Raja Ampat (4 - 9 Dec 2018)
Special thanks to Dive Master Adi who helped took many of the underwater pictures, which turned out to be amazing!
It took me 10 minutes to walk from the gate to immigration in Terminal 3 in Jakarta Airport, that was how huge the airport terminal was. The queue at immigration was long, i waited 30 minutes before i can clear immigration. After that I need to get to the airtrain outside terminal and take the airtrain to Terminal 1, the furthest from where I was. At Terminal 1, I thought Batik Air, which was considered a budget airline, wont serve food, so i went to buy food at A&W outside the terminal.
I was surprised that the flight from Jakarta to Sorong has meal and water served - twice - once during the first segment (Jakarta to Makassar) and once more from Makassar to Sorong. We had to get down at Makassar and get our new boarding pass and board the plane again. Batik Air has won my heart with the food served and the cheap airfare and good timing for this segment. Plus they even have in flight entertainment, with many movies to select from, including but not limited to the whole series of Harry Porter. All you need is an earbud and you can enjoy the movies. Sadly i was too tired and chose to snooze most of the time. The flight from Jakarta to Makassar was pretty empty but the segment from Makassar to Sorong was almost full.
Reached Sorong at 730am, and the luggage was retrieved 15 minutes later. Domi was already waiting at the arrival hall, with the groceries i asked him to help me get the night before from supermarket (milos and mineral water). He drove me to the jetty and helped me buy the 9am ferry ticket to Waisai. It was a crowded ferry with many passengers, for a weekday ride. I was quite tired after the red-eyed flight but the movie they showed on the ferry got me hooked till i get down. It was Undisputed II and half of Undisputed III. Good fighting. You can buy food like instant noodles from the upper deck. Normally upper deck will be crowded as there is a tuck shop selling food and there is an open deck area for smokers to take a puff. There was also a VIP room, which has less seats and the tickets were more expensive.
The ferry reached Waisai jetty around 1130am, and there was a big group hitting the gongs to welcome the VIPs. I thought they were coming for me but obviously someone more important was there. The orchestra accompanied their VIP out of the jetty. Due to the low tide, we have to disembark from the upper deck.
I had to walk a short distance from the ferry terminal to the speedboat/yatch terminal to get to the speedboat heading Daroyen Village Homestay, where I will be staying for the next few days. At the jetty, I had to pay for the marine park levy, 1 million rupiah for foreigner, good for one year. The owner Herman was already there waiting for me. We just had to wait awhile for his boys to finish school and join our boat. The journey from Waisai to the homestay is another 45 minutes. We had to stop/slow down a few times to avoid the trash and woods floating in the water from damaging the blades.
Lunch was good, to my taste. After that I tried to catch some rest in the hut i was assigned to. Turned out i was the only one there throughout my stay until the last day. It was warm inside the hut so I couldnt get much afternoon sleep. Luckily I found a copy of Hundred Years of Solitude at the dining area and could kill time with the book. I requested a fan to be placed in my room to cool the air down in the evening. The homestay run the generator daily in the evening so we can charge our devices during then. There was no fresh water except for drinking and cooking. Showers will be using salt water, which was fine to me.
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Sunset there was amazing. There was a walking shark that turned up every evening near the beach.
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9. Walking shark that come over every evening.
The dive master Haja briefed me about the two dive sites tomorrow after dinner, after which I went to sleep promptly. Slept like a log until i was woken up by the roosters and the birds.
The next day we set off early for the dive after breakfast. We went to pick up my dive guide Adi since Haja was still recovering from flu. Raja Ampat sees Muslims and Christians living together harmoniously in the same region, which I think is the true definition of racial harmony. Churches can been seen in the villages.
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The dives at Mansuar Cape and Ransior Reef were very good. So many sharks, be it white tips or black tips. We saw eagle rays too. The reef were totally healthy even just outside the village jetty. There was a sundry shop near the jetty of Ransior Reef. To get to Mansuar Cape, we had to carefully push our boat across a shallow reef channel. The water was so clear and the reff below was beautiful.
