We had a blast on another Wicked adventure on the Jaya in Raja Ampat! The staff, Tom (US), Nico (France), Fauji (Indonesia), and Kaelyn (US) had a great time with an absolutely fantastic group of guests: David (UK), Fraser (UK), Maya (Indonesia), Sydney (Singapore), Orrin (UK), Clinton (Australia), Kristina (US), Peter (US), Staci (US), Michelle (US), Soo (Malaysia), Niklas (Sweden), David (Sweden), and Nico (France). After welcoming the group on board and getting equipment, rooms, and the briefing sorted, we motored over to the island of Batanta to spend a beautiful, cool night. We enjoyed a great atmosphere on the boat, with everyone talking and getting to know one another.
Despite the festivities of the night before, everyone was up bright and early and ready to dive. The “check” dive of the trip was at Palau Yum, a muck site with plenty of critters to be found. We saw some colorful nudibranchs, as well as shrimps, crabs, and banded pipefish. The Jaya then continued on to Larry’s Point, where we had an excellent dive in mild current, in which we spotted a cuttlefish, two wobbegongs, a massive lobster, a blue spotted stingray, and a good sized marbled ray. Next on the schedule was Dayang Channel, where we drifted along past barracuda, a bamboo shark, bumphead parrotfish, and another, swimming wobbegong. There were also small things to be seen, including a large orangutan crab and plentiful of nudibranchs and flatworms. In between dives, those of us who were brave enough climbed up the Jaya’s front mast, and we discovered we have a true pirate on the boat. We finished off the day with a successful night dive on Dayang slope, where we saw a pygmy cuttlefish, an octopus, plenty of shrimp, mating banded pipefish, nudibranchs, lionfish, and a scorpionfish. Unfortunately we were unable to spot the elusive Raja Ampat walking shark…yet. After all that diving it was time to end the day with a lesson on how to play the Jaya’s signature game, worms, which quickly became a huge hit.
We started off the next day right: With mantas. We jumped on Sea Bat Ridge early in the morning, and were greeted by three mantas, including a curious melanistic one that grew curious and came right up to one of the groups, and stuck around for quite some time to play. In addition to seeing the largest creatures in Raja, we managed to see some of the smallest: pygmy seahorses. We saw three in total, including one that jumped from one spot on the sea fan to another, unwrapping it’s tail and floating along until it luckily grasped another branch just before drifting off the fan. To see these two extreme size differences on one dive was a treat.
From there, the dives even got better. We had an awesome drift at Karang Bata, a site we discovered and one we still only dive, complete with, as one of our guests put it, “just about everything”. In over twenty meters of viz, we drifted past grey and blacktip reef sharks, schools of barracuda, sweetlips, batfish, and fusiliers, plus plenty of nudibranchs, when you were able to hang on in the current to look at them. Not to mention a gorgeous sloping reef. We topped off the day with a dive at the always beautiful Batu Rufus, where multiple pygmys adorned big sea fans and schooling fish swam in the blue with the occasional tuna. We finished up the dive with some of the site’s 300 species of colorful fish, swimming through its signature “window” and surfacing in the turquoise blue lagoon. The view through Batu Rufus’s window could almost compare to that of the top of Penemu island, where we climbed for a sunset Bintang to see green pinnacles dotting the crystal water, the Jaya tiny in the distance.
The next day brought another easy, beautiful drift at Keruo Channel, complete with blacktip reef sharks, a turtle, and yes, even more pygmys. The second dive was truly something special, as the always fabulous Melissa’s Garden was made even more beautiful by two octopuses, wobbegongs, blacktip sharks, pygmy seahorses, and the signature thousands of colorful fish darting in and out of the staghorn coral. The best moment, though, came at 20.6 meters, where we had a surprise marriage proposal! Congratulations to Dave and Maya, we’re all so happy we got to share in your experience (and that you didn’t drop the ring underwater!).
