This trip was originally supposed to be one week diving the Banda Islands on a liveaboard and one week divng Ambon. However, one week before our flight, I received an email from our tour agent that our liveaboard had been canceled due to bad weather and engine problems. Needless to say, my girlfriend and I were frustrated and disappointed but also determined to come up with an alternative to save our trip since getting two weeks off together is rare.
Our tour agent suggested a LOB to Raja Ampat that ended up being perfect for dates. It was a bit more than we intended to pay for the trip but decided it was worth it since we have been wanting to dive Raja Ampat for a long time and may not get another chance for a while.
We booked our flights to Sorong through Batavia online using Paypal. Batavia is currently the only Indonesian airlines that I know of that allows foreigners to book directly using the web. Lion Air etc. may look like they allow to pay through their website but they still don’t accept foreign credit cards.
So after an overnight in Manila and another in Jakarta we boarded our Batavia flight (on time!) for the last leg of the journey. The Batavia flight from Jakarta to Sorong was scheduled for one stop in Surabaya and one stop in Makassar. Upon landing in Surabaya, the right wheel on the plane exploded, our plane swerved on the runway and eventually stopped, a long way from the airport terminal. Our Indonesian adventure was now official.
After a long , miserable night with little sleep we eventually boarded a second plane to take us the rest of the way to Sorong. We met Dolphin Mcair, the trip Coordinator and dive guide at the airport and boarded the KM Biddidari in the port of Sorong on March 6. We had to alter the itinerary slightly due to a late arrival, but this had little impact on our trip. No dives were missed, we just started in the North since it was closer to Sorong and saved the south for the last part of the trip.
Despite having a travelers bug, Bali Belly, or whatever you want to call it, Andrea and I were happy that the trip had been salvaged (twice) and we were on a nice boat with a great crew and friendly host to assist our every need.
The KM Bidadari is a mid-range wooden Indonesian Schooner based out of Bali. The interior is very nice with Balinese wood carving accents throughout. The rooms were spacious enough for two, but not for my DSLR camera rig. I kept my camera and all of the accompanied gear up in the saloon area. Luckily there were only two other passengers who had compacts so this wasn’t a problem. In fact these were the only two other passengers on the boat which was a blessing. If there were more, and with camera equipment, I can see this boat being a bit cramped for camera stuff. Which is kind of odd to think about since the boat is 100ft long with 4 levels. We were very happy with the boat overall. The sundeck on top was a very nice place to relax between dives and the saloon area had big couches to recline on during briefings, etc. It was a nice home for two weeks, but to be fair there were some reports of leaking in the cabins when it rained and the generator was a little noisy in our cabin. I slept like a log every night though.
Our first dive was at Sardine Reef in the Dampier Straight. I realized as soon as I descended that all the trouble of getting here was worth it. Stunning, pristine corals everywhere; massive schools of rainbow runners, fusiliers and bait fish that surrounded the bommies ordained in white and pink soft corals; sea whips, seafans, crinoids packed in on top of each other competing for space. If Raja Ampat were compared to a city, it would have to be New York. Each dive site a new neighborhood with different ethnic groups, or species, intermingled in great numbers, with traffic jams of fish at dawn and dusk in regular intervals.
Despite the claims of no sharks in RA I was surprised to see six black and white tip reef sharks almost immediately. Other highlights of our first dive were two mantas, (12ft and 6ft) a Wobbegong shark, four blue spotted stingrays, Big Napolean Wrasse, Giant trevally, huge batfish in small schools and several Barramundi Cod that would dive under bommies when a diver approached. The barramundi sighting would be a regular occurrence on almost every dive and I remember seeing a very large one the size of a small dinner table that would not come out of its hiding place.
On the second dive a huge marble ray the size of a large dinner table swam right through our dive group. It was soon followed by an eagle ray that swooped by as we perused an amazing sloping wall of soft corals and giant sea fans. A group of Juvenille Batfish was found among the millions of glass fish hanging around the lettuce corals. Another Wobbegong shark, a large school of yellow line snapper and a larger school of juvenile barracuda ended our dive after an hour.
