gee13
Contributor
I had been considering diving Raja Ampat for a while, its one of those places you here a lot about but its rare to actually meet anyone who has properly dived the region. Raja Ampat is a vast area, and Ive only known of some divers who have been to Misool Resort or Kri. Stories of long transfers to the resorts following difficult flight routes to Sorong have mainly deferred my decision. After my Komodo trip last year I had 2 weeks available in January this year and was looking at places to go. I was really not sure what I was looking for apart from knowing I wanted to go to a more remote place this time. After finding some flight routes that would not take to long to get to Sorong (In Theory) I was booked back again on the Indo Siren to Raja Ampat for a 10 night trip.
The adventure started on Jan 1, I would highly recommend NOT travelling Indonesian domestic on this date. Im not sure if it’s the combination of bad weather and the new domestic airport being built, or the 2 small traffic lanes serving both International and Domestic Airports that was more frustrating than the major 3 hour delay getting out of Bali followed by an aborted landing in Manado where we had to go back to Makkasar to refuel and re-attempt another landing in Manado. To cut a long story short I was meant to be enjoying my glass of wine in my Manado hotel around 11pm after a shower, instead I spent the night flying Bali-Makassar-Manado (no landing)- Makassar- Manado. Finally landing at 630am! Anyway I checked in at 730am where I had time to take a bath and a quick snooze before heading off for the afternoon flight to Sorong. Finally the flying gods were on me and that flight was on time. Arriving at Sorong was interesting – folks playing football on the grassed area as the plane landed?
Im will try to summarise what we experienced diving the South Area of Raja Ampat – Misool then on to the North – Kri/ Dampier Strait.
The weather was mainly overcast/cloudy, there was even rainy patches on our south leg of Misool, where the sites were mainly bommies and slopes. The highlight was definitely Boo Windows, however the vis was lower than expected and without much sunlight and so many particulates in the water other well known sites such as Whale, Tank and Nudi Rocks looked like they had so much more potential especially the very healthy corals. The only exception being Neptunes Fan Sea where 20m+ vis was evident – a great drift dive through massive varieties of gorgonian fans. Bottom Temps ranged from 28-29C in this region. The other aspect I realised about Misool was the fish life and pelagics were not as abundant as I imagined. We barely saw one or two sharks in the area. Perhaps the lack of fish schools were also due to lack of current experienced. Or maybe it was due to overfishing. We did managed to get some good dives in for critters though and managed to find those elusive misool pygmys. My favourite dive in Misool was actually a night dive at Algae Patch which reminded me of Lembeh with tiny critters abundant.
Heading to the North we were hoping for an improvement and that we got. The Dampier Strait area was a huge difference. Perhaps this is why Max Ammer set up camp here. Here the currents were stronger, the fish life more abundant, the reefs more alive and we saw many more sharks (more than the entire Komodo trip). Cape Kri, Blue Magic, Chicken Reef - These were all world class sites with tons of fish schools, pelagics and major current to boot. It was slightly cooler here - 27C average. Most times it was hook in and enjoy the show. However if you look in the nooks and crannies theres lots of macro – even the Pontohi surfaced on a few occasions here (when I had the wide angle right). I might say Manta Sandy was enjoyable where after the cleaning show I got to snorkel with 6 of them at the surface. But nothing compared to the 20+ we had at Manta Alley in Komodo. We also didn’t have the best of visibility here in the north, even with the currents max 15m was what we got however the sun was up on most days and that made a huge difference in bringing the colour out of the corals. But the presence of bigger fish biomass sure made up for it. And Ive never seen that many wobeggongs outside of Australia.
Overall the trip was enjoyable. The photography side was a lot more challenging with the conditions. In summary the diving was good to world class on some sites. I enjoyed the north better than south area. The underwater topography was a lot more homogenous than what I experienced in Komodo. It was great to be out in a remote diving area again - the topside is fantastic, the boat and crew were all class as usual along with the majority of fellow divers from around the world . I would like to visit again at a different time to make a better comparison. Fortunately the trip home was rather uneventful – perhaps the magnitude of domestic holidays had settled down and for a change everything ran on time...
The adventure started on Jan 1, I would highly recommend NOT travelling Indonesian domestic on this date. Im not sure if it’s the combination of bad weather and the new domestic airport being built, or the 2 small traffic lanes serving both International and Domestic Airports that was more frustrating than the major 3 hour delay getting out of Bali followed by an aborted landing in Manado where we had to go back to Makkasar to refuel and re-attempt another landing in Manado. To cut a long story short I was meant to be enjoying my glass of wine in my Manado hotel around 11pm after a shower, instead I spent the night flying Bali-Makassar-Manado (no landing)- Makassar- Manado. Finally landing at 630am! Anyway I checked in at 730am where I had time to take a bath and a quick snooze before heading off for the afternoon flight to Sorong. Finally the flying gods were on me and that flight was on time. Arriving at Sorong was interesting – folks playing football on the grassed area as the plane landed?
Im will try to summarise what we experienced diving the South Area of Raja Ampat – Misool then on to the North – Kri/ Dampier Strait.
The weather was mainly overcast/cloudy, there was even rainy patches on our south leg of Misool, where the sites were mainly bommies and slopes. The highlight was definitely Boo Windows, however the vis was lower than expected and without much sunlight and so many particulates in the water other well known sites such as Whale, Tank and Nudi Rocks looked like they had so much more potential especially the very healthy corals. The only exception being Neptunes Fan Sea where 20m+ vis was evident – a great drift dive through massive varieties of gorgonian fans. Bottom Temps ranged from 28-29C in this region. The other aspect I realised about Misool was the fish life and pelagics were not as abundant as I imagined. We barely saw one or two sharks in the area. Perhaps the lack of fish schools were also due to lack of current experienced. Or maybe it was due to overfishing. We did managed to get some good dives in for critters though and managed to find those elusive misool pygmys. My favourite dive in Misool was actually a night dive at Algae Patch which reminded me of Lembeh with tiny critters abundant.
Heading to the North we were hoping for an improvement and that we got. The Dampier Strait area was a huge difference. Perhaps this is why Max Ammer set up camp here. Here the currents were stronger, the fish life more abundant, the reefs more alive and we saw many more sharks (more than the entire Komodo trip). Cape Kri, Blue Magic, Chicken Reef - These were all world class sites with tons of fish schools, pelagics and major current to boot. It was slightly cooler here - 27C average. Most times it was hook in and enjoy the show. However if you look in the nooks and crannies theres lots of macro – even the Pontohi surfaced on a few occasions here (when I had the wide angle right). I might say Manta Sandy was enjoyable where after the cleaning show I got to snorkel with 6 of them at the surface. But nothing compared to the 20+ we had at Manta Alley in Komodo. We also didn’t have the best of visibility here in the north, even with the currents max 15m was what we got however the sun was up on most days and that made a huge difference in bringing the colour out of the corals. But the presence of bigger fish biomass sure made up for it. And Ive never seen that many wobeggongs outside of Australia.
Overall the trip was enjoyable. The photography side was a lot more challenging with the conditions. In summary the diving was good to world class on some sites. I enjoyed the north better than south area. The underwater topography was a lot more homogenous than what I experienced in Komodo. It was great to be out in a remote diving area again - the topside is fantastic, the boat and crew were all class as usual along with the majority of fellow divers from around the world . I would like to visit again at a different time to make a better comparison. Fortunately the trip home was rather uneventful – perhaps the magnitude of domestic holidays had settled down and for a change everything ran on time...
Last edited:
