So much has been said already on Raja (wow @drrich2 report) so I’m not sure what else I can add, other than it 100% lives up to the hype and is possibly my favourite dive spot. 52 dives over 14 days, and I’ve already made plans to go back.
Is this my best/favourite dive trip? Yes! (but Komodo is a very close second, I would say Raja slightly > Komodo not massively)
Would I go back? Already made plans for next year!
Is it worth the cost? Yes!
Photos & videos:
Week 1 Papua Explorers: Raja Ampat - Papua Explorers (Dec 2022)
Week 2 Carpe Diem: Raja Ampat - Carpe Diem (Dec 2022)
Week 2 Video (from another guest):
I’ve been looking forward to Raja Ampat for a long time. I’ve been booked all the way since 2019 - was supposed to go in April 2020 but less than a week before my departure they’ve shut Sorong down to all foreigners. I was booked for a week at Papua Explorers, and a week on Carpe Diem so I can go south. Both operators are top notch - I would definitely go back to Papua Explorers, and would use Carpe Diem again if chartering but would go back to Mermaid (who I went w to Komodo) if I was going solo.
Cost wise, this was expensive but not excessively so. I felt it was worth it. We spent ~$10k total - I was there for 2 weeks, my husband for 1 (liveaboard only), as a friend was meant to join me for the first week at PapEx but ended up cancelling.
Getting there was actually pretty easy. Avoid Air Asia - they cancelled our flights about a month before (quite common it seems), so we paid up for Garuda. Garuda is so much easier, you get 30kg checked allowance, your bags go all the way through (no need to take out at Jakarta), and you don’t need to change terminals. You do clear immigration and get VOA in Jakarta but it’s quite efficient - much faster than Bali. Gate to gate probably took me ~1 hour. Free wifi at Jakarta was decent, a bit finicky to connect but good enough to watch Netflix once on. There’s decent food options at Jakarta - but no lounge.
All flights to Sorong leave around midnight and get you into Sorong ~6am, it’s a short 4 hour flight but there is a 2 hour time difference. My week at Papua Explorers was first and I was picked up right away, shuttled to Vega hotel for breakfast, and got a bit of sleep on some comfy couches. At noon we were picked up again to the pier and the speedboat to PapEx took ~1.5 hours. We arrived ~2pm- the welcome party was amazing. The entire staff most of whom are locals come together w traditional Papua headdress and sing a welcome song w guitars, dancing etc. Super fun and a great way to start the trip.
Papua Explorers is built on a pristine reef and walking from the dive center to the restaurant you can see a ton of coral and fish from the surface. At night the blacktip sharks come to feed, mostly babies and juveniles and you can see them directly from the restaurant or your bungalow. There’s a ton of schooling fish under the jetty. The closest feel I can think of is Tetamanu village in Fakarava, or maybe Bastianos in Bangka - but PapEx beats both. It’s my favourite dive resort so far. The room is huge and amazing. I loved the hammock on the balcony. The shower water is a bit salty and there is no AC, but it’s not that hot. I will 100% be back. This is one of the rare ones where I think my lukewarm-about-diving husband would really love also, because while diving was amazing everything else was also amazing.
There are NO MOSQUITOS OR BUGS AT ALL. Magical.
Their house reef is a goldmine - wobbegangs, walking sharks, blacktips, whitetips, all there. I did 3 mandarin dives and they found mandarin fish (mating!) within 5min each time. On my first night dive we also found blue ring octopus. The house reef is the only option for the 4th dive of the day but you will not get bored! I did every dive offered.
On arrival day you can really only squeeze in a check dive, and on departure day you normally don’t dive. So it’s 5 full days of diving for a 7 night stay, which is pretty decent to get a good feel of the place and dive the main sites of Dampier Strait. They offer day trips to the Passage (free), Fam (Melissa’s Garden + Pianyemo viewpoint), Bantata, Waigeo. I only had time to do the Passage day trip which was great. I think if only staying at the resort everyone should stay for at least 10 days.
Food was pretty great - good mix of Indo and Western food. On Saturday night they had a BBQ night with kids from the surrounding village coming to give a dance performance which was really fun. They also offer bird tours and village tours for those interested. I did the bird tour to try to catch the red bird of paradise but no luck. The hike itself was quite nice tho, felt like I was in an episode of LOST.
Diving was amazing. I loved the dives in the Dampier Strait - it was the most fishy place I’ve been by far. Some sites you had to dive more than once to see the magic - first time I dove Cape Kri it was good but I left wondering what the hype was about, second time it completely blew me away. You dive with the same guide the entire time and my guide Apri was awesome. Only 1 group of up to 4 per boat so very spacious, and lots of freedom on where you want to go. Breakfast at 7am, first dive at 8am, go out for a 2 tank dive in the mornings so back around 1pm, lunch, 3rd dive at 3pm, back for snacks at 4.30pm, mandarin dive at 5.45pm, or night dive at 6pm. Decently relaxed schedule, no 5am starts.
