My wife and I just came back from a 8-day liveaboard trip aboard the “La Galigo” over Christmas to Northern and Central parts of Raja Ampat and would like to share some information on our trip.
Our Expectation
First off, we have been hearing a lot of good things about Raja Ampat from the dive shops where we live and we have been meaning to make a trip there for a few years and glad we were finally able to put this into action this Christmas. And we have also managed our expectation about Raja Ampat – we know the place is known for great biodiversity, healthy and pristine corals, and also lots of fish life, but also that many sites can have low visibility (due to the large amount of plankton in the water) and the currents may make for trickier diving. And this is not a place to see pelagics, with the exception of an occasional manta (we did see a couple of the oceanic mantas in one dive – but that’s one out of 23 dives we did).
The Boat - La Galigo
We were looking at a number of boats and finally settled on La Galigo due to a discounted package that was offered at the time of booking. There aren’t a lot of reviews online on the boat as I think it’s a relatively new operation (we found out it’s been a little over 3 years so it’s not so new per se). Like many of the liveaboards operating in the area, it’s a traditional Indonesia pinisi boat. The boat has a spacious salon, and good sundecks - although I have suggested to the management that they should put some more loungers in the sundeck and also on the roof top so there is even more area for people to hang out.
The food is excellent – mostly Indonesian food with a western style breakfast. I find amazing the chef is able to cook up a good variety of food for so many people in that small kitchen of his, and we really enjoyed our breakfast, lunches and dinner’s. For dinner, there is always a soup, vegetables, main courses and rice, and dessert. They are all served buffet style but there is enough food to go around. My wife and I never went hungry, there is always juice and snacks after a dive as well.
Room-wise, we luckily got upgraded to a suite so we really can’t complain about the size of our room. We have a large bed, a living room and an ensuite bathroom. As the ship is built in wood, unfortunately it is unavoidable the bathroom and some of the wooden furniture are showing some age after a few years of operation. But nothing that would detract from our ability to enjoy the really spacious living room, private balcony we have at our disposal.
And I think the best part about the boat is its staff. I think our main concern diving with a newer boat is we weren’t sure whether the dive staff is experienced with the area. But after a couple dives, our concerns were all but relieved. Fendy who is the manager of the boat and one of the three dive masters is very attentive, caring and willing to share his experiences diving in Raja Ampat and elsewhere in Indonesia. He is very into photography and showed us his work and is enthusiastic in helping us identify the type of fish and sea critters we see in our dives. The other couple dives guides Nico’s are also equally helpful. More importantly, they have a good sense of the dives being done – the briefings are useful and they would always check out the current first on the tender before each dive to ensure the dive is tailored to the then currents. I felt this was a good indication that the dive guides are experienced, know what they are doing and plan the dive strategically in relation to the conditions to maximize safety. All the rest of the staff are good humored, do their best to accommodate us, and one staff Abbi (spelling?) is a great singer and guitarist and provided some great entertainment during surface interval, accompanied by Fendy and Nico on the little drum box, singing to the tunes of some familiar pop music! Overall atmosphere is very amicable and we were also glad the group of people with whom we happened to share the boat are all quite nice and friendly – which is sometimes not the case in our other dive trips.
The Dives
Dives are done from the two tender boats and all are done with negative entry - but there is no need to descent immediately, usually the DM will give the signal and we would all go down together, unlike what would be done in some dives sites elsewhere where current is strong. Current are usually present in the dives but nothing ripping and the dives are usually organized such that we are swimming with the currents. On about 15% of dives, we would need to deploy the reef hooks during the dive so we can hook in and see the intense fish action without finning too intensely. I would say the diving is generally pretty relaxing although you need to be conscious of how you can avoid swimming against currents intelligently to avoid having a shortened dive.
In terms of quality, I can say some of the dives were simply mind-blowing. The corals are very healthy in certain dive spots (I can immediately think of a couple spots around Penamu Island and Melissa Garden around Gam Islands), that almost every inch of the sea floor and every inch of the bommie is covered with healthy flourishing corals – both hard and soft. And the variety of corals are so diverse, on one single boomie I would find purple and orange soft corals, giant sponges, couple colorful gorgornian (and complete) sea fans and table corals all fighting for real estate, and underneath the bommie a huge school of swepper fish would be hiding and swaying back and forth with the surge, and if you look closer, a wobbegong shark is resting directly under. And at the same time schools of fusiliers and sweetlips would be leisurely swimming all around you, and if the current is slightly stronger, a small school of barracuda may be hanging nearby, joined by a school of jack fish. And your DM may point out a pigmy seahorse in the sea fan, or a scorpion fish resting on a stone but there is simply not enough time to see and photograph everything! The underwater environment is some of the healthiest I have ever seen, and there is no sign of any dynamite fishing and no coral rubble. And these dives, to me, are exactly what I had imagined for Raja Ampat.
The visibility can reach 15m on some dives but generally there is so much particle/plankton in the water that the photos often come out a bit blurry and grainy and the visibility can be as low as 8-10m on a couple dives, at best. And on these dives where visibility is low and for some reason, perhaps due to a lack of current, the dive site is devoid of fish life, it can be a bit underwhelming. The corals are obviously still healthy but it can get a little quiet - so I really think the timing of the dive and the general conditions such as current can make or break a dive at Raja Ampat.
