Labuan Bajo Boat Charter is written and fact-checked by a two-person editorial desk in Labuan Bajo: journal editor Yohanes Sanggu and fleet director Kristoforus Jehamat. Every vessel page is based on boats we have boarded and graded ourselves, and every guide is reviewed before publication and re-checked each season.
Yohanes Sanggu, journal editor
Yohanes edits the Komodo charter journal and writes most of its route, season and boat-class guides. His job is to keep the writing honest: if a crossing gets rough in July, the guide says so; if a cheaper boat class covers the same anchorages as a premium one, the comparison spells that out. He works from Labuan Bajo, which means harbor schedules, ranger-station rules and fuel-surcharge changes reach the page in days, not seasons.
Kristoforus “Kristo” Jehamat, fleet director and head charter curator
Kristo is a Manggarai native with twelve years of working history in Labuan Bajo harbor. He decides which vessels make it onto the curated fleet and which do not. Before a boat is listed he walks it end to end: engine room, cabins, safety equipment, crew roster and galley. Boats that pass are graded into the classes you see across this site; boats that fail are simply left out. He also reviews every vessel page before it goes live so the cabin counts, layouts and guest limits match what is actually on the water.
How we grade boats
Our grading is deliberately conservative. We only publish specifications we have verified aboard or with the operating crew, and where a figure cannot be confirmed we say “price on request” rather than guessing. Class labels — standard, deluxe and luxury phinisi, yacht, speedboat and dive liveaboard — follow the build quality, crew ratio and service level we observed, not the marketing brochure. When a boat is refitted or changes crew, its page is re-checked and re-graded.
Who operates the charters
Charter operations, licensing and guest handling are run by Komodo Luxury (PT. Komodo Bahari Nusantara), a TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice awardee from 2025 and 2026, under Juara Holding Group Ltd. The editorial desk works alongside the operations team but keeps its own standard: nothing is published because a boat needs bookings. You can read more about the wider operation on our about page.
Corrections and updates
Pricing bands, park fees and vessel line-ups in Komodo National Park move often. If you spot something out of date on any page, write to us at [email protected] and we will verify it against the current harbor situation and correct the page. Substantive corrections are noted on the page they concern. Our office is on Soekarno Hatta Street, Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara 86554 — the same street as the harbor we write about.