Indonesia – Diving Raja Ampat

For a long time diving Raja Ampat (meaning 4 Kings because of 4 large main islands) has been on our bucket list, so after getting our taxes back we decided to invest that money in a liveaboard in West Papua.

The Jaya was going to be our home for the next week and dives all over Raja would fill our days. The region- heart of the coral triangle- is known for having an amazing diversity of marine life. So armed with excitement we were more than ready to discover the area which already looked amazing overseas.

Unfortunately it rained a little on the first two days and we were not very lucky with the visibility, which always ranged around 15 meters. Nevertheless Raja Ampat still is one of the best diving we ever did.

From Oceanic Mantas, to unknown nudibranchs and Pygmy Seahorses over Wobbegongs and Epaulette (walking) sharks- all the usual (and unusual) suspects were part of the trip. The coral gardens are simply breathtaking and the currents sometimes really challenging.

The crew on the boat really made everything to make the trip as nice and smooth as possible and in general we had great laughs between the dives or at night. We met some really interesting people and are looking forward to meet them again- maybe on another diving expedition.

Indonesia- Diving Lembeh Strait

After the coral gardens of Apo island and a quick stop in Moalboal, we headed to Indonesia/Sulawesi and more precisely Lembeh Strait. Indeed this channel is known by many divers as Muck-Mecca and as we could witness by ourselves, it indeed is. Most every dive is shallow and long. We both hit the 100 minutes mark for the first time ever as our diveshop had the policy “unlimited diving”. The treasures in the sand are amazing: frogfishes on almost every dive, even the very rare all black hairy frogfish, cuttlefishes, ghost pipefishes, many crabs, shrimps and nudies, Ambon Scorpionfishes and much more. Unfortunately we were not able to spot the Mimic octopuss or the Wonderpuss but nevertheless Lembeh Strait remains one of our favorites. You definitely get what you pay (a lot!) for and very often the critters and the creatures you meet are unknown to you.

Unfortunately Cheun flooded his camera after the first day of diving, so all the pictures you’ll get here are from the first day only (except for the 2 last, Sonia Müller gave them to us after diving together)- and as a starter it is not bad at all!