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I decided to do only two morning dives in order to last my energy for more days. On our way back, a couple from Europe walked the shallow reefs area to go for fishing, another lady scolded her from her hut, calling them stupid for walking on the reef and damaged them. They ignored her shouting and walked on anyway. We carefully navigated our boat across this shallow but beautiful channel to go back to our homestay. The water was very clear, those who stay here can snorkel all days they want as they stay near beautiful snorkeling spot.
57. The couple who walked on the corals and were scolded.
58. Another homestay, with very good snorkeling area right in front of their huts.
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62. We had to be careful when crossing this shallow area.
V1: Crossing the shallow reef near Ransior Reef
Generator was started a bit later this evening so I got to enjoyed the beautiful starry sky and the fireflies that came in. The night sky was totally brilliant.
63. Dive briefing for the dive sites tomorrow.
The next day we went to Manta Sandy and held on to the rocks to wait for Manta Ray to appear, sadly only one came. After that we went to Arborek Jetty for the second dive, equally amazing. On the way back, we saw dolphins and so many mantas circling around. Herman stopped and let me snorkled with them. I had a dilemma, should i go for the dolphins or the mantas? I decided to go for the mantas instead. I managed to catch them on videos while they were circling around. It turned out that we saw more mantas on the surface circling than waiting for them at rather strong current at the sandy bottom earlier.
64. Apparently there are few types of mantas, one type with bottom black, one type with bottom white. We saw both types.
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72. Passing showers not too far away.
73. Pictures taken at the Manta Sandy Base Station. The staff at Base Station will collect your marine levy card. They limit the number of divers that can go diving in this diving spot to about 20 divers including dive guides. If they are too many divers, we have to wait here. While waiting, i took pictures of the reefs right below the hut which were amazing, with shallow and clear water. Sharks swam below at times.
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76. Aborek Island.
77. Bumphead Parrot Fish
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V4: Snorkeling with dolphins and mantas
The next day we had 4 more divers from Beser Bay Homestay joining me for diving. There was a french couple and their lady friend, and a gentleman from UK, whose mum was a Malaysian. It was the french lady's first dive so pretty exciting. We did our first dive at West Mansuar with moderate current, but she handled it very well, came up with the most air left. The sun shone through towards the end of our dives and everything below was lit up.
The UK guy had been travelling in Asia for sometime and dove in Komodo and Raja Ampat in Indonesia among other destinations. He travelled extensively and keep a travel blog together with his partner. This is the travel blog address: https://www.remoteandafloat.com/
The journey to our next dive site was nice, we had the limestone hills on our left as we go round the Mansuar Island. We then went to Dawasorek Jetty which was very scenic. The village has quite a few live-aboard boats docked there, proved that the dive site must be popular. According to one of the diver, he couldnt find a homestay in this village otherwise he would stay here as the snorkeling here was nice, which i must agree. The reef near the jetty was so extensive. The dive here was good as well. We saw eagle rays, sharks and turtles. People here were even nicer. When we asked where was the toilets, they simply brought us to their houses and let us use the facility without paying, i was so surprised at their hospitality. I totally fell in love with Raja Ampat.
I happened to have a chat with a dive master who were resting near the jetty, he was born in the Biak Island and now he settled down in the Raja Amapat area. He said that Raja Ampat really lack education and healthcare for kids. The rubbish problem was a education problem, if only all the people know the danger of throwing rubbish around will ruin the ecotourism. He mentioned that it was not the lack of school/hardware, it is the lack of teachers and a reasonable pay for the teachers that caused the schools to be empty - so many kids didnt even finish school in the island. They paid 900,000 rupiah for teacher for a month, he said that was grossly inadequate to cope with cost of living in Papua, might as well go and do construction work and earn 1-2 million rupiah a month. He also mentioned that voluntarism is not the way to go, as the constant changing of teachers (foreigners come and go) will not be able to sustain the education for the kids. It must be a sustained local effort, where teachers willing to stay and can live comfortably in Raja Ampat and continue to teach the kids. Right now they underpay the teachers, and ask one teacher to teach students across Primary 1 to 6, the model is doomed to fail even before it get started. The teachers ran away after 1 month of teaching. As a result the literacy level here cannot be raised. I must say he has some valid points.