For instance, we dove twice at Cape Kri, we descended into the water where visibility is at best 10m, and initially the sea was eerily quiet and you start to wonder where all the fish has gone (on Christmas vacation?!) and was planning to give the dive a pass as a disappointing one in my dive log. And then when we finally reached the point of the Cape where the current is either flowing into or out of the corner, we found ourselves immediately are surrounded by fish left and round, up and down. For 20 min of that particular dive, we simply hooked in at a rock, and on my left were two schools of barracuda resting in the channel enjoying the current, and a couple white-tip simply sleeping in front of me on the bottom of the channel, in different to the current. Two school of jack fish, one medium-sized and one smaller-sized were swimming a little further out – just beyond the ability of my camera to capture in the low-viz water, and then two large schools of respectively black and blue surgeonfish swam from my right to the left, and eventually all congregated near a patch of presumably calm sand where the current is diverted by a bommie. And a little further we saw just a tiny hint of perhaps 15 mobula rays gliding past. And so a boring dive has unexpectedly turned into one of the more climatic dives of the trip.
And I want to comment on the prospect of seeing big stuff at Raja Ampat. Firstly, the famous manta dive sites include Blue Magic and Manta Sandy. Our dive guide checked out Manta Sandy on a couple occasions before our actual dive and found no mantas there at all and has told us increasingly they have seen fewer and fewer manta there – as opposed to a video they showed us from 2012 where a typical dive at Manta Sandy would see 5-6 at least mantas (and there is nothing but sand so I would caution against a dive there without ascertaining whether there is any manta). We dove Blue Magic twice (the second time by popular request) and on the first dive, we saw a couple oceanic mantas (which are giant and majestic) but the current was quite strong. And second time it was dead calm and there was no manta to be found. There are also very limited number of sharks to be seen, and even if present, they are of the white-tip and black-tip varietal, really nothing to write home about. We saw some turtles on both night and day dives.
In conclusion, I think Raja Ampat has lived up to its reputation, at least to us with the right expectation. I had my wide angle lens on for most dives. And in the right conditions, Raja Ampat dives are full of fish and healthy pristine corals. I have heard the southern part where Misool is would be more colorful and pristine compared to the north so I am looking forward to a future visit. I hope Raja Ampat can maintain the quality of corals (and thus fish) for years to come – it seems there are more and more liveaboards plying the water of Raja Ampat.
Would love to hear from people who can compare their dives in the south vs. north Raja Ampat!
Our Expectation
First off, we have been hearing a lot of good things about Raja Ampat from the dive shops where we live and we have been meaning to make a trip there for a few years and glad we were finally able to put this into action this Christmas. And we have also managed our expectation about Raja Ampat – we know the place is known for great biodiversity, healthy and pristine corals, and also lots of fish life, but also that many sites can have low visibility (due to the large amount of plankton in the water) and the currents may make for trickier diving. And this is not a place to see pelagics, with the exception of an occasional manta (we did see a couple of the oceanic mantas in one dive – but that’s one out of 23 dives we did).
The Boat - La Galigo
We were looking at a number of boats and finally settled on La Galigo due to a discounted package that was offered at the time of booking. There aren’t a lot of reviews online on the boat as I think it’s a relatively new operation (we found out it’s been a little over 3 years so it’s not so new per se). Like many of the liveaboards operating in the area, it’s a traditional Indonesia pinisi boat. The boat has a spacious salon, and good sundecks - although I have suggested to the management that they should put some more loungers in the sundeck and also on the roof top so there is even more area for people to hang out.
The food is excellent – mostly Indonesian food with a western style breakfast. I find amazing the chef is able to cook up a good variety of food for so many people in that small kitchen of his, and we really enjoyed our breakfast, lunches and dinner’s. For dinner, there is always a soup, vegetables, main courses and rice, and dessert. They are all served buffet style but there is enough food to go around. My wife and I never went hungry, there is always juice and snacks after a dive as well.
Room-wise, we luckily got upgraded to a suite so we really can’t complain about the size of our room. We have a large bed, a living room and an ensuite bathroom. As the ship is built in wood, unfortunately it is unavoidable the bathroom and some of the wooden furniture are showing some age after a few years of operation. But nothing that would detract from our ability to enjoy the really spacious living room, private balcony we have at our disposal.
And I think the best part about the boat is its staff. I think our main concern diving with a newer boat is we weren’t sure whether the dive staff is experienced with the area. But after a couple dives, our concerns were all but relieved. Fendy who is the manager of the boat and one of the three dive masters is very attentive, caring and willing to share his experiences diving in Raja Ampat and elsewhere in Indonesia. He is very into photography and showed us his work and is enthusiastic in helping us identify the type of fish and sea critters we see in our dives. The other couple dives guides Nico’s are also equally helpful. More importantly, they have a good sense of the dives being done – the briefings are useful and they would always check out the current first on the tender before each dive to ensure the dive is tailored to the then currents. I felt this was a good indication that the dive guides are experienced, know what they are doing and plan the dive strategically in relation to the conditions to maximize safety. All the rest of the staff are good humored, do their best to accommodate us, and one staff Abbi (spelling?) is a great singer and guitarist and provided some great entertainment during surface interval, accompanied by Fendy and Nico on the little drum box, singing to the tunes of some familiar pop music! Overall atmosphere is very amicable and we were also glad the group of people with whom we happened to share the boat are all quite nice and friendly – which is sometimes not the case in our other dive trips.
