Regular Diving in Raja Ampat

Ice, Tomas, me and Ray

The next day I had more diving, but this time we were joined by another diver, Tomas from Germany who would be diving with Ice as his guide. Tomas had been here 9 years ago when Raja Ampat was still relatively undiscovered (before it was featured in Lonely Planet). He came back a few years later to find tons of people around diving everywhere and was pleased to see that right now we are only two of a handful of divers on Kri “as it was 9 years ago.” We dove at Kep Kry, which is one of the very best sites in Raja Ampat. Unfortunately for me, the current had picked up and I had trouble getting around to the front of the wall to go on the other side so we just stayed on the side we were on and went with the current. From what Tomas said, the other side was clearer with more things to see, but Ray agreed to try again in a couple days.

My Dive Boat

Shelled crablike critters going crazy for bananas

We took our interval between dives at a nearby tiny island. We actually ran into other divers there, an Australian and 2 Europeans who were staying at the island across from Kri. They were the only other divers I saw on the ocean though I know Steve and Heidi were out diving somewhere but with 20 or more great dive sites in the area it’s easy to be at different places. On the island were a whole bunch of tiny shelled creatures (crabs?) moving around. They love bananas and were all over the banana peels we left for them. It was fascinating to watch them and see these pretty shells moving around with living creatures in them! The second dive had less current and was a great dive for me.

yellow boxfish from above

anthias fish yellow damsel fish

barracuda and giant grouper

Lobsters or as my friends Michele and Chris would say Lobstahs

On the Dive Boat

Thomas photographiing barracudas

yellow and blue blocky fish

The next day we went to Blue Magic, which is a very well known site. I was a little concerned because this place also has a strong current so I got a little distracted and forgot to attach my GoPro to my wrist. So when we descended I let go of it to clear my nose, thinking it was attached. Once we swam out to the front of the current I went to take a picture and realized it was gone! So then I had a decision to make, do I ask my guide to abort the dive and go to the surface to look for it or do we continue with the dive and hope that either the captain has found it or we can find it at the end during our surface time? It was attached to a floating handle with a bright orange top but I’m not sure if a strong current on the bottom means it will float off to who knows where. My indecision becomes a decision as the longer I wait, the less likely going up immediately will matter. Eventually I decide to focus on enjoying the dive and luckily we don’t see anything unusual. When we get back on the boat, the boat captain Robert holds up my GoPro! He found it floating around while he was waiting for us. My savior!

Captain Robert with my found GoPro

It's a good thing I have a floating handle for my GoPro

Cats vying to be petted

For the interval today we went to Bat Island which should be renamed Cat Island as someone brought some cats there and they multiplied and now there are no bats. They honed in on our food supplies and surprisingly when I called to them three of them came over to be petted, rubbing against me and jostling each other for pets. I totally got my cat fix with them. They were so cute and loving especially this one orange tabby who I would have happily adopted if I were home. We fed them some of the thick crepe pancakes, which was all we had and they had no issues eating from my hand so they are clearly somewhat domesticated.

I love this cats colors

My favorite cat who liked me best

Cats hanging near the food at Cat I mean Bat Island

wobbegong at Moiskun

The second dive at Moiskun had some cool things to see. I found a porcupine fish, saw more barracudas, sharks, turtles, more wobbegongs, a giant Napoleon Wrasse, a trumpetfish, and a sleeping lion fish. I also saw this batfish several times (not the same type as the pier, a different breed of batfish). My guide said it was following me. The visibility was much better today than past days, which was nice.

I found a sleeping Lionfish

Napolean Wrasse

porcupine fish

pufferfish

Batfish checking us out

The last day had even better visibility. For the first dive we started near a pier where snorkeling and drifted away with the current. Another batfish came to visit us. My first sighting of him was about 9 minutes into the dive and he stayed with us the whole rest of the dive, over 45 minutes! He swam off as we surfaced. They must be very curious. We saw four turtles this dive.

Ray on last dive jetty

Batfish following Ray

Ray waving to Batfish

My guide Ray's Manta Ray tattoo

For my very last dive they saved the best for last. We returned to Kep Kry and it was amazing! Clear beautiful water and exactly what I imagined one of the best dive sites in the world would be like. I told Ray a few days ago that I’d never seen a seahorse so he has made it his mission to find one, checking coral on every dive, but today he finally found one! It was a really tiny pygmy seahorse, too small to get a GoPro picture of but it was cool to see.

other Go Bears fish but they are not all the right shade of blue

IKEA fish

Huge Sweetlips fish and potato groiuper

best tigerfish

Another interesting item of note was that I had zero allergies in Raja Ampat. No hayfever in the morning for the first time since I was a kid. Though my allergies returned wth a vengeance in Sorong and Bali. It didn’t help that my driver had a brand new air freshener in his car that I was reacting too, but we figured in out and put it in the glovebox so I could stop sneezing.

Another nice sunset at Yenkoranu