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Both Haja and him agreed that of so many Indonesian presidents, Jokowi was the only one that brought development to Sorong and Papua region as a whole. Before that, the government was only interested in extracting resources from the region. Jokowi managed to bring much-needed change to the region and they were thankful that the region was not neglected by Jakarta finally.
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137. The french couple, their friend and the UK guy. Hermann was steering the boat at the back.
138. Limestone islands is the landmark of Raja Ampat.
When we sent the folks back to Beser Bay Homestay, we got to see how scenic their homestay was, very extensive reef around their place for snorkeling. Sadly they dont have a inhouse dive facility, else I would consider staying there next time. The UK guy was telling me that the homestay has many programs and many boat trips to offer, like to Paniemo and Wayag where one can share the boat cost with other travellers. He admitted that their boat was not as good as ours and are not for diving, only snorkeling.
139. Beser Bay Homestay.
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The next day we went back to Manta Sandy for the french couple to see Mantas and we weren't disappointed. Even on our way to the dive site, we already saw mantas and dolphins and the couple went ahead to snorkel with them. During the routine wait at the sandy bottom, we saw one manta, but as we moved to another shallower area, we saw two mantas at close proximity, with good sunlight and many small fish around, it would have made a great picture. Sadly my camera was with my dive master so i couldn't take the picture. I was totally in awe being so close with that manta, particularly cos I noticed that manta before everyone else did. The manta went up one more time so that i can have a closer look. Sensing that i didn't have my camera with me, the manta swam away perhaps a bit disappointingly. The swim was so majestic and graceful. It was one of the best dive i had.
141. Passing showers somewhere else helped created the rainbow.
142. This manta has white bottom.
The next dive was at Lalosi Reef, with pretty strong current. I was nearly separated from my dive guide, and i had to hold on to his tank before we hit a lesser current area. The visibility was not as good in this dive but the reef more than made up for it, so healthy and so extensive. Very healthy reef garden there.
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I wanted to do a paradise bird tour in the afternoon but Haja told me since there was a shower in the morning, chances of seeing the birds were close to zero.
There was a very good book by Papua Diving about the diving places and species found in Raja Ampat, i took the opportunity to go through the book. So many beautiful pictures in that book. Also I managed to read through briefly the history of Raja Ampat, about how the Dutch and Indonesia both tussled to get Papua under their control after Indonesia achieved independence in 1948 and West Papua (Raja Ampat) was only ceded to Indonesia as late as 1969. USA intervened and Russia was on Indonesian side. The United Nation took care of Papua during the interim period after the Dutch left before handed the area to Indonesia finally. It reminded me so much of the similarity shared by West Sahara governed by Spain and went on for referendum for self governance (which West Papua went through), only to be swallowed by Morocco eventually and lost their autonomy forever. It was exactly the same replica here in the east, happened in Raja Ampat those days.
I finally met two Danish ladies that came to stay for 9 nights, only on my last day. They had been travelling for a long time in south east asia, and dived at many different places. One of them had been travelling for 1.5 years while the other 6 months. They dove in Malapasqua but didn't see any any thresher shark. They also dove in Great Barrier Reef in Australia. I shared some of my experience with them. They will be coming to Singapore after their stay in Raja Ampat before they return to Copenhagen.
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167. Hermann, Haja and Adi with me.
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V7: Sunset
The next morning I woke up and pack my dive bags, then say goodbye to Daroyen Village. I was in the same ferry as the frency couple and their friend. The french lady played poker cards with the kids in the smoking area while I was catching some snooze in the lower deck.
