As we were shown to our cabin we found two small (2m x .7m) beds with some storage space under them and shelf connecting them at the foot of the beds. a hatch for ventilation in the ceiling and a simple air-conditioning unit (this turned out to be a lifesaver at times). It was certainly meager accommodations and the beds were a bit disappointing. After such a long and uncomfortable journey to reach this place, we did not relish more sleeping in uncomfortable positions. We quickly dropped of our bags and were shown to where we would set up our gear.
Liveaboard diving, according to the Jaya's crew, is the laziest form of diving. and to an extent they are correct. There is no hauling or even swapping tanks, no long boring rides or repetitious dive briefings to listen to. However the daily schedule is physically grueling and the expiriences were mentally overwhelming. Wake up at 6:30, eat a small breakfast (cereal etc.), dive 1, eat a bigger breakfast (usually eggs, toast, pancakes or similar fare), dive 2, eat lunch, dive 3, snack (fried bananas, popcorn etc.), possible night dive, eat dinner (very varied and delicious), sleep somewhere around 10pm, repeat. In between diving and meals, divers and guides played cards, sunbathed on the deck, or took a nap. There was no trouble falling asleep at night.
Day 1: 3/15/2017
Arrival, getting settled, introductory briefings, paperwork, safety briefings, split up into dive groups and finally the first dive. We were put in a group with one other person: Mimi, a French woman in her mid-late thirties, who was a very experienced and well traveled diver. The three of us were diving with Matt all week. Matt was born in Zambia to British parents and had been a dive leader for over a decade in the Red Sea and the Similan Islands, among other places, and had been in Raja Ampat for the last 8 months. The first dive was a check-out dive to establish the skill level and style of the groups, so initially I decided to leave my camera behind until I heard there was a chance of seeing pygmy seahorses. Of course I brought the camera but the left the UV filter on which causes the camera to not function inside the underwater housing.
The initial reactions to the diving were how different everything was. Visibility was nothing special. Maff called it about 10m I estimated it at 25-40 ft. at different parts of the dive. The water was incredibly green, It tasted different than Hawaii's ocean water, which was a bit of a surprise, and was roughly 82 degrees Fahrenheit. As we dropped down and found the bottom and began to explore everything was new and different. The coral, soft and hard, and fish were so colorful. All the colors of the rainbow can be found in the waters of Raja Ampat (pictured below).
We did see pygmy seahorses and were filled with wonder and excitement towards the upcoming 18 dives. Raja Ampat is known for it currents, and while we never experienced anything the dive guides considered more than "moderate", there were a few situations where the power of the water movement was felt. A current check was performed prior to each dive to give the guides an idea of what we were getting into. It was something that Laura and I were less familiar with and an interesting wrinkle into the dive planning.
Day 2: 3/16/2017
This was our first full day of diving, four dives including a night dive scheduled for Day 2. This day was mind-expandingly incredible. The shear volume of life and color and variety was astounding. Large schools of batfish and barracuda, clown anemonefish and beautiful flowing soft coral. At the end of the first dive of the day, we were treated to a variety of sharks swimming around us including white tip reef sharks, black tip reef sharks, and a single gray reef shark. The highlight of the day was surely the night dive where we had some close up facetime with a squid, as well as finding some scorpionfish, lionfish, a sponge crab, and a gorgeous juvenile batfish. The food all day was wonderful, and the shore visit to Arborek Island was a very interesting glimpse into a starkly different style of life. Below are two videos of children on Arborek Island dancing in the streets in very practiced and inclusive dances full of glee. A much simpler and incredibly isolated life.
Disaster Strikes! On our way out to the first dive site of the day (Manta Sandy, a natural manta cleaning station with a cautiously optimistic chance for mantas) traveling in the small boat to the drop point, Laura went to rinse the baby shampoo out of her mask and dropped it into the ocean. A few seconds of shock, a few seconds to communicate the problem, and a few more seconds to stop the boat meant we were hundreds of yards away from where it fell. The other dive group in the boat dropped in at scheduled drop zone and Matt spent a few minutes looking from the surface, but to no avail. No back up masks in the small boat so the other boat who had just dropped divers off was sent to retrieve a backup mask for Laura. Five minutes later, a mask had arrived and we began the dive.
About 2 minutes, into the dive I hear the moisture alarm on my cameras housing. Having had trouble with the alarms sensitivity before, I ignored it for a few minutes until I looked and saw a shockingly troubling amount of water inside of my housing. It had not flooded entirely. Just as Laura turned to me to show me that she had found her mask sitting on the bottom, I was signaling to Matt that there was a problem with my camera. He took much longer than I wanted at the time to find someplace to leave us, and ascend to the surface to pass the camera off to a small boat driver and get it returned to the Jaya and out of its wet housing. Each second that passed as he did most of a safety stop, I knew that the chances of my cameras survival were diminishing. It made it really hard to fully enjoy the manta rays that we saw on the remainder of the dive, including the rare and Indonesian centered black manta ray, which has a black stomach as well. This gives it the appearance of, as Matt put it, "Ninja Mantas". This is the part where I would post pictures of this experience (the black manta came within 5 feet of me), but as I said, my camera was in limbo at the time. After the dive I made sure the camera, the lens, and the battery all were promptly put into a large bowl of rice, and stayed there for the remainder of the dives that day. By the end of the day, the camera was removed from the rice a new battery was inserted and everything was fine. I sighed, filled with relief and greatful to the actions of Matt and the boat crew for saving my camera. With the camera intact, I was able to fully enjoy and capture the Painemu Lagoon, a group of islands famous for their photogenic lookout point.
