Biodiversity Cruise Indonesia Raja Ampat Smooth crossing from Misool to Batanta. Batanta is muck dive sites which was pretty good for visibility as the bottom has some gravel but can get kicked up with some divers fins. Very little current. Nudibranchs and octopus was the highlights of the sites. Crossed over to Waigeo. Waigeo dive sites has pinnacles in the middle of dampier strait which at times the current is screaming making photography impossible. Use reef hook and watch the scenery. At other pinnacles current mild so very good site for fish to photograph. Visibility is at 60 feet. Did a dive in mangrove which had very good visibility. Arborek jetty was a very good site as we had mantas flying out of water and i had a cuttlefish posing for half of one dive and found him again for the second dive. Schools of fish around the jetty. Manta Sandy dive for mantas did not disappoint as we had many mantas cruising getting cleaned. Other mantas did not look like they were being cleaned as they were not near the cleaning station. They were just there cruising behind the cleaning station. Kri island dive is a protected area from fishing. It is obvious the great work they are doing. Four turtles on one dive and six sharks as well as schooling fish. The turtles i got many pics of as they were easy to approach. Kri was the last dive i did so the last ten minutes of the dive i just watched the reef go by taking it all in. Great reef. Will defiantly have to do raja ampat again as on many sites i found turtle, cuttlefish, octopus or other subjects to photograph and missed alot of what was in the dive briefing but when you have a great subject you shoot it. Some groups covered a whole lot more territory as the inflatables sometimes were a hundreds of yards away when surfacing. The liveaboard i was on was the mermaid 1. I have now done six trips on mermaid liveaboards and they do no disappoint. Will defiantly do many more trips with them. Both mermaid 1 and 2 are well set up. Mermaid 1 i prefer as the trips are longer so a little more relaxed pace. Both boats are comfortable and very well organized. The mermaid 1 does have a little more space in the dining room area and dive deck but i have done both and enjoyed them. Crews on board do not babysit underwater. They find subjects sometimes so small as i have to photograph it to figure out what they found. Professional and safe crews. Dive briefings very good and gives a few clues of what is found on each site. Food on board is very good. Breakfast is made to order. Lunch and dinner have soup, a fish, chicken. pork and a beef dish as well as salad and veggie dish. Alot of choices to eat. Thank You Mermaid Liveaboards. My website has four parts of this biodiversity trip in separate sections. Alor and gunang api, banda islands, misool, and waigeo. On the mermaid liveaboard site here is the trip video. Biodiversity Cruise Mermaid Nov 26 - Dec 10, 2012.mov - YouTube
Sorong airport needs a bit of cleaning up but it is organized. Sriwijaya Air flight was on a boeing 737 500 series. Nice airline but seats are tight and meal served still not sure what is was. Mystery meat. The airline has a 15kg weight limit for checked. Just pay for any extra weight in baggage. They did not even look at carry on luggage even though they have a 7kg limit and my camera bag is 11kg. Office to pay overweight charge is well organized. From makassar some of the group flew lion air and i flew garuda air. Garuda has 20kg limit so i did not have any weight charge. Lion air was 15kg and it seemed a bit disorganized as to where to pay the charges. For the departure tax in makassar it is paid at ticket counter. Small bills needed as not much change.
My website is reefscenics' Photos | SmugMug
Sorong airport needs a bit of cleaning up but it is organized. Sriwijaya Air flight was on a boeing 737 500 series. Nice airline but seats are tight and meal served still not sure what is was. Mystery meat. The airline has a 15kg weight limit for checked. Just pay for any extra weight in baggage. They did not even look at carry on luggage even though they have a 7kg limit and my camera bag is 11kg. Office to pay overweight charge is well organized. From makassar some of the group flew lion air and i flew garuda air. Garuda has 20kg limit so i did not have any weight charge. Lion air was 15kg and it seemed a bit disorganized as to where to pay the charges. For the departure tax in makassar it is paid at ticket counter. Small bills needed as not much change.
My website is reefscenics' Photos | SmugMug
