Has Anybody Been To Sorido Bay Resort For Diving? If So, Was It Worth It?

[anenomefishman]

we just left sorido bay resort today after 10 day days there in raja ampat. fantastic!.. fly back to the states tomorrow (seattle), currently posting from manado, id. i would go back again sometime to sorido bay resort. the viz was fantastic, typically 35 to 40 m. some very strong currents. it is low season here, so not many people staying at all the resorts in raja ampat. good diving, good food, good diving operation. only major negative thing was a lightning storm took out the internet, one of the generators, the nitrox compressort. the internet was out for week and still not working when we left today..

Bruce

view from our room. cape kri visible behind dive jetty.

paupa diving dive boats. small boats (6 divers max). most dive sites within 15 minute or so. max 3 divers per dive master.

mandarin fish about 15m from dive dock. dusk dive.

tons of clownfish in that area of raja ampat. in all types of anemones. one of my favorites.

carpet shark. weird looking.

lots of strange looking nudibranchs.

upper part of cape kri landscape. lots of fish.

 

[Dan]

....carpet shark. weird looking.

Thanks for the report. A very descriptive way of calling that wobeggong shark It does look like carpet.

The closest place I went to Sorido Bay Resort is to Raja Ampat Dive Lodge, owned by Grand Komodo Liveaboard, on the same island of Mansuar, back in 2010. Most of my trips to Raja Ampat were by liveaboards. I did stay in Misool Eco Resort in 2013. The most recent dive resort in Raja Ampat I stayed was a couple months ago in Raja4 Divers in Pulau Pef. I just never get tired of seeing those fishes & critters in Raja Ampat.

 

[anenomefishman]

Thanks for the report. A very descriptive way of calling that wobeggong shark It does look like carpet.

The closest place I went to Sorido Bay Resort is to Raja Ampat Dive Lodge, owned by Grand Komodo Liveaboard, on the same island of Mansuar, back in 2010. Most of my trips to Raja Ampat were by liveaboards. I did stay in Misool Eco Resort in 2013. The most recent dive resort in Raja Ampat I stayed was a couple months ago in Raja4 Divers in Pulau Pef. I just never get tired of seeing those fishes & critters in Raja Ampat.

the local divemasters called them "carpet sharks" as well as wobeggongs. we had never seen one before.. Sorido Bay Resort is on the island of Kri, east of the island of Mansuar. there is a thin channel between the two islands. we made a number of dives off of east end of Mansuar like Cape Mansuar, Yanbuba Jetty, and Ransiwor.

 

[jcclink]

Where is "Cape Kri" exactly? My first time diving RA was with Kri Eco. Cape Kri was the submerged reef area off the east end of Kri island. On my next 2 visits to RA (both on liveaboards) "Cape Kri" was the east tip of Kri Island. Some operators know how & where to dive this area, some don't. Not nessesarily complaining but the same dive site can't be in 2 different places. I found the submerged area to be the best.

 

[WetPup]

You know how there's those two marker buoys on the reef just outside Sorido Bay? Cape Kri is the dive site just as you turn right leaving Sorido Bay around that small headland.

Basically it's around the corner of the reef on the bottom left hand side of this image.

 

[highdesert]

The last time we did this dive it was late afternoon, with the sun about where it is in the photo. The tide was rising, running along Cape Kri from background to foreground of the photo. The entire food chain was lined up, from nudis to schools of snapper and jack, Spanish mackerel and dogtooth tuna. A truly remarkable dive, one of my best ever.

 

[WetPup]

I dived Cape Kri on 4 separate dives in December and thought it was pretty average. Schools of smaller fish certainly, but no big fish at all, and viz was only 5-7 meters at best.

Our best dives were at Blue Magic

The luck of the draw, such as it is.

 

[Luko]

I dived Cape Kri on 4 separate dives in December and thought it was pretty average. Schools of smaller fish certainly, but no big fish at all, and viz was only 5-7 meters at best.
.

This is typical Cape Kri.
The sweetlips school is resident at 38m on the westerner side of Cape Kri.
You should not bring your black cat with you while diving..

 

[anenomefishman]

I dived Cape Kri on 4 separate dives in December and thought it was pretty average. Schools of smaller fish certainly, but no big fish at all, and viz was only 5-7 meters at best.

Our best dives were at Blue Magic

The luck of the draw, such as it is.

the viz was phenomenal when we were in raja ampat. typically 35-40 m. however, the winds are greater and the currents can be pretty wicked and some nasty rain storms that blow in and out. for indonesia, we choose visibility over the larger number of large pelagics and fish when the coral and plankton bloom is running. we always go to indonesia in the july timeframe. it is low season and not much people around. i thought that mike's point and friwenbonda were better dives than blue magic. the current was very strong when we were at blue magic and we came into the front section against the current, so i wasted much air getting there. lots of big schools of fish, but difficult to take pictures in current. i probably should have used my reef hook there.

 

[anenomefishman]

This is typical Cape Kri.
The sweetlips school is resident at 38m on the westerner side of Cape Kri.
You should not bring your black cat with you while diving..

very nice pic! we did not see large schools of sweetlips at cape kri. other fish, yes. we were typically at 22-28m at cape kri. we saw a lot of sweetlips at otdima dive site..