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| Well worth the 272 rickety steps to the top |
Day 4: 3/18/2017
The first dive of the day, I was still doing rigorous testing on the housing making sure it was safe to take my camera in again. I stuffed it full of toilet paper so I could be sure if there were any leaks. It passed all the tests I put it through and survived two full dives without the camera, so I was ready to take it with again. Thankfully everything worked out, and the camera is still working today, and there was not another problem for the remainder of the trip.
We dove at Eagle Rock (named for the eagles which live on it, which are a very cool thing to see when exiting the water) and Black Rock (named for being black and made of rock). Excellent dives and ones I was glad to have the camera working for. The dive at Black Rock was the first one I started using the red filter more religiously, so there is a marked improvement in the pictures starting on the 3rd dive of the 18th. These two dives illustrated a new concept for Laura and me. The high currents in this area would create splits around the edges of reef. It was at these splits where divers could "sit" among multiple schools of fish swimming into the current. Highlights included: large schools of fusiliers and big eye trevally along with massive bumphead parrotfish and ribbon eel about the size of a pencil right at the end of the dive.
After the dives at Eagle and Black Rock, we did our scheduled night dive at an active pearl farm. We spent a few minutes snorkeling with our regulators in very shallow water looking for a walking shark. We were successful, albeit briefly, and I shot a short video of it scurrying away into some coral, (video will come later). Shortly after the walking shark, we dropped down and had a truly wonderful night dive full of amazing things. Most notably a giant moray, a crocodile flathead, and several tasseled wobbegong sharks. The wobbegong shark is as interesting and intricate as it's name suggests. The tassels around their mouth and their well camouflaged color scheme make them excellent ambush predators and a noteworthy find for divers.
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| Crocodile Flathead |
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| Tasseled Wobbegong Shark |
Day 5: 3/19/2017
The fifth day included three very different dives. First was a typically fast moving drift dive which had very little current, called Chanel No. 5. This dive featured amazing nudibranch life, which also brought the interesting challenges of nudibranch photography without a macro lens. Minimum focus distance becomes a real problem when you are attempting to capture something that is less than a few inches and has important details that are smaller than the tip of a pencil. It is a fun challenge with excellent payoff when you get it right. 
The second dive, Jaya's Secret, was different from all the other dives we did. It had many large hard coral structures laid out with sandy bottom separating them similar to much of the diving in the Caribbean. It boasted one of the most beautiful surfaces of all the dives with the stunning aquamarine pictured below.
Due to general exhaustion and ear soreness Laura sat out the last dive of the day where the much of the soft coral was a bright yellow orange color which had garnered it the name, Citrus Ridge. Laura was glad she rested as there was nothing extraordinary new on that dive and she was well rested for...
Day 6: 3/20/2017
On day 6, we had a choice: wake up at 4:30 to attempt to go see "Birds of Paradise", a local endemic species only found on one specific Island in Raja Ampat, or wake up at the normal time to dive Blue Magic, a site known for the possibility of oceanic manta rays. For Laura and I, the choice was obvious. For me, even the opportunity to see oceanic mantas outweighs very many things in this world, and the 4:30 wake up time was simply "the nail that broke the camels back", as Laura artfully put it. Our decision could not have paid off more as we were rewarded with 7 circling oceanic manta rays which were with us throughout the entirety of the hour long dive. They were massive, majestic, shockingly nimble, and very clearly aware of us. Ranging in size from 14 to 18 feet wing tip-to-wing tip, it was truly an honor and wonderful experience to share the water with these creatures which were more than twice our size. I mostly took video, but here are a few of the pictures.
The two dives following the mantas had to be incredible to not be a let down, and while there was nothing that was quite as grandiose, they were certainly wonderful dives. Excellent dive for the last full day of diving, as they were somewhat of a summation of the life we had seen so far. This allowed me a second crack at some of the life I had failed to photograph successfully on previous dives, and allowed us to bask in all that Raja Ampat had to offer.
Day 7: 3/21/2017
For the final dive, it was back to Blue Magic so that anyone who went to go see the birds of paradise could have an opportunity to see the big rays. Unfortunately for Mimi (our other dive group member), she was the only person who went to go see the birds, and the second try yielded no mantas. There were however, several memorable things including pygmy sea horses and a leaf scorpionfish.
After the one dive, it was time to wash all our gear pack up and take the ferry back to Sorong. Unlike our trip to Waisai, we were not treated to karaoke, but rather terrible movies. First was "Countdown" which was notably a WWE production, and then they turned down the volume for the next film, which was "The Last Witch Hunter". While being a visually interesting film, it was impossible to follow, and the Indonesian subtitles did not help. The crew of the Jaya helped haul our bags and put us in individual taxis to our specific hotels.
It was one of the impressive and immersive experiences of my life and it was well worth the trouble of travel. We left exhausted and smiling at what had just experienced and will surely not forget easily.
~Rivers
P.S. These Pictures are just thumbnails, to see the full quality photos and the other 300+ photos from Raja Ampat go here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/51179681@N03/albums
Videos will be coming soon...
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