Fakfak - Sorong Sample Itinerary & Trip Details
Diving 4 Images and Seahorse will be the first dedicated dive live aboard to offer this area as a destination to the more hardened divers. Please see link to our past trip gallery – www.diving4images.com/fakfak-gallery.html
Click here to view our first divers own trip report from this area...
- Area Orientation Map
- Boat
- Rates
- Logistics
- Sample Itinerary
- Additional Activities while on land
- Hints & Tips
Area Orientation Map
Dive flag denotes the area where we will be diving
topThe boat - Seahorse
View Seahorse at
http://www.diving4images.com/seahorse_diving.html
Trip Price
$282 per person per night, plus $15/day/person surcharge. Price
includes - transfers from/to hotel in Bali in the south only, all guided dives,
tanks, weights, meals and non-alcoholic drinks. Price excludes - internal
flights, any hotel bookings, alcoholic beverages, any on board purchases, crew
gratuities
Trip Logistics
Bali-Jakarta-Fakfak 1 day prior to trip Denpasar - Jakarta GA429
departure 22.00, arrival 22.40, Jakarta – Ambon JT790 departure 23.55, arrival
07.00, boarding day Ambon – Fakfak IW1502 departure 08.20, arrival 09.25
Sorong-Bali Sorong – Makasar MZ 829 departure 12.00, arrival 13.05,
Makasar – Denpasar GA 637 departure 17.20, arrival 18.10. Via Manado - Lion Air
on JT1177 departing Sorong at 9.40 arriving in Manado 10.30.
Sample Itinerary
The cruise director/dive master on Seahorse is one of the very lucky few who
made the first real exploratory trip round this amazing new dive destination. No
need for worrying about if sites will be good, we have more than enough
absolutely incredible dive sites to keep divers excited every day. It’s so hot
we are not giving out all our area names just yet! Read on…
- Arriving in to Fakfak we board Seahorse in the morning. Boat orientation and safety briefings then we start cruising overnight while divers ready themselves for an exciting day of diving to come.
- We are in an area where we are surrounded by more fantastic topside scenery. The diving here is fantastic to say the least. Divers will want to dive a few times on these sites, they are so good. “The Bat Cave” is a dive where we have giant boulders dropping to 40+m all densely covered with black coral bushes and surrounded by great numbers of schooling fish and amazing diversity, it was here we saw more large groupers than ever imagined. Back up in the shallows, a small cave makes for great photography with plenty of colourful soft corals. After this great dive we make our first area of exploratory (this is one area we never had time to get to last time round) in a deep bay with many tiny islets surrounded by deep water, here we will make an afternoon and night dive critter hunting, we will take a tender ride to explore the island scenery in this amazing looking bay.
- A few miles move in the morning has us standing off close by a few small open ocean islets, here we have two different sites, both with great fish numbers, one in particular with outstanding reef scenery and great fish life, a chance of some bigger highlight animals are possible here too! Moving a few more miles and we have a great sheltered bay for a critter dive, so good we’ll make a night dive on this site where we had fire urchins and their host critters, plenty of nudibranchs, shells on soft corals, a very unique tilefish in the sand and more... In between dives we can go visit the local family and take a tender boat ride to view the ancient skulls placed neatly within this bay!
- Moving back out we dive “White Rock Falls”, here we have great fish life, chances of some the big and smallest, chances of mobula rays and a few different species of pigmy sea horses can be seen on this one spot, along with other critters and even some pelagic fish in the deeper areas. In the afternoon we move into the sheltered bay for some critter hunting dives.
- Yet another major hot spot, here we have a school of giant trevallies that hang out in the shallows between 2 small islands with great topographic features for the wide angle photographers, from the islands a mild slope has colourful coral packed bommies all surrounded by fantastic fish life. After 2 dives here we head back into a sheltered bay to make an afternoon and night dive for more great critter hunting dives.