After I reached Sorong jetty, Domy wasn't there to pick me up. I walked out of the jetty and walked to the ticketing area where all the cars and taxis were parked, and still no signs of him. An uncle came over and asked me what happened. He helped me call Domi and describe were I was standing to Domi. I was totally indebted to his kindness. Not only does the taxi drivers here do not hassle people to take their cars (they politely asked and if we say no, they wont pester us), they actually went out of their way to help travellers like us, which i really really found rare in touristy places. If you had been hassled by touts once you step out of airports/jetty/harbours you will know what i mean. You feel totally safe in Raja Ampat area, at all times. You feel like you are totally on holiday, without worry that your belongings will be gone, without worry that the touts will tear you apart etc.
Domi came shortly after and apologised that he was at the mosque doing his praying. We went to the airport to do check in. I reunited with the french people and i invited them to join me for lunch. Domi was more than happy to bring us to the largest shopping centre in Sorong, 5 minute drive away to have some good food before flying off. We ended up ordering from this place called Selonja, inside the shopping centre and the food was delicious.
Inside the terminal, one gentleman asked me about the earthquake that was shown on the Tv screen noticeboard (the one that show weather and tsunami information for the airports around the region). I told him that it happened this morning near the west of Sumatra, where no population found, so no casualty. As we were chatting, I found out that he was a dive photographer that contribute article for dive magazines and his cruise in Raja Ampat was all paid for (3k euro). And he actually went as far as Wayag to get photographs of the islands. He has been in this line for 50 years, and he was inspired by the legend in scuba diving, Jacques Courtois. Both Jacques and him were from Marseilles, France. The french people and I were happily chatting with him. He dove in Antarctica before and also did his diving in Sipadan while they still have Sipadan Resort on the island many many years ago. His pictures were simply amazing. He had taken a long flight via many places (Including Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta) before landing in Raja Ampat finally.
172. Henri with the french gang, talking about his photography.
The Batik Air flight on our return was late due to the late arrival of flights from other places which had connecting arrangement with the one we are on. So our flight departed late as a result even though the plane was already at the gate much earlier. The flight entertainment systems didnt work this time, so we couldn't watch movies. Food was still good. While at Makassar we need not bring down our cabin luggage if we preferred. Landed in Jakarta close to 630pm and my onward flight to Singapore by Lion Air already departed. The staff from Lion Air still brought me over to the International Departure area thinking that the flight will wait for me, how misinformed he was. In the end, he offered me a flight the next morning, which i refused to take. I asked him to retrieve my check in luggage and we will meet in front of the KFC in Terminal 2 since I cannot go back into the luggage carousel area anymore. After he successfully retrieved my luggage and handed it to me, i took the airtrain and went to Terminal 3 for the jetstar counter. I booked an extra one way ticket with Jetstar exactly for this purpose - in case the Lion Air flight departed without me - which was exactly what happened. Luckily the immigration queue in Terminal 3 was not long this time and I managed to reach the gate ahead of time.
I will definitely be back for Raja Ampat as it has much to offer, too short to finish in one trip.
Special thanks to Dive Master Adi who helped took many of the underwater pictures, which turned out to be amazing!
Some observations:
1. If you need to withdraw cash from ATM, do it at Jakarta, Makassar or Sorong latest.
2. Most of the shops will still be closed in the morning in Sorong, if you need anything best if you can ask your pick up person get for you the evening prior. Take picture and send them if they agree to help.
3. Telecom signals in Raja Ampat area can be spotty. Telkomsel has the best signal in that region. The Danish ladies managed to get internet using Telkomsel in our homestay.
4. You need to bring your Raja Ampat marine levy card to Manta Sandy station, Pianamo Station. Ask your dive master the night before you depart in case you left your card at the homestay.
5. Daroyen Village is one of the homestays that has inhouse diving facility and a good dive boat. Not all homestays have dive boat. You can use www.stayrajaampat.com to search for a homestay that match your budget and have what you want. For me I would prefer a homestay with its own diving facility since my main aim in Raja Ampat is diving.
