Day 7: Yangeffo/Gam

I missed the first dive, at a site called Mayhem, because I was sick, which was unfortunate since apparently there were a lot of wobbegong sharks.  I sort of suspect this might have been the best dive of the trip, but I’m pretending not to suspect this for obvious reasons.

The second dive was at Citrus Ridge. We saw three wobbegong sharks, a blacktip shark, and a small blue-spotted ray.  (After we saw all of these wobbegong sharks, the description of Mayhem was revised to make it seem like maybe they didn’t see quite as many wobbegong sharks as I originally thought.)

There was also a large school of small baitfish right at the start of the dive.  There was a decent amount of current in the middle of the dive, and then the shallow reef at the end was very nice. It felt like it would make a really good snorkel site.

The third dive was at Mangrove Ridge. There is a dive site there, but we effectively did the snorkel profile.  Right at the start there was a really nice school of yellowtail fusiliers. The mangroves themselves had cardinalfish, and there were more fish hiding in the corals just outside the mangroves.

I found a coral banded pipefish in a small cave.  I was excited to see it, and also excited that I had managed to find this myself.

In the afternoon, we saw an oceanic manta from the big boat while in transit.

Day 6: Penemu

The first dive was at Melissa’s Garden, which was our first site in northern Raja Ampat.  It’s a large area with very healthy hard coral – mostly staghorn and cabbage – and a lot of fish. It’s one of those sites that makes you understand the phrase “coral garden” where the coral goes on and on.

We saw two pygmy seahorses on a single fan, which was nice.  

There were also quite a few other divers around, which was noticeable given how spread out the site is.  I have to say that this was a bit annoying.  Up until today, we had been in the Misool area.  One nice thing about Misool (or not nice, depending on how you look at it) is that the Misool Eco Resort schedules all of the dive boats onto the sites in the area (by agreement between the various dive operators).  So on the negative side, it means you might not get to go to the site you want at the exact time that you want.  But on the positive side, when you go to a site, you have that site.  There are a crazy number of liveaboards in Raja Ampat, but this makes it so that no site is crowded.  It’s a very nice system.  So on this, our first dive outside of Misool, you could definitely see the difference.

I skipped the second dive here, as I was coming down with a cold (that had been going around the boat), and thought it would be better to rest.

The third dive was at Batu Rufus. It’s a sloping reef that ends at a small arch in about 10 feet of water.  I didn’t think this site was especially interesting overall. Other divers seemed to be really into the arch, and it was a nice arch, but… it was just an arch.  It wasn’t bad, just not particularly memorable compared to some of the others.

One of the other divers (Ben) did find a mushroom coral pipefish near the end of the dive, which was probably the highlight.

In the afternoon, we did a hike up to an overlook that is apparently the overlook where the canonical pictures of Raja Ampat are shot from… this is how it was described to me, and I think I know the shots they were talking about!  The hike was just enough steps to make me want to die, but not enough to make me actually die.  Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.  It was supposedly 300-400 steps, which by my calculation makes it like 4 to 5 times as many steps as the walk up from Carmel beach to the road.  This is how I convinced myself it would not actually kill me, and also how I passed the time on the walk up – by doing step math.

Afterward, we went for a little boat ride where we zoomed around between the little islands, and eventually we popped out within sight of the boat, in a completely different spot than where we had come in.

Day 5: Fiabacet/Tomolol

The first two dives were at Nudi Rock and Tank Rock, which are right next to each other and effectively the same reef.

There were a lot of fish and a decent amount of fans and soft corals. On the second dive, Rob went off with Appe to shoot macro and managed to find a pygmy seahorse.  We also saw a pygmy on our dive, which Vicky found, so that evened things out.  It was a very nice pygmy sighting, so after the dive we nervously waited for Rob to return to see if he had found one too (phew).

The number of fish, and the number of different kinds of fish, was pretty high across both dives. It felt like one of those sites where everywhere you look there is something different.  I kept thinking it was like Cordell Bank (in terms of number of fish) but with 20 different species of fish instead of one :)  We also saw one turtle on the reef.

By the way, in case you are wondering about the name “Nudi Rock” it is not because there are a particular number or kind of nudibranch on the site… it’s because the rock that sticks out above the water is shaped like a nudibranch, and it really is.  I must admit I was less bought into “Tank Rock” being shaped like a tank.

In the afternoon, we went to a jellyfish lake on the way north. I’ve never been to a jellyfish lake before.  There were not quite as many jellyfish as there are in some that I’ve seen pictures of, but there was a decent aggregation in some spots.  Still pretty cool to see.  The speedboat ride through the islands on the way there and back was also very nice.

Day 4: Warakaraket/Jiliet

The first dive was at Magic Mountain. The ride out was fairly choppy.  There was current on the site, along with a lot of fish activity and soft corals. We spent a good amount of time on the shallow part of the reef. Here, there were a few rocks with lots of really nice soft coral, one of which had some batfish trying to line up (or not) in front of it for a picture.  At some point, when the current eased up a bit, we went around to the back side and dropped down.