- A big change of scenery as we head in towards the mainland, here we can go and visit the locals in their pristine village or for those who are really into trekking you can take a hike to see the inland lake here. This an area where none other than Dr. Gerry Allen, years back, done as Alfred Russell Wallace did, he spent days collecting unknown species, Gerry found lots of new fresh water fish species. We also have a most unique dive site, we named this "The Fresh Water Vents" as huge underwater plumes of fresh water could be seen coming from the reef with more black corals, giant sea fans and thousands of small fish. We will make a couple of dives in this area to see if we can find some hot critter dives!
- Today we hit our number one spot. This is where Gerry Allen came up from his dive saying "we have to name this site, it should be called Little Komodo", this came from the first ever time he dived Komodo before any fishing impact. There were groupers like we had never seen, literally the size of cars and maybe about 5 of them that came in close to check us out, schools of jacks (4 species), baracudas, many Napoleon wrasse and general fish diversity and numbers like no one on our trip had ever seen in Asia, coral growth is just awesome. We will spend a day around this one dive site, you'll see why…
- Once more only a few miles away on the open ocean side of the islands we have more incredible sites, well worthy of a few dives, if not a whole day of diving. Another small island that has it all, gorgeous reef scenery and great fish life throughout, gorgeous mini walls with an array of colourful corals surrounded by great numbers of different fish and yet more big groupers all round. This is another area where we can take a tender ride to view the scenery inside the deep winding bay of an uncharted lagoon, here we can see and lots of different tropical birds and take in the fantastic topside scenery.
- We arrive for our first day of diving, sheltered in a unique bay in southern Irian Jaya. Here we have guaranteed excellent dive sites, a submerged reef tops off at 5m, drops down to 25m with black coral bushes surrounded by thousands of small fish all being hunted by jacks whilst schooling barracuda and other pelagic fish cruise off reef. A mild sandy slope in front of a river way here is where Dr. Gerry Allen broke all his fish counts off the charts (328 fish species). We will take you on a short tender ride to see a unique species of kangaroo that can at times be seen here along with a whole array of tropical birds, the scenery in the river way itself is worth the ride.
- Now we in the SE tip of the Raja Ampat where we have more guaranteed dive sites found very recently. A mild drift over sea fan and whip coral covered slope, great for a brief deep dive to fully enjoy the reef scenery with large schools of fusiliers, lots of colourful reef fish and large pelagic fishes can be seen cruising off reef, then ascending to enjoy a great safety stop within the coral gardens searching for critters in amongst coral packed boulders on the rocky substrate. Our other top dive here is a wall which drops from 4m to 30m sloping off with coral outcrops on the sandy bottom below, in the depths it may be possible to see sharks and we can see huge bumphead parrotfish and schooling fish with a great safety stop beneath the shallow undercut island with great colourful soft coral and sea fan scenery. Between dive in the afternoon we can go onshore for some beach walks on the powder white sand beaches, these islands are where turtles come in the evening to lay their eggs if we are lucky we may some tracks laid the night before.
- Now ready for our first day of diving, we are in the heart of Misool in the Raja Ampat. Here we have fantastic fishy dive sites with gorgeous coral reef scenery, the choice of sites here depends on the currents and we will choose the site which performs best on the current that day! Here we also have a great night dive, an area where we can watch as the bumphead parrotfish come in the rest for the evening, this area is great for soft coral crabs, ghost pipefish, pigmy sea horses and more great critters amongst colourful coral reef backgrounds.
- For our final few dives we will dive a site I recently found that we called “The Toblerone Tunnel”, this site has a shallow underwater triangular shaped swim-through cuts through the centre of a small island and makes for awesome photography. However there is much more than the great tunnel, a reef slope here is home to a whole array of different coloured and different species of pigmy sea horse, nudibranchs and then in the shallows we can move around the big soft coral filled coral rocks surrounded by thousands of colourful anthias. We will make two dives on this site before our overnight cruise to Sorong.
- Departure from Sorong.
Please note: This is a sample itinerary and may change due to conditions and
your best needs and wishes.
Additional add on activities
Should anyone want to make additional land tours in Bali we can arrange these,
trips to temples, Balinese dances, scenic drives through the rice terraces, spa
treatments, shopping, what ever it is we can help you arrange these with local
Balinese drivers who do not take commissions from tourist shops!
Look forward to diving with you very soon...
Warmest regards
Your cruise director & dive master
Graham Abbott