Misool to Halmahera
TL;DR: Raja Ampat and Halmahera were surprisingly macro rich environments with stunning landscapes. I didn’t bring my OM-1 and macro lens at the suggestion of multiple photographers, and I found myself regretting that decision. You can make a Raja Ampat trip a macro photography trip if you are pushy enough…
We are on the last leg of our trip back from Indonesia. We spent 12 days on the Amira boat, thanks in large part to recommendations here on this board. Our original plan was Raja Ampat and then on to Lembeh in November, but due to a terminal illness in our dog (my heart dog) we delayed and shortened our trip to just the liveaboard portion, and moved it to February. We were lucky that there was a cancellation on this booking that we were able to reschedule to. Most divers do not come to Raja Ampat for macro, I am fully aware, but since the Lembeh portion of the trip was cancelled, we decided to make the most of our Raja trip.
About the boat:
The boat exceeded our expectations. It was beautiful. Honestly, the pictures do not do it justice. We had a lot of repeat visitors on the boat, which is always a great sign. The amenities were top notch, along with the food. As vegetarians, liveaboard food can be a challenge. Like the Red Sea liveaboard that literally gave us French fries and mashed potatoes as dinner one night. What I loved about Amira is that most of the food was locally influenced cuisine. We had a ton of tofu and tempeh throughout the trip, which we’ve been surprised to find is unusual on some liveaboards… their proficiency with vegetarian cuisine may come from the fact that Nora, the cruise director, is vegetarian herself.
Diving- If you read some of my previous posts, I was very concerned about currents and conditions in Raja Ampat. Thankfully, we never did experience any events that we felt were overly challenging for our skill level. Our group, on our request, was definitely the low-current dive group, due to our desire to shoot macro photography and take dives very slow. Every guide except one was incredibly accommodating to that. Three out of Four guides have experience in Lembeh, and it showed. If you enjoy critter hunting yourself, this is a great place to do it, but they won’t be spoon fed to you, buffet-style, like they are in Anilao or Lembeh (presumably.) I’m still cataloguing our nudibranchs, but there are multiple undescribed species that we spotted. We also had phenomenal night dives. I have never been sad to have a night dive end, until this trip. The same three out of four guides seemed genuinely excited when you found a new species they had never seen.
If you enjoy structured, well known dive sites with detailed briefings, this trip is not for you. Because this is a newer trip, which no other boat does (at least that I know of) there was a lot of site “exploration.” As I grew more comfortable, I enjoyed that immensely. Diving a new dive site that has never seen divers is an honor, and it is especially fun when the village kiddos come out in the water, fascinated with the strange creatures blowing bubbles on their sandy slopes. This also comes with risks, though, when you venture out onto a newly explored wall dive. The dive guides would go out and scout the dive with a quick snorkel beforehand, but of course, the currents could change drastically by the time we would get on the site.
The one bit of feedback I would give the boat is to try to pair macro photographers with the right dive guides. We had the misfortune of their rotating schedule falling in such a way that the least accommodating/patient dive guide was the one we dove with the most. There was some sort of bug going around, and I was very congested with really challenging ear issues, and I was disregarded when I requested that we drop slowly on a gradual slope that allowed for a slow descent. (Multiple times) This dive guide would drop straight down to a deeper portion of the slope (60 to 80 feet) and I would be forced to either risk forcing my ears if I wanted to see something he was pointing out, or stay a significant distance away to give my ears time to adjust. On a night dive, he dropped straight down, and started swimming. My husband was having ear issues and descended more slowly. I went back to him, and by the time I did, we could no longer see the rest of the group at all.
You can have a fantastic time as a macro photographer, with unique wide angle macro shots that you might have a hard time accomplishing elsewhere. You will have to be pushy, though, and will probably get quite a bit of flack as the “slow one.” If you could go with your own group of four likeminded divers, it would probably be even more enjoyable. We were lucky that one couple on the boat had a wife who didn’t love swift current, and he had a camera and was interested in learning about macro photography, so we paired up fairly well. We’ve been on a trip, though, with no other diver who was well suited to our group (in Dumaguete) and similar circumstances on a liveaboard would have made for a very uncomfortable trip.
Yes, basically I am a pain in the rear who needs my own dive team, lol. We also had a lot of emotions tied up in this trip, because shortly after we changed it and cut the Lembeh portion, our dog took a turn for the worst. We lost him in November. I spent nearly a year extremely stressed about this trip, due to the circumstances surrounding it. I’m sure some of that might have come across in my posts here, although I don’t think I ever shared why.
I think our next big Indo-Pacific trip will likely be to Tulamben and possibly Lembeh, although I will miss the stunning backgrounds I was able to capture in some of my shots. I will also miss getting to hunt for the critters, if it is anything like our Anilao experience. (I loved it, but the guides were so good, they were bringing us critters faster than we could photograph them!) I’ll add comments with photos from this trip as I post them.