The back side was not quite as nice, but still had patches of soft coral in various places. At one point, we saw a dolphin below us at around 70 feet.  I was kind of in shock when I saw it and realized what I was looking at.  It hung around long enough for me to signal Rob and for him to get a look at it too.  It was rubbing against a piece of coral for a bit and then swam away, which seemed a little strange behavior-wise, but who knows.

The second dive was at Eagle Nest. Yes, that’s really the name of the site!  It’s a large pinnacle that overall was not especially memorable, but one side (I think the north side) was really encrusted, which I liked quite a bit. I saw a number of bumpy dorids (yes, that’s a technical term, and I saw at least two different kinds), and there was also a moray eel.

The third dive was at Jiliet Reef. This one had a lot of schooling fish—large groups of jacks, two kinds of barracuda, fusiliers, redtooth triggerfish, and probably some other things I’m forgetting. Also saw two scorpionfish.  On the topic of redtooth triggerfish… I saw one of these on a previous dive and noticed the red by its mouth.  I wasn’t really sure what I was looking at, so I looked it up later and found out that these fish have red teeth and are called… (drum roll)... redtooth triggerfish.  After that I became a bit obsessed with looking at and video’ing their red teeth on subsequent dives.  Anyhoo, overall a very fishy dive!

The night dive was at Romeo Reef. The goal was to find an epaulette shark, which we did (and which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before… they are super cute).  We also saw a crocodile fish, a free-swimming moray, crabs, shrimp, and a lobster.

There was some current on the dive, and there were also two blacktip sharks and a very large barracuda that seemed to be on patrol for most of the dive, which made things a bit more interesting.  I kept catching them zipping by at the edge of my light.

Day 3: Boo/Fiabacet

Conditions were rainy and cold with poor light.

The first dive was at Boo West. The site had a main structure and a deeper pinnacle with large sea fans and a lot of fish. We saw sharks in the distance.  It was a solid dive, but nothing amazing.

The second dive was at Whale Rock and was one of the best of the trip, with strong current, dense soft corals, and a lot of fish life. We spent a good amount of time on a small pinnacle dealing with the current.  I feel like we finally found awesome soft corals here.

The third dive was at Kalig East and Rob and Clinton were shooting macro, which turned out to be not very productive.  The site was a wall that was pretty nice, just not very good for macro on that particular day and time.  We saw a mantis shrimp, nudis, and a crab.  There was one spot with nice soft corals and tons and tons of fish. Overall it was pretty fishy though mostly concentrated in that one area. I saw a napoleon wrasse down deep.  Clinton saw a bumphead parrotfish and doubted my napoleon wrasse sighting, but I swear I saw one!

In the evening, we went to a beach to hang out (and drink) around sunset.  The beach where we docked had baby blacktip sharks in the shallows, which were insanely cute.  I really want to get one as a pet and keep it in the bath tub.

Aside from watching (and taking not very good iphone footage of) the baby sharks, we just hung out on the beach, which had insanely soft white sand, possibly the softest sand on a beach that I've ever experienced.  And the boat crew made a nice little bar setup on the beach (which reminded me of sundowners on our South Africa safari, but without the giraffes roaming around us).

Day 2: Pele/Wayil

The first dive was at Four Kings. It’s four pinnacles that step down in depth, with current, a lot of fish, and soft corals. Overall a really nice site, probably one of the best sites of the trip.

For some reason, the plan at the end of the dive involved swimming back against the current, which felt unnecessary.  At some point during the dive, I decided that this was a ridiculous plan and I was not actually going to plan to get all the way back to the start point.  We have SMBs and chase boats for a reason, right?  We got back to the third pinnacle and were hanging out there, when Clinton thumbed it on gas.  I shot a bag and he and I went up while Rob and our DM (Gabriel) stayed on the bottom.  After this dive, Rob and Clinton decided to upgrade to Aluminum 100s (I stuck with my 80).

The second dive was at a site called Toblerone. The light was poor and the viz was mediocre. We followed a wall/slope that kind of went around in a big U shape, and then there is a large underpass on top. There were a lot of fusiliers up on top, and a decent amount of soft corals inside the underpass. We saw a blue dragon nudi and a wobbegong in the shallow area on top.  I think this was the first time I’ve seen a wobbegong, definitely the first time of this trip.  Woohoo!

The third dive was at Gorgonian Channel. We were dropped much further upcurrent than expected and spent a good part of the dive trying to figure out where the soft corals were.  There was a lot of current in the channel where we first dropped, and there were *some* patches of soft corals here and there.  Rob kept stopping to shoot those, and I had to swim upcurrent to stay with him.  We eventually found some super nice super lush areas of soft corals about 25 minutes in.  Doh.  We were supposed to just drift to those and start the dive there.

So the soft corals themselves were very very nice, but we didn’t get to spend as much time there as we should have :(

The night dive was at Wayil Wall.  It was a nice relaxing dive on the wall.  We saw an octopus, eel, lobster, pygmy seahorse, and a conger eel.  The pygmy was definitely the highlight of the dive.

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 :).