While Cirtrus brought a bit less surprises, it was still a beautiful dive, with some snacking bumpheads, shrimps, nudibranchs, a blue spotted stingray, and more pygmys amongst the beautiful orange-yellow soft coral. While some of us went onto the island of Arborek for a wonderful sunset stroll, others partook in an absolutely sick night dive, with three Raja Ampat Walking sharks, a pygmy cuttlefish, lionfish hunting, a toadfish, awesome nudibranchs, and a banded pipefish. After that, it was time for a few more highly competitive but fun games of worms, some Bintangs, and bed.
The next day started off with Manta Sandy, and it did not disappoint. From the beginning of the dive to the end it was almost non-stop manta action, as we saw one directly on our descent, which then went to have a nice, long clean a few meters in front of us. The real highlight, however, came towards the end of the dive, when the manta brought his girlfriend, a melanistic female, over, and they displayed some behavior typical of mating. This is quite a unique sight, especially at a place only known for cleaning. We watched the mantas dance around one another as we did our safety stop, a truly awesome spectacle. For the second dive of the day we went to check out the unique topography of Mike’s Point, where we drifted in a mild current past overhangs with silly fish swimming upside down, as well as blacktip reef sharks, and a funeral nudibranch. We finished the dive in the beautiful coral garden, where sweetlips gathered around bommies covered in glass fish, even spotting a free swimming moray eel.
Indisputably the best part of the day, possibly the whole trip, was the dive at Cape Kri. There’s no other way to describe it other than downright ridiculous. Basically, think of all of the species of medium to large sized fish you can, then imagine all of them in large quantities, packed incredibly dense, hunting big schools of smaller fish. The dive was truly pelagics galore, with three types of sharks (blacktips, white tips, and grey reefs), Spanish mackerel, tuna, jacks, barracudas, trevallies, and more. The pure quantity was staggering, in addition to the size and power of the fish we were seeing. Many of us literally couldn’t believe our eyes, and it was well worth fighting some current for. There was even small stuff on this dive as well, including pygmy seahorses and a robust ghost pipefish! Everyone came up from the dive with massive smiles, multiple people saying it was the best dive of their life. Both guides and guests couldn’t stop talking about it for hours afterward; it was truly the dive of a lifetime.
While practically nothing could top Cape Kri, we had an awesome final day of diving, all three very fishy. We started off with Sardine Reef, which was full of sharks. In total, we saw 6 blacktips, 2 whitetips, and 2 wobbegongs, in addition to the schools of fusiliers and rainbow runners with barracudas and trevallies chasing them. We even saw a pilot whale on the way to the site. The second dive at Blue Magic also brought large schools of fusiliers and rainbow runners, with pelagics hunting them, as well as more pygmy seahorses, sweetlips, nudibranchs, and a massive colony of skeleton shrimp. We ended off the day diving of the trip at the always nice Mioskon, where the shallows were teeming with fish and the sand was full of wobbegongs-three in total. We ended the trip with a final night dive at Friwinbonda, where we spotted two bobtail squid, one of which we saw bury itself in the sand, an octopus, a zebra squat lobster, nudibranchs, and pretty of crabs and shrimp. We all headed off to bed shortly after, to prepare for the early wakeup the next day.
While it was still dark, we headed over to a village on the island of Waigeo where Genis, our guide, took us to see the birds of paradise. We got a good view of six of the birds doing their signature mating dance, as well as green and blue parrots on the hike back down through the jungle. We ended the trip in typical Jaya fashion, putting up all the black sails and going out in the dinghys to take some photos, as well as with a fashion show featuring our chef, Yunoz, to show off some Wicked gear. After that, it was time to say goodbye, ending a fantastic week full of all that Raja has to offer. Thank you once again to our great guests, who made this a truly enjoyable trip. Special thanks to Orrin, Peter, Sydney, and Fraser for providing photos for the blog and for manta research! We hope to see you all again, maybe next time in Komodo!
