Cruise reports from Irian Jaya, Raja Ampat and Irian Jaya, Raja Ampat, Banda Sea to Flores private charters.

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October 2004

Two back to back charters with fine diving and very fine dining to match, aboard the Ikan Gurami.

Arranging the logistics of two back to back charters to go exactly where two different charters wanted to go with no compromises. The logistics of the diving itineraries was easy though the difficulty was with arranging for high quality foods in outer islands like this. When booking a full charter for a vessel of this standard I offered an open menu plan, after lots of e-mails back and forth with menu samples, purchase lists etc we eventually agreed upon the best menu, the diving itinerary they were happy to go with flow of things which always works best for me... Both of these special charters were to be a real treat not just for these special friends, for me too. I have always been through here with full boats of 16 guests and at least 3 dive guides. In my mind this is too many divers underwater. Now it would be a total pleasure to go with keen divers putting their trust in me to find the best sites for their photographic needs.

The first charter was 12 full days of diving and had to be a very special one, for the first two good friends were celebrating their anniversary by diving around the best of the Raja Ampat, Irian Jaya or the newly renamed West Papua. Starting off with a few critter dives in the Bird of Paradise territory of Batanta and Salawati. Here for our check dive we had an easy dive on a good coral reef with nudibranchs, flatworms, twin spot gobies and plenty of jawfish, one brooding eggs it's mouth. Exploring for a critter site in this area, I decided to check out an area that looked great, a quick glance on snorkel confirmed a potential critter site. Entry was straight down onto unusual nudibranchs, giant flatworms and a few very shy toadfish, here we found crustaceans galore and then Anne while mooching along the reef top came across our first wobbiegong shark. Early in the morning we went on land to see the birds of paradise, although a little high in the trees, we still saw and heard a few of these incredible birds. The walk alone through prime rainforest is always a treat I reckon, and then as we were heading back a pair of hornbills went soaring over head.

Image taken in Raja Ampat by Graham Abbott - Diving 4 Images

Weedy pigmy
sea horse

After our walk we went in search of more critters, the current was too strong for the usual dive sites in this area. Dropping right in where the boat was anchored, visibility was fairly low due to the changing tide, yet we still came across a few cool sea slugs, flatworms and shrimps. Current had subsided so our next dive was on a regular dive site in this area where I have had good luck in the past with a few very cool critters at Tanjung Mabo a well known dive spot here. Currents usually run here, though in one area it seems to split creating a small area where we managed to find plenty of nudibranchs and flatworms, then there it was, all excitement broke out as we all went heads into the reef to see this tiny sea horse, it was the weedy pigmy sea horse. Anne had her 50mm Nikon RS, we photographed it with this, then Anne went up to the tender to get the other RS with the 2 X converter, we shot it again finishing the roll. I had my little pocket Sony, out it came and I shot all I could, till I was virtually out of air and in need to surface. Choosing not to dive after being so excited and happy about finding these little wonders we had a good rest before a full dive program ahead in Misool.

Bargibant's pigmy
sea horse

It's always an adventure going back to areas I haven't been to for a while, the adventure comes from not knowing whether those little pigmy's, sea slugs or other critters are going to be there again. The itinerary was laid out to get optimum conditions down south. Our first dive into the cool cavern with excellent surrounding coral formations and great fish life. Our next dive was for critters in amongst more great scenery of another colourful coral filled cavern, our target being more pigmy's, this time the H. bargibanti... Wow they were still there and so easy to photograph, very big and only at 6m deep meant we could stay as long as we wanted to get the best shot. There were also plenty of cool sea slugs, cowries in the sea fans and a good variety of gobies. The general reef scenery here is excellent too, with the cavern mouth filled with hanging soft corals and gorgeous colourful invertebrates. For our night dive here I decided to head to a slightly different area than I have dived before. I always like doing this to find better sites where the sites I have dived previously were only good, even those that are still good, can always be improved upon. An area with no current and what looked like a possible shallow critter filled reef was chosen. Upon entry we came straight across a huge epaulette shark, then lots of different sea slugs (around 12 different species), crustaceans galore including halimeda crabs and a pair of very unusual 'V' shaped crabs I'd never seen before, in all a great new night diving site.

