The tenth Raja Ampat Liveaboard trip of our season!
Full boat with guests Karin (Austria) Marilena and Maurizio (Italy),Sally and Emma (UK), Juras and Gledre (Lithuania), Helen, Alfred (Germany), Todd (South Africa), Logan, Jesyica and Jonathan (USA), Emmanual (France), with us guides Rachel, Fareez, Sary and me Nick.
Day1
Batu Lima
All geared up and excited about what we may see started of great with wobbegong sharks, Black tip sharks turtles and many many small critters and nudibranch
Day 2
Chicken reef
Fish fish fish!! with a huge school of fusiliers,surgeon fish, oceanic triggerfish with small groups of long-fin banner fish, moorish idol and barracuda AND Giant trevelly, dog tooth tuna, black tip sharks and Spanish macreal sweeping in and out trying to pick of some breakfast. Then to top it of a family of 20+ bump head parrot fish cruising around the top while we did our safety stop
Yanbuba jetty
beautiful corals garden my personal favorite with sightings of Wobbegong, black tip sharks, 30 devil rays, fusiliers, batfish, nudi’s,
Sawanderek jetty
Nice sheltered dive site with large bommies with lots of glass fish and colorful small reef fish and of course some larger stuff to like Wobbegong, giant Jenkins ray, turtles, marbled shrimps
then for the evening we went to Areborek to watching the sunset with beer and friends
Day 2
Woke up for small breakfast with a show of 4 mantas playing on the surface next to the boat!! now thats breakfast entertainment
Manta Sandy
jumped in with excellent vis with manta wing tip being seen on the surface but unfortunately didn’t hang around the cleaning station for us. But it did give us a chance to explore the rest of this reef and check the sandbanks for nudi’s, Persian carpet flatworms, sea moths and other super camouflaged and weird critters
Melissa’s Garden
I told some of the guests that this dive has one of the best coral garden in the park and after I saw the big smiles on there faces when we returned to the boat I think I was right. With the beautiful slopping reef at the beginning of the dive to the immense stag-horn coral formations in the shallows in-between the three islands that make up this dive site. With swarms of anthers, damselfish and chromis that fill the blue from the corals to the surface. And if thats not enough also schools of fusiliers and surgeonfish circling each of the islands too. It has earned a permeant place in our trips!!!
Karou channel
great wall dive with loads of soft corals, hard corals and huge lettuce corals with Wobbegong sleeping inside them also lots and lots of nudies of all shapes and species.
Bintang Lagoon
nice walk up to the view point then a swim in the bay with a couple of thousand non stinging Jellyfish. Very lucky to see these friendly jellies
Blue ring reef
first night dive of the trip and it was a great first night dive for the guests withPygmy squid, bobtail squid, dwarf cuttlefish, decorator crabs, marbled shrimps, crinoid squat lobsters, commensal shrimps, emperor shrimps, hydroid crabs and thats just naming a few of the critters
Day 3
Eagle rock east
Nice current pushing us towards the cleaning station where we were greeted with Mantas!!! and also a swimming tasseled wobbegongs that is a pretty cool thing to watch with regular sightings of nudi’s and bump head parrot fish
Black rock
Coral garden of black corals as far as you can see and dive.
Eagle rock west
dived the western island this time and our friends the mantas were back again plus some more bits and pieces like peacock mantis shrimps, orangutan crabs, and the super camouflaged crocodile fish
Pearl farm
best night dive site ever! Walking sharks, 2 wobbegongs, basket stars, starry night octopus, puffer fish, pipefish, scrawled filefish, dwarf cuttlefish and that was just my group!
Day 4
Chanel No5
Nudis central!! with a huge blue dragon, Denis pygmy seahorses, beautiful swim throughs and gloomy overhangs and some deep endless caves
Yefmo
great muck diving site on one of the sand banks just of from the Yefmo islands with crazy and wonderful critters like Blue ringed octopus, fighting decorator crabs, peacock razorfish, pikatcu nudibranchs, jellyboobs, scattering of brightly colored sea pens,
Citrus ridge
Beautiful dive site for corals, schooling barracuda and small stuff withOctopus, signal gobies, black tip sharks, flabalina nudibranch, moray eel, mushroom coral pipefish and frogfish being found
Day 5
Cape Kri
probably the most well known dive site in raja with a nice nice falling tide current with lots to see to name a few Napoleon wrasse, black tip, schooling jacks, surgeon fish, snappers, mantis shrimp, 3 turtle, Goliath trigger fish, baby sweetlips, crocodile fish, great strong current
Sardine Reef
one of the big site which is well known for its schooling fish in the split and it lived up to its name with loads of Fish, black tip shark, school of bump-head parrotfish, nice current dive
Day 6
Blue Magic
Last dive of this Raja Ampat diving trip and expectations were high as the big oceanic mantas are sometimes sighted on third dive. So we jumped in and almost straight a way were greeted by a huge 5m manta followed by another one a couple of minutes later! Don’t think you can have a better start to a dive than that. After we watched them for around 15 minutes we left them to there feeding and went to find the split to see what else we could find and we found a lot more. Schooling fusiliers, surgeonfish and hunting giant trevelly, Spanish macreal and dog tooth tuna with a scattering of mooring idol fish to add some color this dive site earns its name again as magic!!
Then time to pop the sails and cruise back to waisai with food, drink, the last tournaments of card games and conversation of all we had seen on the trip
