A COLOURFUL FINISH IN THE BEST OF RAJA AMPAT
The final leg of our 19 day diving expedition from Komodo to Raja Ampat. If you haven’t yet, please read the first and second legs of this amazing trip!
Day 14 – BANDA
On Day 14, we had our second break from diving and spent the day wandering around the sleepy town of Bandaneira, visiting the museum, Fort Belgica and the nutmeg plantation before we retired for a sunset beer at the old colonial style hotel and an evening dinner at the Delfika Cafe.
Day 15 – BANDA
It was then time to explore what the Bandas looked like underwater. An amazing first stop on Day 15. Upon drop in, we found ourselves surrounded by a fishy wealth of marine life. I amused myself thinking of Mauro, joking about “fish getting in the way of my diving”, as we were surrounded by thousands of redtooth triggerfish, schools of fusiliers, emperor snappers. We also scored plenty of the smaller finds including porcelain crabs, Funeral jorunna nudibranch, mantis shrimps and an octopus. We also came across giant, fimbriated and honeycomb morays. Rachel, Michael, Margie and Cole found a pink ghost pipefish, while Fauji and Anne busied themselves checking out a big marbled ray.
In the south, we explored a dramatic wall before showing our guests a very special site in the Bandas known as Lava Flow, right at the foot of the devilish, 666 metre high Gunung Api, the last eruption of which had occured in the 1980s, wiping out the coral reefs below. However, it has regenerated at a surprisingly fast rate, and formed an undulating landscape decorated with an abundance of staghorn and plate corals within which several cuttlefish were spotted laying down their next generation.
We spent the evening in the Harbour, as we have heard that it was home to a much talked-about, rainbow-coloured, but rather elusive little creature. The men, women, and especially the children on Bandaneira were very curious as to why there were people in ‘spacesuits’ poking about the harbour’s waters. We’d been swimming for more than half an hour and were close to making the conclusion that these creatures were just a myth, but then on the way back to the Jaya… success! Rachel found a mandarinfish darting in and out of the small rocks just a couple of metres beneath the water surface, and then we found a couple more.
Day 16 – Towards the edge of the world
Our dive started off at a very colourful wall. There were lots of small, colourful fish swimming around its little cracks and crevices, which were also abound with plenty of nudibranchs and scorpionfish. Schools of fusiliers and surgeonfish appeared above, so we shallowed up and found ourselves surrounded by an exceptionally beautiful sloping coral reef teeming with fish, a scattering of notably large table corals as well as huge boulders covered in leather corals and other soft corals of pink, red and purple hues.
It has been five months since we were last in Raja Ampat’s waters, and tomorrow, we will finally get the chance to gaze our eyes upon its underwater paradise again after sailing and making the final overnight crossing to Raja Ampat.
Day 17 – Raja Ampat
On Day 17, we awoke in the morning to completely different surroundings. We were surrounded by dramatic, mushroom shaped, limestone islands. It was tranquil – all of us watched the sunrise in awe and silence. We had finally arrived in Raja Ampat, and in Misool, known for the breathtaking splendour of its underwater landscape.
Our very first dive was amazing, where large ‘windows’ have been carved out of the rock creating a very distinct topographical feature which divers often swim through. A majestic first experience of Raja Ampat, the steep slopes of Boo Rocks were covered in a dizzying number of large gorgonian seafans, sea whips, sponges and soft corals. Schools of reef fish – a splash of yellow, then blue, silver. An octopus darted for cover, and a giant trevally had some fun going zig-zagging through the windows while we did our safety stop.
We then headed over to the Fiabacet chain of islands, where we dived a site that quite uncannily, resemble a nudibranch. Another dive site well stocked with coral life, it was a playground for whitetip reef sharks and dogtooth tuna as they swam and bolted among the schools of fusiliers and sergeantfish above our heads, while we ogled at the flatworms, occelated nudibranch, mantis shrimps down below. Cole found a bargibanti pygmy seahorse while Andrei and Niclas got their prized shots of a Raja Ampat celebrity – the wobbegong shark!