I will refrain from boring the reader with descriptions from my dive logs but I wanted to make clear that this was the typical underwater experience we had on our trip; with big credit going to Dolphin, something rare and amazing was found about every five minutes of the dive.
Manta point/Manta Sandy is worth mentioning because this was my most memorable dive to date. While I held my camera straight up, 3 or 4 mantas would take turns circling in to hover over me for a few moments to receive their bubble massage as if they were my customers. Tons of divers on this dive and probably six of them had my same experience. A manta with a white underside took a special liking to Andrea and kept coming back to her over and over. Dolphin counted 12 different mantas in total and after an hour and half they wandered off and we surfaced. The second dive at Manta Point went much like the first only there were 5 or 6 different mantas instead of 12.
I regret skipping one of the most exciting dives of the trip due to my Bali Belly getting the best of me. It was the second time visiting Sardine Reef but after a string of dives that were ended early, followed by vomiting, not to mention a scary moment at 80 feet when I was close to blacking out, I decided to sleep in and let the antibiotics kick in. Andrea reports: “Sharks, sharks, sharks. 3 gray reefs swimming in from the blue, 5 black tips – very nice sized swimming up from the bottom together, 5 white tips, 1 wobbegong hiding under coral. Huge school of bat fish, a school of Spanish Mackerel followed by dog tooth tuna and regular tuna, 4 spotted eagle rays. Gentle to moderate current. Good visibility, 60 ft plus.”
I did not skip anymore dives after that.
Some very exciting macro night dives at the Pearl farm pier followed: decorator crabs, arrow crabs, more wobbegongs, huge crocodilefish, devil scorpionfish, pegassus sea moths, orange octopi, walking sharks, numerous juvenile cuttlefish, false scorpionfish, wasp fish, on and on.
Cape Kri was a beautiful dive both times and the amount of fish in the water was again, unbelievable.
Ahh crap... I can't get the images to work. Here is a link to the photos on facebook:
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Our tour agent suggested a LOB to Raja Ampat that ended up being perfect for dates. It was a bit more than we intended to pay for the trip but decided it was worth it since we have been wanting to dive Raja Ampat for a long time and may not get another chance for a while.
We booked our flights to Sorong through Batavia online using Paypal. Batavia is currently the only Indonesian airlines that I know of that allows foreigners to book directly using the web. Lion Air etc. may look like they allow to pay through their website but they still don’t accept foreign credit cards.
So after an overnight in Manila and another in Jakarta we boarded our Batavia flight (on time!) for the last leg of the journey. The Batavia flight from Jakarta to Sorong was scheduled for one stop in Surabaya and one stop in Makassar. Upon landing in Surabaya, the right wheel on the plane exploded, our plane swerved on the runway and eventually stopped, a long way from the airport terminal. Our Indonesian adventure was now official.
After a long , miserable night with little sleep we eventually boarded a second plane to take us the rest of the way to Sorong. We met Dolphin Mcair, the trip Coordinator and dive guide at the airport and boarded the KM Biddidari in the port of Sorong on March 6. We had to alter the itinerary slightly due to a late arrival, but this had little impact on our trip. No dives were missed, we just started in the North since it was closer to Sorong and saved the south for the last part of the trip.
Despite having a travelers bug, Bali Belly, or whatever you want to call it, Andrea and I were happy that the trip had been salvaged (twice) and we were on a nice boat with a great crew and friendly host to assist our every need.