The Dives
Dives are done from the two tender boats and all are done with negative entry - but there is no need to descent immediately, usually the DM will give the signal and we would all go down together, unlike what would be done in some dives sites elsewhere where current is strong. Current are usually present in the dives but nothing ripping and the dives are usually organized such that we are swimming with the currents. On about 15% of dives, we would need to deploy the reef hooks during the dive so we can hook in and see the intense fish action without finning too intensely. I would say the diving is generally pretty relaxing although you need to be conscious of how you can avoid swimming against currents intelligently to avoid having a shortened dive.
In terms of quality, I can say some of the dives were simply mind-blowing. The corals are very healthy in certain dive spots (I can immediately think of a couple spots around Penamu Island and Melissa Garden around Gam Islands), that almost every inch of the sea floor and every inch of the bommie is covered with healthy flourishing corals – both hard and soft. And the variety of corals are so diverse, on one single boomie I would find purple and orange soft corals, giant sponges, couple colorful gorgornian (and complete) sea fans and table corals all fighting for real estate, and underneath the bommie a huge school of swepper fish would be hiding and swaying back and forth with the surge, and if you look closer, a wobbegong shark is resting directly under. And at the same time schools of fusiliers and sweetlips would be leisurely swimming all around you, and if the current is slightly stronger, a small school of barracuda may be hanging nearby, joined by a school of jack fish. And your DM may point out a pigmy seahorse in the sea fan, or a scorpion fish resting on a stone but there is simply not enough time to see and photograph everything! The underwater environment is some of the healthiest I have ever seen, and there is no sign of any dynamite fishing and no coral rubble. And these dives, to me, are exactly what I had imagined for Raja Ampat.
The visibility can reach 15m on some dives but generally there is so much particle/plankton in the water that the photos often come out a bit blurry and grainy and the visibility can be as low as 8-10m on a couple dives, at best. And on these dives where visibility is low and for some reason, perhaps due to a lack of current, the dive site is devoid of fish life, it can be a bit underwhelming. The corals are obviously still healthy but it can get a little quiet - so I really think the timing of the dive and the general conditions such as current can make or break a dive at Raja Ampat.
For instance, we dove twice at Cape Kri, we descended into the water where visibility is at best 10m, and initially the sea was eerily quiet and you start to wonder where all the fish has gone (on Christmas vacation?!) and was planning to give the dive a pass as a disappointing one in my dive log. And then when we finally reached the point of the Cape where the current is either flowing into or out of the corner, we found ourselves immediately are surrounded by fish left and round, up and down. For 20 min of that particular dive, we simply hooked in at a rock, and on my left were two schools of barracuda resting in the channel enjoying the current, and a couple white-tip simply sleeping in front of me on the bottom of the channel, in different to the current. Two school of jack fish, one medium-sized and one smaller-sized were swimming a little further out – just beyond the ability of my camera to capture in the low-viz water, and then two large schools of respectively black and blue surgeonfish swam from my right to the left, and eventually all congregated near a patch of presumably calm sand where the current is diverted by a bommie. And a little further we saw just a tiny hint of perhaps 15 mobula rays gliding past. And so a boring dive has unexpectedly turned into one of the more climatic dives of the trip.
And I want to comment on the prospect of seeing big stuff at Raja Ampat. Firstly, the famous manta dive sites include Blue Magic and Manta Sandy. Our dive guide checked out Manta Sandy on a couple occasions before our actual dive and found no mantas there at all and has told us increasingly they have seen fewer and fewer manta there – as opposed to a video they showed us from 2012 where a typical dive at Manta Sandy would see 5-6 at least mantas (and there is nothing but sand so I would caution against a dive there without ascertaining whether there is any manta). We dove Blue Magic twice (the second time by popular request) and on the first dive, we saw a couple oceanic mantas (which are giant and majestic) but the current was quite strong. And second time it was dead calm and there was no manta to be found. There are also very limited number of sharks to be seen, and even if present, they are of the white-tip and black-tip varietal, really nothing to write home about. We saw some turtles on both night and day dives.
In conclusion, I think Raja Ampat has lived up to its reputation, at least to us with the right expectation. I had my wide angle lens on for most dives. And in the right conditions, Raja Ampat dives are full of fish and healthy pristine corals. I have heard the southern part where Misool is would be more colorful and pristine compared to the north so I am looking forward to a future visit. I hope Raja Ampat can maintain the quality of corals (and thus fish) for years to come – it seems there are more and more liveaboards plying the water of Raja Ampat.
Would love to hear from people who can compare their dives in the south vs. north Raja Ampat!