The camera room is right beside the dive deck. The dive deck is a good walk away from the restaurant, which is again a good walk from the bungalows. My only compliant is there are no bathrooms at the dive center so it was a long walk back to the restaurant area if nature called. But I was diving drysuit and I think most other guests did not have this problem. My other compliant is no bathroom on the boat, hence I could not dive drysuit for the morning 2 tanker, but I think that’s an unfair expectation given water is consistently 29-30 degrees.
There are a lot of jellyfish in the water when I was there. I got stung pretty badly in the tiny opening between my wetsuit and bootie. But they were also getting eaten by everything and it was so satisfying to watch. By the end of my second week there was barely any left.
Visibility was pretty bad but not horrible - the Central area was much better than the south. But even then there were some dives where you could only shoot macro because the vis was so bad. That was the case for >50% of dives in the south.
Some sites had no current some sites had big current. There were no standout dives in the easy/no current sites, but it was still very enjoyable. Not every dive in big current was great but all the great dives had big current. Papua Explorers eases you in - our first 2 days were really easy mild current dives.
I did 25 dives while at PapEx. There were no “throwaway” dives. I think it’s maybe 1/3 decent 1/3 great! 1/3 OMG AMAZING.
Favourites include Sawendarek, Cape Kri, Mioskon, Otdima, Blue Magic, Mayhem, Chicken Reef, Manta Sandy, and the house reef. Sawendarek consistently had the biggest sweetlip groups, Otdima was close. Cape Kri had the best schooling fish action - jacks, surgeonfish, barracudas, everything, seconded by Mayhem and Chicken Reef. Mioskon had the prettiest soft corals and was also a killer night dive. Blue Magic had big fish action but the current is strong and it’s hard to do much other than hook in and watch. Manta Sandy was good but it’s crowded (although they do limit it) and everyone has to stay behind a line and kneel in the sand, which is not my preferred way of diving. I liked Manta Alley in Komodo much better where you could swim into the channel and get super close. PapEx runs a conservation center that does a lot with manta ID and tracking which was good to see.
On Sunday I arranged for Carpe Diem to pick me up directly at Papua Explorers, so I could avoid having to take the speedboat back to Sorong then ferry to Waisai. It took maybe 45min and they came at 1.30pm so I had time to do 2 morning dives at PapEx. PapEx did not charge me extra and as my dive buddies had left I got total freedom on where I wanted to go - and repeated my favs Sawendarek and Cape Kri (which they accommodated even tho they are in opposite directions from the resort!) It was a great way to end the stay as the final Cape Kri dive delivered the best dive of the trip - I rarely take video but I could not resist, it is at the end of the album. The amount of fish schooling and hunting was just insane.
Is this my best/favourite dive trip? Yes! (but Komodo is a very close second, I would say Raja slightly > Komodo not massively)
Would I go back? Already made plans for next year!
Is it worth the cost? Yes!
Photos & videos:
Week 1 Papua Explorers: Raja Ampat - Papua Explorers (Dec 2022)
Week 2 Carpe Diem: Raja Ampat - Carpe Diem (Dec 2022)
Week 2 Video (from another guest):
I’ve been looking forward to Raja Ampat for a long time. I’ve been booked all the way since 2019 - was supposed to go in April 2020 but less than a week before my departure they’ve shut Sorong down to all foreigners. I was booked for a week at Papua Explorers, and a week on Carpe Diem so I can go south. Both operators are top notch - I would definitely go back to Papua Explorers, and would use Carpe Diem again if chartering but would go back to Mermaid (who I went w to Komodo) if I was going solo.
Cost wise, this was expensive but not excessively so. I felt it was worth it. We spent ~$10k total - I was there for 2 weeks, my husband for 1 (liveaboard only), as a friend was meant to join me for the first week at PapEx but ended up cancelling.
Getting there was actually pretty easy. Avoid Air Asia - they cancelled our flights about a month before (quite common it seems), so we paid up for Garuda. Garuda is so much easier, you get 30kg checked allowance, your bags go all the way through (no need to take out at Jakarta), and you don’t need to change terminals. You do clear immigration and get VOA in Jakarta but it’s quite efficient - much faster than Bali. Gate to gate probably took me ~1 hour. Free wifi at Jakarta was decent, a bit finicky to connect but good enough to watch Netflix once on. There’s decent food options at Jakarta - but no lounge.
All flights to Sorong leave around midnight and get you into Sorong ~6am, it’s a short 4 hour flight but there is a 2 hour time difference. My week at Papua Explorers was first and I was picked up right away, shuttled to Vega hotel for breakfast, and got a bit of sleep on some comfy couches. At noon we were picked up again to the pier and the speedboat to PapEx took ~1.5 hours. We arrived ~2pm- the welcome party was amazing. The entire staff most of whom are locals come together w traditional Papua headdress and sing a welcome song w guitars, dancing etc. Super fun and a great way to start the trip.
