Day 1: Wayil

We started diving around Wayil, which has a handful of sites around a small island.

The first dive was a checkout dive at a site called Wayil Wall. It was fine for a checkout dive, which is about the best thing you can say about a checkout dive. We saw a turtle, a bumphead wrasse, and a bunch of dorids, so it definitely wasn’t empty, just not especially interesting.  Rob was, as expected, extremely patient about having to do a checkout dive (i.e., not patient at all).

The second dive, at Barracuda Rock, was quite a bit better. Right at the start there were larger fish --barracuda, jacks, butterflyfish, plus tons of fusiliers, which was a nice change from the first dive. The site also had some nice overhangs.  There was another turtle on this dive as well, just hanging out on the bottom and not doing much.

The third dive was at Dunia Kecil.  There was more current, but the section of the wall with current had a lot more fish activity.  If you dropped deeper into the calmer section, there were large fans. The shallow area had orange soft corals, a small blue and white aeolid (I think?), a crocodile flathead, and clownfish.

After diving, we did a short boat tour around the area. The scenery was very stereotypical Raja Ampat, like what you see in trip brochures – small islands, bright turquoise water, and blue skies.  There were many comments about it not looking real, and also looking like the scenery in Jurassic Park :).