R4 post covid

[scubajunky17]

Six dives into my diving at R4 and I have not been blown away yet.
Something has felt a little off, worst fears confirmed as I've just been told R4 was hammered by pirates during covid.
Time will tell how accurate that intel is but it seems to explain the current situation to me, anyone else feel the same with post covid diving at R4?

 

[JustinJRL]

I have only been "post covid", however one of the DM i was with was saying it "wasn't the same". With that said, early in the trip we had "green" water, visibility wasn't great, though we still saw a lot. Later in the trip we saw huge schools of fish that blacked out the sun, I saw plenty of mantas, sharks, etc.

 

[Dan]

I was there on 4-12 December, 2022 on Mermaid 2 for its first voyage after 2.5 years grounded due to Covid. There were still lots of fish, but not as much as before Covid back in December 2020. I'll post my post Covid trip report later. Here is from before Covid for comparison with what you see now.

Trip Report - Raja Ampat Jan 2020 Trip Report

Summary This is a twelve-day (14-25 January, 2020) liveaboard trip to Raja Ampat on Amira liveaboard. The itinerary, as shown in Table 1, includes 10 days of diving, 4 dives / day, except during long passage and the last dive day for 24-hour surface interval before flying home. Figure 1 shows...

scubaboard.com

 

[scubajunky17]

Which site did you see the huge schools at ?

 

[Dan]

Which site did you see the huge schools at ?

The usual suspects, Ribbon Sweetlips packed like in a can of sardines in Cape Kri around 38m depth. Have you been there?

 

[scubajunky17]

Not quite but I've seen the whole of Kri from 3m to 30 packed like sardines before.

 

[Dan]

Basically fishes in RA are still plenty, but not as much as before Covid. I’ll upload my Dec 2022 trip video soon. Have too many trip videos lined up to be published (made 13 dive trips last year).

 

[JustinJRL]

I took some footage in oct 2022, which I think was about 6 months after "reopening".

(timestamped for bait ball and trevali)

2nd video.

You'll see my visibility wasn't great, and of all my ~25 dives on that trip I only saw schooling jack on a few dives, mostly around Kri. The liveaboard was very conservative with dive profiles, so for example, we didn't see the famous packed sweet lips at 38m on cape Kri.

 

[Cali_diver]

That was my experience in the south ( with the last trip of 4 over a year being in March of this year) as well. Lets hope it bounces back now that Misool is back in action.

 

[Rock Hopper]

Thank you. Loved the video's because it was about the place as well as the underwater.