Denise's pigmy
sea horse

Exploring new sites - the Raja Ampat is probably the best region for exploring and finding new dive sites, what with thousands of tiny islets it is often hard to chose where to drop in. The land usually is where I look when choosing somewhere new. Our first chance to explore came as a result of a little choppy weather as we headed to southern Misool. Rather than having awkward exits and entries we went exploring on the protected northern side of one of the many islands. I headed out to the corner of an island where the topside topography looked like it may be replicated underwater, sure enough it was, a long coral filled reef spur undulated way out and down, a very important area of any reef in my mind is the reef top and this was also great. Nothing worse than a great dive being spoilt by a boring safety stop! Descending down the southern side of the ridge to around 27m were we came across lots of sea fans, on closer viewing we noticed many of them were loaded with pigmy sea horses, we had seen the Weedy, the Bargiants and now we found lots plucked chicken, H. denise. Reef scenery down at this depth was also excellent with great wide angle compositions. Slowly making our ascent on the northern side of the ridge through huge schools of fusiliers, while the odd dogtooth tuna and wahoo cruised by off reef. The reef scenery on this side of the ridge was much more spectacular with colourful soft corals intertwined with hard and leathery corals and good fish life swirling around. This new sites was so good we decided to dive here again spending more time in the area we found best, even more fish and more pigmy sea horses, now both H. denise and H. bargibanti. After these two great dives we headed to south eastern Misool for more great reef dives. The "Kaleidoscope Ridge" was as usual great with thick clouds of small fish and the odd pelagic coming in to feed upon the stragglers in the clouds. We saw a giant grouper that must of been up to 2m, a big Napoleon wrasse, while Anne was taking wide angle shots Chuck and I looked for some small critters, plenty more plucked chicken pigmy sea horses and a few cool sea slugs. I called Anne over so as not to miss the inner ridge part of the ridge here, this area is also a must with gorgeous soft corals and an incredible invertebrate covered shallow overhang with small blennies and gobies to keep us interested for a very long safety stop. A night dive on a colourful wall here was again great with lots of crustaceans in allsorts of different corals, plenty of cool shells, a few unusual Marionia sea slugs. I had found something very cool which was on Chuck's wish list, it was so small I hid it with my cupped hand and called Chuck over, then watching his face I revealed a small juvenile clown frogfish, his face lit up, the frogfish was slowly moving so I held Chuck back till the frogfish was in a better position to photograph, he made his last shot on this little beauty.
Back into eastern Misool, one of my favourite areas here for fish packed reef dives. Knowing this site usually has current I checked and chose the most appropriate entry. Sure enough fish galore on entry, literally packed with clouds of small fish all around us, jacks, wahoo's, skipjack tuna, a couple of sharks, the funny part was when Anne was head into her camera setting up a wide angle shot while Chuck and I tried to get Anne's attention as we were being bombarded with schools of tuna and jacks all around us. Amongst all this I stopped in one spot to point out a great scenic viewpoint with a lionfish heading down through a thick school of anthias and a great reef scene. Next to this on a huge sea fan I noticed a few more very large pigmy sea horses. This is always a site we have to dive more than once to really see it all again, this time managing to rest down in the sandy bowl while looking up into schools of fish before we headed into the coral gardens. Moving into mainland Misool to take a tender boat ride through this fantastic topside scenery, here once more we made a dive on a new site, this time at dusk, highlights being - twin spot gobies, sea slugs, flatworms, carrier crab with upside jelly on it's back.

Now in Fam island to dive one of Max Ammer's favourite sites Melissa's Garden, named after his daughter. Here we homed in the great shallow coral scenery, with huge giant clams and plenty of fish, a small school of juvenile batfish followed us for about 10 minutes making for great photography. Diving a new site in this area I came across a while back that we named "Swim through To Paradise". On entry into a shallow leathery coral bowl then through the swim through to great views of colourful sea fans and soft corals with plenty of fish and a few cool critters as well.
Dive liveaboard etiquette - most of the more respecting operators in Indonesia follow a certain common courtesy, though it's a shame to see certain operators doing what they want only and not diving in the interest of having less divers on one site at a time. The usual etiquette is to allow the first boat already in an area to have first choice of dive sites, not all liveaboards stick to this common courtesy. When entering new areas I prefer to ask other liveaboard operators where they plan to dive, then choose an alternative, often it can work out better. In the case of Fam we had another boat diving Swim through To Paradise in the evening, we had swapped some information on a previous trip. Looking for another option, I searched for about 30 minutes in near darkness using my flashlight till I came across a sheltered reef inside one the lagoons. This looked like a good choice for a great night dive, sure enough we came across lots of great sea slugs, plenty of flatworms, huge saron shrimps, gorgeous soft coral cowries and a big wobbiegong shark waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting prey.

