Trip Report: Raja Ampat on the WAOW Liveaboard

[diversusan]

Magrone and Wisnu - no, my diving experience was not like yours or else certainly I would have described it differently. I don't know if it was an unlucky week, or an unlucky boat - or a little of both - but my trip to Raja Ampat did not meet my expectations for fish life.

Yes, the corals were lovely and I did mention that in my trip report. But I would not have travelled for 3 days from NYC-Sorong and boarded a boat for 11 days just to do 30+ pretty coral dives with poor viz, some bad currents, and nothing else to write home about. Except for wobbegong sharks and coral gardens, we saw nothing in Raja Ampat that we hadn't seen in larger numbers elsewhere, and there were a lot of things we've enjoyed seeing in other parts of Asia that were absent altogether on our RA trip. Sigh.

Although I found the diving part of our trip to be disappointing, our vacation wasn't bad altogether...we spent 5 days in Sri Lanka, too, and the wildlife there was amazing (blue whales! leopards!). Loved it! We also spent a day in Singapore, a city we like very much. And, hey, it was vacation...can't complain toooo much.

 

[gee13]

Susan did you not checkout the macro life on any of the dives? - Misool, Denise, Bargibanti (red and yellow) and Pontohi variety pygmy seahorses? Ghost Pipefish, Painted Frogfish, Bobtail Squid, Pygmy Squid, Pygmy Cuttlefish, Tozeuma Shrimp, Skeleton Shrimps, Crinoid Shrimps, Electric Clam, Crinoid Crabs, Octopus..and in the corals Purple Fire Gobies and a ton of other varietal gobies and miniature wrasses, incl flasher wrasse? On reflection some of the best dives we had were night dives - Algae Patch, Arborek and Yembesser jetty made up for a lot of the poor vis and same-y coral dives I also experienced.

 

[cephalopod2]

Susan did you not checkout the macro life on any of the dives? - Misool, Denise, Bargibanti (red and yellow) and Pontohi variety pygmy seahorses....

gee13 it sounded to me like she, her husband and their panga's dive guide did have their eyes peeled. They just didn't spot as much macro life as she had hoped, or seen elsewhere.

Susan your Sri Lankan extension sounds very cool. Will you be posting any photos anywhere?

 

[ronski101]

This trip report is one of the main reasons why we are reluctant to do a liveaboard in the south pacific. A bad DM can ruin an otherwise great trip but when you are on a liveaboard you are stuck. When you spend the kind of money needed for a dive trip to that part of the world you kind of expect to get your money's worth especially since those trips are typically of longer duration than the carib. We did a Yongala Mike Ball trip in 91 that was fine but a bad or i guess a even a good trip is just magnified when you are on a liveaboard. One of these days we will get our nerve up and try one again. Pay your money and take your chances.

 

[Magrone]

Magrone and Wisnu - no, my diving experience was not like yours or else certainly I would have described it differently.

I don't know if it was an unlucky week, or an unlucky boat - or a little of both - but my trip to Raja Ampat did not meet my expectations for fish life.

Yes, the corals were lovely and I did mention that in my trip report. But I would not have travelled for 3 days from NYC-Sorong and boarded a boat for 11 days just to do 30+ pretty coral dives with poor viz, some bad currents, and nothing else to write home about. Except for wobbegong sharks and coral gardens, we saw nothing in Raja Ampat that we hadn't seen in larger numbers elsewhere, and there were a lot of things we've enjoyed seeing in other parts of Asia that were absent altogether on our RA trip. Sigh.

Although I found the diving part of our trip to be disappointing, our vacation wasn't bad altogether...we spent 5 days in Sri Lanka, too, and the wildlife there was amazing (blue whales! leopards!). Loved it! We also spent a day in Singapore, a city we like very much. And, hey, it was vacation...can't complain toooo much.

Hey, bad luck is bad luck. I'm sorry to here that. I sure hope it doesn't happen to me. I really would like to return there some day soon!

 

[gee13]

gee13 it sounded to me like she, her husband and their panga's dive guide did have their eyes peeled. They just didn't spot as much macro life as she had hoped, or seen elsewhere.

Susan your Sri Lankan extension sounds very cool. Will you be posting any photos anywhere?

Well if they dived any of the sites i mentioned Id be hard pressed that Susan had not seen anything.. (Id be interested to know if Susan actually dived those sites) Its like going to lembeh and saying you didnt see any decent macro life.. In misool area we had plentiful bargibantis on a lot of fans during the day dives.. In fact there was a lot of macro life even on the day dives. But at algae patch night dive we must have encountered so many tiny critters I was literally dizzy after that dive. I actually took more macro photos and hardly any wide angles.

 

[diversusan]

Hi cephalopod - my photos are not up on a public sharing site, but here's a Sri Lankan leopard for you - seen in Yala National Park.

 

[jake11]

Wow! I want to go there and see one of these! Cool!

Hi cephalopod - my photos are not up on a public sharing site, but here's a Sri Lankan leopard for you - seen in Yala National Park.

View attachment 146315

 

[cephalopod2]

Hi cephalopod - my photos are not up on a public sharing site, but here's a Sri Lankan leopard for you - seen in Yala National Park.

Wow!! This extension sounds like a home run. Thanks for sharing this beautiful photo. Another loc to add to the wish list.

 

[gee13]

Agree too. I guess this more than makes up for the uw shortcomings. Seeing them in the wild is priceless.