ guests, passed her entry exams for the Faculty of Marine Science at the University Hassanudin in Makassar recently. Fajarria, who was born on Banda and went to the local and high school in Banda, was always the best in her class. With support of Mr Bahri, who runs the guesthouse Delfika on Banda, from where Seven Seas always buys the amazing nutmeg jam, has been very important in selecting Fajarria, and he has travelled with her to Makassar for the exams. Back in Banda, he also arranged all things necessary so that Fajarria now indeed is our first Banda student on the path to get a good higher education. She has started her studies this semester and once she must select her specialty, she is keen to pick the direction of marine conservation within the marine science faculty of the university. Please join us to wish her all the best for her studies, and keep an eye out for more updates from Fajarria!

Conservation: Moving Towards Sustainable Seafood

Several seafood companies in Singapore and Jakarta are slowly but surely moving towards sourcing responsible seafood. A leading Singaporean supermarket chain - Cold Storage - has joined WWF Singapore Sustainable Seafood Group and committed to stop selling shark fin and products, as well as bringing in wider range of sustainable seafood in its 42 outlets in Singapore. It’s the first supermarket in Singapore to implement a "no shark fins policy". Singapore is one of the biggest seafood consumers in the Asia-Pacific region, consuming an average of 100,000 tons of seafood each year. Most of this is imported from the Coral Triangle, the world's most diverse marine environment. Read the full story here.

Best Fishes.

The Seven Seas Team

www.thesevenseas.net

The Seven Seas - Grahalia Tiying Gading 18, Suite 1 - Jl Tukad Pancoran
Panjer Denpasar 80225 - Bali - Indonesia

[email protected]