TL;DR: Raja Ampat and Halmahera were surprisingly macro rich environments with stunning landscapes. I didn’t bring my OM-1 and macro lens at the suggestion of multiple photographers, and I found myself regretting that decision. You can make a Raja Ampat trip a macro photography trip if you are pushy enough…
We are on the last leg of our trip back from Indonesia. We spent 12 days on the Amira boat, thanks in large part to recommendations here on this board. Our original plan was Raja Ampat and then on to Lembeh in November, but due to a terminal illness in our dog (my heart dog) we delayed and shortened our trip to just the liveaboard portion, and moved it to February. We were lucky that there was a cancellation on this booking that we were able to reschedule to. Most divers do not come to Raja Ampat for macro, I am fully aware, but since the Lembeh portion of the trip was cancelled, we decided to make the most of our Raja trip.
About the boat:
The boat exceeded our expectations. It was beautiful. Honestly, the pictures do not do it justice. We had a lot of repeat visitors on the boat, which is always a great sign. The amenities were top notch, along with the food. As vegetarians, liveaboard food can be a challenge. Like the Red Sea liveaboard that literally gave us French fries and mashed potatoes as dinner one night. What I loved about Amira is that most of the food was locally influenced cuisine. We had a ton of tofu and tempeh throughout the trip, which we’ve been surprised to find is unusual on some liveaboards… their proficiency with vegetarian cuisine may come from the fact that Nora, the cruise director, is vegetarian herself.
Diving- If you read some of my previous posts, I was very concerned about currents and conditions in Raja Ampat. Thankfully, we never did experience any events that we felt were overly challenging for our skill level. Our group, on our request, was definitely the low-current dive group, due to our desire to shoot macro photography and take dives very slow. Every guide except one was incredibly accommodating to that. Three out of Four guides have experience in Lembeh, and it showed. If you enjoy critter hunting yourself, this is a great place to do it, but they won’t be spoon fed to you, buffet-style, like they are in Anilao or Lembeh (presumably.) I’m still cataloguing our nudibranchs, but there are multiple undescribed species that we spotted. We also had phenomenal night dives. I have never been sad to have a night dive end, until this trip. The same three out of four guides seemed genuinely excited when you found a new species they had never seen.
If you enjoy structured, well known dive sites with detailed briefings, this trip is not for you. Because this is a newer trip, which no other boat does (at least that I know of) there was a lot of site “exploration.” As I grew more comfortable, I enjoyed that immensely. Diving a new dive site that has never seen divers is an honor, and it is especially fun when the village kiddos come out in the water, fascinated with the strange creatures blowing bubbles on their sandy slopes. This also comes with risks, though, when you venture out onto a newly explored wall dive. The dive guides would go out and scout the dive with a quick snorkel beforehand, but of course, the currents could change drastically by the time we would get on the site.
The one bit of feedback I would give the boat is to try to pair macro photographers with the right dive guides. We had the misfortune of their rotating schedule falling in such a way that the least accommodating/patient dive guide was the one we dove with the most. There was some sort of bug going around, and I was very congested with really challenging ear issues, and I was disregarded when I requested that we drop slowly on a gradual slope that allowed for a slow descent. (Multiple times) This dive guide would drop straight down to a deeper portion of the slope (60 to 80 feet) and I would be forced to either risk forcing my ears if I wanted to see something he was pointing out, or stay a significant distance away to give my ears time to adjust. On a night dive, he dropped straight down, and started swimming. My husband was having ear issues and descended more slowly. I went back to him, and by the time I did, we could no longer see the rest of the group at all.
You can have a fantastic time as a macro photographer, with unique wide angle macro shots that you might have a hard time accomplishing elsewhere. You will have to be pushy, though, and will probably get quite a bit of flack as the “slow one.” If you could go with your own group of four likeminded divers, it would probably be even more enjoyable. We were lucky that one couple on the boat had a wife who didn’t love swift current, and he had a camera and was interested in learning about macro photography, so we paired up fairly well. We’ve been on a trip, though, with no other diver who was well suited to our group (in Dumaguete) and similar circumstances on a liveaboard would have made for a very uncomfortable trip.
Yes, basically I am a pain in the rear who needs my own dive team, lol. We also had a lot of emotions tied up in this trip, because shortly after we changed it and cut the Lembeh portion, our dog took a turn for the worst. We lost him in November. I spent nearly a year extremely stressed about this trip, due to the circumstances surrounding it. I’m sure some of that might have come across in my posts here, although I don’t think I ever shared why.
I think our next big Indo-Pacific trip will likely be to Tulamben and possibly Lembeh, although I will miss the stunning backgrounds I was able to capture in some of my shots. I will also miss getting to hunt for the critters, if it is anything like our Anilao experience. (I loved it, but the guides were so good, they were bringing us critters faster than we could photograph them!) I’ll add comments with photos from this trip as I post them.