Schooling barracuda for our safety
stop on a our dive site at Fam!

Moving out on the reef slope it slowly became too deep for us to continue. With a mild current coming over the top we were now atop a coral filled reef spur, the current bringing in nutrients feeding a vast array of soft corals sea fans and lots of colourful invertebrates, we would have to dive this site again in the day to see it in it's full glory. When we did get to dive this reef again, it was so good that it lured us in for yet another 3 dives! In the daylight we could see this whole reef with good visibility, the coral life and colour here was excellent with plenty of fish swirling over the ridge and around the soft coral filled rocks, a few large pelagic fish cruising by hunting off reef. We came to the end of the ridge and here for our safety stop we were approached each time with a large school of barracuda that would come in close enough for some good wide angle photographs. We called this "The Superhighway".

Entering Waigeo we checked in with the local village which gave Anne and Chuck a chance to see local village life within the Raja Ampat. While we were at the village the current had picked up, so much so that when the crew tried to lift the anchor, the chain broke. I tried to recover it with no joy as the current was way too strong. We had a spare anchor and that where able to tie up to the mooring at the pearl farm. I waited till the next morning when I was fresh to go in search again, this time there was no current, virtually on entry I found the rope floating towards the surface, though the anchor was well lodged into a crevice at 30m with the chain and rope wrapped under another ledge, I freed the chain and rope, then the anchor and slowly started to surface with the rope in hand, we managed to get the anchor onboard and then headed to Batangpele for one quick dive on route back to Fam.

While in this great bay of Waigeo we dived the gorgeous soft coral packed channel mouth. This site is known for the most gorgeous soft corals that cover this whole site. We decided to take an afternoon tender ride in through these small islands to view the birdlife, hornbills flew over head whilst all around we were surrounding by a whole assortment of tropical birds, then went to the usual night dive site here and as usual plenty of unusual decorator crabs, bobtail squids, a few sea slugs and then towards the end of the dive a cool pair of Halimeda ghost pipefish, a very rare and unusual sighting which us made very happy indeed.

We had seen so many excellent reef systems and outstanding fish life, that Chuck asked if we could go in search of new dive sites for critters. For sure this is the how we find these special new sites. On most trips I have taken in the past couple of years I've managed to find at least one site to better an OK site. During this trip we had many new dive sites. Searching on north Batanta, here I have always wanted to get into as it has lots of small bays with small islands. Though our first search was hindered by pearl farms not allowing us to dive near their farms. I eventually stopped the boat and jumped in to check out an area, it was a good reef with plenty of coral filled coral rocks, though when I came up from my check out the locals asked us to report into a village before diving, this is a common occurrence throughout Indonesia and a common courtesy though we hadn't seen the village around the corner. It worked out for the best as usual, and as we came towards the village we saw a wooden jetty, the crew checked in whilst I checked out. The jetty looked promising, huge schools of fish formed clouds beneath with the colurful invertebrate covered wooden pylons. Like most jetty's it was also full of old fishing lines, the scattered hard coral patches looked like ideal homeland for Mandarin fish too.

Toad fish on our new critter site

As the light looked great under the jetty I recommended wide angle and we would go macro later in the evening. Chuck and I went searching for critters while Anne was shooting the schools of fish, we found a few shrimps, then a few sea slugs, then we came across a pair of unusual wasp fish, then they there were, a little earlier than usual... Mandarin fish, I called an end to the dive a little earlier to change lenses and get back in time for the mating showdown, unfortunately we were either a little too late or these gorgeous fish were a wee bit early. What we did find was more sea slugs, lots of different crustaceans, crocodile fish, then a big toadfish looking like it was stuck under a log, in the shallows we came across the best life with bamboo shark, frogfish and plenty of small juvenile fish hiding away for the night.

For our last few days we spent the rest of the time around the base camp of Papua Diving and dived my favourite site Mike's Point, named after Max Ammers son. Here we had awesome topography a little deeper, great fish life on the shallows and the gorgeous shallow reef scenes surrounding this tiny rock island. It was so good and as this site is always possible to dive we stayed here for our last dives. We did try to make a dive at Manta Point though the current didn't allow for our last dive to be here so one more on Mikes Point wouldn't hurt at all!

We headed over to see the Red Birds of Paradise on Gam, unfortunately it was not our day, the wind was too much and the bird don't usual come into the usual trees when there is strong wind, we still heard great bird songs and enjoyed the stroll anyway.

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