6. Some dive sites in Raja Ampat can have strong current, and it is the current that bring marine lives. If you are afraid of strong current, do let your dive master know so that he can gauge your ability before bringing you to some famous dive sites with strong current. Certain days of the months see lesser current.
7. If you dont like spicy food or have special dietary requirement, do let your homestay know and remind them in case they forget. I have been having fish daily which I dont mind as I can eat chicken or other meat in country where i came from, some people may prefer some variety.
8. I brought my own fresh water as I know i drink a lot of water. Fresh water is precious in Raja Ampat. My dive mates actually asked for fresh water to soak their cemaras in fresh water in between dives. Normally the rule is if you dont ask, you wont get.
9. In order to lessen the cost to far away places like Pianamo and Wayag, you might wanna share cost with other people in your homestay. I happened to be the only one in Daroyen that time, so i couldnt afford to go too far out.
10. Blue Magic and Cape Kri are two dive sites that many divers like, but they might have strong current. Do go if you think you are up to it.
11. Bring a earbud with you if you take Batik Air, if the inflight entertainment system work, you can watch movies.
12. The 630pm flight from Jakarta to Singapore was the last flight out that evening from Lion Air. I strongly suggest you book another one way ticket from Jakarta to Singapore that depart after 8pm way in advance as a backup, in case the Lion Air flight flew off without waiting for the Batik Air flight, even though all flights were bought under one PNR (Unless you dont mind spending a night in Jakarta Airport or in a hotel nearby to the airport). If you miss that 630pm flight, the next Lion Air flight out of Jakarta to Singapore is only available the next morning, and you have to think of accommodation for the night in Jakarta airport.
Do not believe them when the airport staff tell you the plane will wait for you. I have been told the same story by the Batik Air counter staff in Sorong Airport, the air stewardess in Batik Air, the ground staff that greeted me in Jakarta Airport to facilitate transfer, all of them assured me things will be fine except that it didnt turn out fine.
13. Do allow ample time transferring between terminals in Jakarta airport and allow sufficient time for immigration clearance. Do allow time to travel between terminals as the airtrain needs time to travel between terminals. You will have to wait for the airtrain and it travels pretty slowly.
14. Do find out the terminals that your flight depart and lands in Jakarta Airport. The Batik Air flight I took departed from Terminal 1 but on my way back, it landed on Terminal 2. Gate changed frequently. The jetstar flight i was boarding changed gates. You have to be alert and always ask people. Dont assume.
15. You may or may not need to bring down cabin luggage when transiting in Makassar (but do always bring your valuables with you) but all passengers were required to get down, and get a new boarding pass in the transfer counter, and go through security screening, then proceed to the gate where the flight was waiting. In my first flight, they told us to bring down all cabin luggage, in my second flight, they said only need to bring down valuable items.
16. It is best to bring your own equipment for diving if conditions permit, I am sure you know why. For those who came from countries far away this is of course not practical.
17. Rats can be a problem in certain homestays and certain islands, including biting and damaging luggage and diving equipment in search for food. In the homestay i stayed, the rats did come into the room and crawl over the roof etc, but never damaged anything that I brought. This was what my homestay owner assured me too, the rats were not a problem in the homestay, which i must agree.
18. Paradise birds watching and bat cave exploring were many activities offered by Beser Bay Home Stay. Some homestays were more proactive in offering these after dives activities, some you need to ask them. if birding is your thing, you definitely wont be disappointed in Raja Ampat, bring your binoculars and telephoto lens.
19. The underwater photos appeared greenish blue because i didnt use lighting for my photos. It is time to get some good lighting.
20. Even though West Papua and East Papua are on the same island, no direct flights between the two.
21. Rubbish is a big problem in Raja Ampat that need to be addressed immediately.
22. Starry night sky in Raja Ampat is really cool, bring your camera gear if star photography is what you like. The sunsets were amazing too. I saw rainbows two days in a row when there were showers and suns at the same time.
23. February is the manta season.
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