Papua Explorers is built on a pristine reef and walking from the dive center to the restaurant you can see a ton of coral and fish from the surface. At night the blacktip sharks come to feed, mostly babies and juveniles and you can see them directly from the restaurant or your bungalow. There’s a ton of schooling fish under the jetty. The closest feel I can think of is Tetamanu village in Fakarava, or maybe Bastianos in Bangka - but PapEx beats both. It’s my favourite dive resort so far. The room is huge and amazing. I loved the hammock on the balcony. The shower water is a bit salty and there is no AC, but it’s not that hot. I will 100% be back. This is one of the rare ones where I think my lukewarm-about-diving husband would really love also, because while diving was amazing everything else was also amazing.
There are NO MOSQUITOS OR BUGS AT ALL. Magical.
Their house reef is a goldmine - wobbegangs, walking sharks, blacktips, whitetips, all there. I did 3 mandarin dives and they found mandarin fish (mating!) within 5min each time. On my first night dive we also found blue ring octopus. The house reef is the only option for the 4th dive of the day but you will not get bored! I did every dive offered.
On arrival day you can really only squeeze in a check dive, and on departure day you normally don’t dive. So it’s 5 full days of diving for a 7 night stay, which is pretty decent to get a good feel of the place and dive the main sites of Dampier Strait. They offer day trips to the Passage (free), Fam (Melissa’s Garden + Pianyemo viewpoint), Bantata, Waigeo. I only had time to do the Passage day trip which was great. I think if only staying at the resort everyone should stay for at least 10 days.
Food was pretty great - good mix of Indo and Western food. On Saturday night they had a BBQ night with kids from the surrounding village coming to give a dance performance which was really fun. They also offer bird tours and village tours for those interested. I did the bird tour to try to catch the red bird of paradise but no luck. The hike itself was quite nice tho, felt like I was in an episode of LOST.
Diving was amazing. I loved the dives in the Dampier Strait - it was the most fishy place I’ve been by far. Some sites you had to dive more than once to see the magic - first time I dove Cape Kri it was good but I left wondering what the hype was about, second time it completely blew me away. You dive with the same guide the entire time and my guide Apri was awesome. Only 1 group of up to 4 per boat so very spacious, and lots of freedom on where you want to go. Breakfast at 7am, first dive at 8am, go out for a 2 tank dive in the mornings so back around 1pm, lunch, 3rd dive at 3pm, back for snacks at 4.30pm, mandarin dive at 5.45pm, or night dive at 6pm. Decently relaxed schedule, no 5am starts.
The camera room is right beside the dive deck. The dive deck is a good walk away from the restaurant, which is again a good walk from the bungalows. My only compliant is there are no bathrooms at the dive center so it was a long walk back to the restaurant area if nature called. But I was diving drysuit and I think most other guests did not have this problem. My other compliant is no bathroom on the boat, hence I could not dive drysuit for the morning 2 tanker, but I think that’s an unfair expectation given water is consistently 29-30 degrees.
There are a lot of jellyfish in the water when I was there. I got stung pretty badly in the tiny opening between my wetsuit and bootie. But they were also getting eaten by everything and it was so satisfying to watch. By the end of my second week there was barely any left.
Visibility was pretty bad but not horrible - the Central area was much better than the south. But even then there were some dives where you could only shoot macro because the vis was so bad. That was the case for >50% of dives in the south.
Some sites had no current some sites had big current. There were no standout dives in the easy/no current sites, but it was still very enjoyable. Not every dive in big current was great but all the great dives had big current. Papua Explorers eases you in - our first 2 days were really easy mild current dives.
I did 25 dives while at PapEx. There were no “throwaway” dives. I think it’s maybe 1/3 decent 1/3 great! 1/3 OMG AMAZING.
Favourites include Sawendarek, Cape Kri, Mioskon, Otdima, Blue Magic, Mayhem, Chicken Reef, Manta Sandy, and the house reef. Sawendarek consistently had the biggest sweetlip groups, Otdima was close. Cape Kri had the best schooling fish action - jacks, surgeonfish, barracudas, everything, seconded by Mayhem and Chicken Reef. Mioskon had the prettiest soft corals and was also a killer night dive. Blue Magic had big fish action but the current is strong and it’s hard to do much other than hook in and watch. Manta Sandy was good but it’s crowded (although they do limit it) and everyone has to stay behind a line and kneel in the sand, which is not my preferred way of diving. I liked Manta Alley in Komodo much better where you could swim into the channel and get super close. PapEx runs a conservation center that does a lot with manta ID and tracking which was good to see.
On Sunday I arranged for Carpe Diem to pick me up directly at Papua Explorers, so I could avoid having to take the speedboat back to Sorong then ferry to Waisai. It took maybe 45min and they came at 1.30pm so I had time to do 2 morning dives at PapEx. PapEx did not charge me extra and as my dive buddies had left I got total freedom on where I wanted to go - and repeated my favs Sawendarek and Cape Kri (which they accommodated even tho they are in opposite directions from the resort!) It was a great way to end the stay as the final Cape Kri dive delivered the best dive of the trip - I rarely take video but I could not resist, it is at the end of the album. The amount of fish schooling and hunting was just insane.
) . 1/3 Great! and 1/3rd OMG AMAZING!!! You got good angles on a bunch of fairly skittish creatures. Thank you for sharing
