On my last liveaboard in Raja Ampat I was a little disappointed about the nightdives. In my opinion nightdives in Komodo are much better. Only Pearlfarm pier is marked with explanation points in my divelog. Do you have the same idea or did my liveaboard choose the 'wrong' places?
Nightdives in Raja Ampat
- Thread starter danz
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
hello
when i did my liveabourd, we did two nightdives. the first one under the jetty at kampung yenbeser. very good, i did enjoy it very much (i am experienced diver) and so did the rest of the guests in the liveabourd. the second night dive was very near, at a spot called "batu lima", which was excellent. behind batu lima there is a beach with new resort beign built called raja ampat biodiversity eco resort if you want to check them. both this night dives are extremely close to this beach.
hope you can dive this sites when you go back to raja ampat!
when i did my liveabourd, we did two nightdives. the first one under the jetty at kampung yenbeser. very good, i did enjoy it very much (i am experienced diver) and so did the rest of the guests in the liveabourd. the second night dive was very near, at a spot called "batu lima", which was excellent. behind batu lima there is a beach with new resort beign built called raja ampat biodiversity eco resort if you want to check them. both this night dives are extremely close to this beach.
hope you can dive this sites when you go back to raja ampat!
We have amazing night dives in Raja Ampat every year, but do have to select them, not just drop divers in wherever we happen to be. I also hire excellent dive guides (spotters) and that helps considerably!
The very last night dive I did on the last trip I saw, among other things, a Blue Ring Octopus and watched a pair of Harlequin Shrimp dragging a starfish into their hole. I was the only diver who went in after dark. The other divers went in at dusk to see mating Mandarianfish. Lucky for me! I got full access to video the shrimps.
I have some of the Blue Ring Octopus and Harlequin Shrimp images on my facebook album.
BTW that dive was not my favorite night dive of the trip. I try not to miss the night dives in Raja Ampat, nearly always regret it if I do.
The very last night dive I did on the last trip I saw, among other things, a Blue Ring Octopus and watched a pair of Harlequin Shrimp dragging a starfish into their hole. I was the only diver who went in after dark. The other divers went in at dusk to see mating Mandarianfish. Lucky for me! I got full access to video the shrimps.
I have some of the Blue Ring Octopus and Harlequin Shrimp images on my facebook album.
BTW that dive was not my favorite night dive of the trip. I try not to miss the night dives in Raja Ampat, nearly always regret it if I do.
d3vin
Registered
We spent about 10 days on Live aboard in Raja Ampat. The most memorable night dive was in a Jetty, I forgot the name but it's actually named of a resort. I think Raja Ampat Lodge/resort/hotel..can't really remember..anyway, the night dive was simply amazing. Since I dove with a lot of photographers, we found many macros critters. Decorator crabs, blue ring octopus, ghost pipe fish and so on..It was an easy dive..So we decided to spent 2 night dives there...
I've done around 400 night dives in Raja Ampat. Lots of memorable dives, but part of one night dive sticks in my mind.. and not macro!
Since divers are looking mostly for small things at night, we go along focused in on a small area. One night I was intent on finding critters in the sand, then noticed a very odd pattern to the bottom underneath me. Turns out I was close on top of a Wobbegong shark! When I realized it I was startled and came up off the bottom rather quickly.
I moved off to the side a fair way and watched as other divers came around the rock and did the same thing. It was funny... diver going along smoothly, then suddenly realizing what was underneath and her/his dive light started flailing. We had a good laugh about it back on the ship.
Pretty common to find Wobbegongs at night, also the Raja Ampat Epaulette Shark "walking" around on the corals or sand. Another event I remember is looking at photos from one of the guests back on the ship after a night dive. Point and shoot camera. She had a photo of a Blue Ring Octopus on the head of an epaulette shark. All the photographers with the big rigs went nuts!! She was the only one to get that photo.
Since divers are looking mostly for small things at night, we go along focused in on a small area. One night I was intent on finding critters in the sand, then noticed a very odd pattern to the bottom underneath me. Turns out I was close on top of a Wobbegong shark! When I realized it I was startled and came up off the bottom rather quickly.
I moved off to the side a fair way and watched as other divers came around the rock and did the same thing. It was funny... diver going along smoothly, then suddenly realizing what was underneath and her/his dive light started flailing. We had a good laugh about it back on the ship.
Pretty common to find Wobbegongs at night, also the Raja Ampat Epaulette Shark "walking" around on the corals or sand. Another event I remember is looking at photos from one of the guests back on the ship after a night dive. Point and shoot camera. She had a photo of a Blue Ring Octopus on the head of an epaulette shark. All the photographers with the big rigs went nuts!! She was the only one to get that photo.
In this case it was shear luck! She didn't see the BRO until she looked at the photo.
Darnold9999
Contributor
Have had itgo both ways. From dives where everyone came back talking about all the different things they discovered to dives where most came back only having seen mostly sand.
The Pearl Farm was one of my favourites. Have done that as a night dive several times and have always found it to be excellent.
The Pearl Farm was one of my favourites. Have done that as a night dive several times and have always found it to be excellent.
That's my experience in a lot of other places.. sand... I remember 1.5 hours in Fiji.. nothing at all! But have to say that the worst night dives are when a ship or dive op just drops divers in someplace easy rather than putting them in a place that is known to be good.
Pearl Farm is a good night dive. It's easy to find stuff there as the critters are perhaps more exposed and larger critters than some other sites, but not my favorite in Raja Ampat. I can quickly think of 11 others in R4 I like better at night.
Shasta_man
Contributor
My night dives in RA were good. Our Pearl Farm pier dive was great with a large wobbegong and large cuttlefish and octopus, etc. I was under some of the tied up boats and so very shallow with my light off to not scare the critters, using others lights to see. Turning my light back on found me hovering about six inches off a nice bed of large spiny urchins! C'mon perfect buoyancy. However, one of my best dives ever was a night dive in Komodo at Pink Beach, near Shotgun. I believe there are multiple Pink Beaches but this was a good place and many things came together on that dive. Fantastic weather, coming up to a beautiful still water night with all the stars, a good group that spread out and didn't cluster the whole dive but the best part was the number of different critters we saw on that dive. I must have seen 25-30 different things from octopus and squid to lobster, pipefish, eels and a very cool very large multi colored snail looking critter about the size of a cantaloupe cruising across the wall. The only thing missing was the whale shark which I should've turned away from the wall to see.
Similar threads