According to one of the authoritative dive site resources we were about to visit what is ‘arguably the most beautiful tropical reef system on the planet’. And indeed, Adrian, who has been working and diving around the world for almost 15 years, remarked that he hadn’t come across another dive site which is so packed with many species of corals on any given area of the site. I remember being overwhelmed by the shapes, colours and the sheer size of its gorgonian seafans, which are so huge they could almost count as goliaths in their own right. Somehow we managed to find a pygmy seahorse in one of them, while a blacktip reef shark and giant trevallies made certain the fusilier populations couldn’t keep still for very long.
Our night dive was a haven for nudibranchs and other worms and crustaceans. We found ourselves on a wall, with many crevices, overhangs and coral heads covered in feather stars, whip coral and bright coloured soft corals. We got really excited finding one invertebrate after another, including Co’s chromodoris, Creamy chromodoris, flabellina nudibranchs, pleaurobranchs, plus many flatworms, headshield slugs, cuttlefish and hydroid crabs.
Day 18 – Raja Ampat
It was Day 18, and our journey across the Forgotten Islands was almost over. In fact, it was the final diving day
We chose to explore a new dive site for our first dive. The batfish were abuzz, moving about like highly charged atoms in no particular direction, forming a kind of highly malleable ball of innumerable silver bits. Descending below the thermocline of restless fish, we found golden mantis, Leopard and Anna’s chromodoris and a Persian carpet flatworm.
We then made our way back to Fiabacet. It’s becoming ‘normal’ for our dives to be this fishy, as schools of fusilers, surgeons coloured the dive site alongside the bigger guys – the giant trevallies, napoleon wrasse, the highlight of the dive being the school of bumphead parrotfish, (the cows of the sea, as we often like to joke) in the current side of the site, where it was clearly their feeding (and poo-ing) time.
Our final dive of the trip was at a site known as Goa Farondi, Farondi being the limestone island with many caves cut and carved into it beneath the water surface. We explored one which was large and had its bottom at about 10 metres. Cole and I found a dead batfish inside, which was a rather eerie find. There was also another opening less than a metre wide, which seemed to lead to another deeper cave. We found an immense number of blue dragon nudibranchs inside and scattered across the entire length of the section of wall where we dived. They were clearly doing nothing but eating – and reproducing. Looking at all the growth which covered the dive site, I imagined that to be a nudibranch here must feel like being in a gargantuan buffet spread, and a, well, meat market.
Day 19 – WAISAI
Our trip came to a close on Day 19, as the Jaya made port in Waisai. We left for Sorong and had an Italian buffet dinner together at the Swiss-bel Hotel.
The diving as a whole provided encounters with a host of large and small critters too long to list – Komodo was manta-tastic, Alor had dramatic landscapes, crystal visibility and thresher sharks, Banda showed us the mandarinfish, Secret mound provided a satisfying long encounter with a hammerhead, Snake point was good ssslithery fun and Misool was an explosion of colour with schooling reef fish, nudibranchs and colourful soft coral.
And that was it! Our second Jaya expedition across the Southeast Moluccas of 2015 was over. Here we are in Raja Ampat, about to start yet another Wicked Diving chapter with our new Dive resort!
On behalf of all the Wicked Diving staff, we would like to say a big thanks to all our dive guests, for your presence – your enthusiasm, conversations, funny stories, Monopoly Deal sessions, being part of our Wicked Quiz Nights and everything else in between. We now have a brand new set of experiences and stories to share with our friends, family and colleagues. Thank you for helping us create and share a very special time on the Jaya!
We have now made our departure date official for the Raja Ampat to Komodo trip – April 22nd, 2016. If these expeditions interest you, then it’s best to book early as they fill up quickly! Check out the Diving expedition page!