The KM Bidadari is a mid-range wooden Indonesian Schooner based out of Bali. The interior is very nice with Balinese wood carving accents throughout. The rooms were spacious enough for two, but not for my DSLR camera rig. I kept my camera and all of the accompanied gear up in the saloon area. Luckily there were only two other passengers who had compacts so this wasn’t a problem. In fact these were the only two other passengers on the boat which was a blessing. If there were more, and with camera equipment, I can see this boat being a bit cramped for camera stuff. Which is kind of odd to think about since the boat is 100ft long with 4 levels. We were very happy with the boat overall. The sundeck on top was a very nice place to relax between dives and the saloon area had big couches to recline on during briefings, etc. It was a nice home for two weeks, but to be fair there were some reports of leaking in the cabins when it rained and the generator was a little noisy in our cabin. I slept like a log every night though.
Our first dive was at Sardine Reef in the Dampier Straight. I realized as soon as I descended that all the trouble of getting here was worth it. Stunning, pristine corals everywhere; massive schools of rainbow runners, fusiliers and bait fish that surrounded the bommies ordained in white and pink soft corals; sea whips, seafans, crinoids packed in on top of each other competing for space. If Raja Ampat were compared to a city, it would have to be New York. Each dive site a new neighborhood with different ethnic groups, or species, intermingled in great numbers, with traffic jams of fish at dawn and dusk in regular intervals.
Despite the claims of no sharks in RA I was surprised to see six black and white tip reef sharks almost immediately. Other highlights of our first dive were two mantas, (12ft and 6ft) a Wobbegong shark, four blue spotted stingrays, Big Napolean Wrasse, Giant trevally, huge batfish in small schools and several Barramundi Cod that would dive under bommies when a diver approached. The barramundi sighting would be a regular occurrence on almost every dive and I remember seeing a very large one the size of a small dinner table that would not come out of its hiding place.
On the second dive a huge marble ray the size of a large dinner table swam right through our dive group. It was soon followed by an eagle ray that swooped by as we perused an amazing sloping wall of soft corals and giant sea fans. A group of Juvenille Batfish was found among the millions of glass fish hanging around the lettuce corals. Another Wobbegong shark, a large school of yellow line snapper and a larger school of juvenile barracuda ended our dive after an hour.
I will refrain from boring the reader with descriptions from my dive logs but I wanted to make clear that this was the typical underwater experience we had on our trip; with big credit going to Dolphin, something rare and amazing was found about every five minutes of the dive.
Manta point/Manta Sandy is worth mentioning because this was my most memorable dive to date. While I held my camera straight up, 3 or 4 mantas would take turns circling in to hover over me for a few moments to receive their bubble massage as if they were my customers. Tons of divers on this dive and probably six of them had my same experience. A manta with a white underside took a special liking to Andrea and kept coming back to her over and over. Dolphin counted 12 different mantas in total and after an hour and half they wandered off and we surfaced. The second dive at Manta Point went much like the first only there were 5 or 6 different mantas instead of 12.
I regret skipping one of the most exciting dives of the trip due to my Bali Belly getting the best of me. It was the second time visiting Sardine Reef but after a string of dives that were ended early, followed by vomiting, not to mention a scary moment at 80 feet when I was close to blacking out, I decided to sleep in and let the antibiotics kick in. Andrea reports: “Sharks, sharks, sharks. 3 gray reefs swimming in from the blue, 5 black tips – very nice sized swimming up from the bottom together, 5 white tips, 1 wobbegong hiding under coral. Huge school of bat fish, a school of Spanish Mackerel followed by dog tooth tuna and regular tuna, 4 spotted eagle rays. Gentle to moderate current. Good visibility, 60 ft plus.”
I did not skip anymore dives after that.
Some very exciting macro night dives at the Pearl farm pier followed: decorator crabs, arrow crabs, more wobbegongs, huge crocodilefish, devil scorpionfish, pegassus sea moths, orange octopi, walking sharks, numerous juvenile cuttlefish, false scorpionfish, wasp fish, on and on.
Cape Kri was a beautiful dive both times and the amount of fish in the water was again, unbelievable.
Ahh crap... I can't get the images to work. Here is a link to the photos on facebook:
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why we go to RA.
