Text and photos by Mary L. Peachin with Jack and Steve Snow and Mike Sweet
Vol. 12. No. 10
The current is sweeping me faster and faster, then swifter, deeper, and downward. My depth gauge reads 100 feet. As my life begins flashing before my eyes, I try to focus on not panicking. As I am being swept to sea, I fin upward to abort this dive at Indonesia’s Fia Bajet Island’s Black Rock in the Ceram Sea. Trying to accelerate out of the forceful down current, my conservative dive computer barks “slower.” It requires me to make an extended open water safety stop.
Surfacing a mere 17 minutes into the dive, I had been carried almost a mile from the tiny outcropping, one barely noticeable above the water. Before I could whistle or inflate my safety sausage, the alert crew in the tender motored to pick me up. “Anyone else with you?” “No, all I saw was blue water.” But wait, I am way ahead of my story, and the best is yet to tell.
Indonesia’s Raja Ampat or “Four Kings” archipelago, spanning 10 million acres, includes the four larger islands of Waigeo, Batanta, Salawati, and Misool, plus hundreds of smaller islands. In 2002, a Nature Conservancy survey identified 537 species of corals and almost 900 fish species. I had no idea of the diversity and variety of diving our trip from Ambon to Sorong in West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya) would offer, nor the interesting shore excursions.
Mating flamboyant cuttlefish were oblivious to eighteen voyeuristic scuba divers back rolling into Laha Bay, a harbor that also serves as Ambon City’s garbage dump. While muck diving is typically done in a “land-fill” underwater environment, the amount of floating surface garbage was disgusting. Putting aside that thought and trying not to swallow any water, below the surface, the variety and number of critters was amazing.
Similar to Lembeh Strait’s renowned muck diving, Ambon’s offers better visibility, typically averaging around 50-75 feet. Its water temperature is a tepid 84 degrees. Soft and hard corals attach themselves to underwear, tires, shoes, bottles, batteries, and other garbage. Part of the visual overload included devilfish, waspfish, leaf scorpionfish, many species of lion fish, sea moths, colorful nudibranch and octopus of various size and species, schools of upright swimming razorfish, frog fish, some as large as soccer balls, and many of the other weird species found in muck. Instead of appearing for their typical dusk mating ritual behind coral outcroppings, colorful mandarin fish swam in the open. The nook of a boulder served as a nest for transparent juvenile flounder. Amorous snowflake eels intertwined. A diver could easily fill pages of a log book, there was that much to see on just one dive.
Divemaster Kerri Bingham spent more than an hour and a half looking for a pair of recently discovered and yet unnamed species of frog fish, pink with green eyes and white striations. Some local divers had “hidden” it by blocking its movements with boulders. Outrageous!
After a day of fabulous muck diving, we departed Ambon City for Sirik Island’s sloping reef known for its numerous bumphead and Napoleon wrasse. Near Ceram Island, we dived Tangung Hanva, called by the crew “Jacks on Crack.” The viz wasn’t great and most of us missed the school of thousands of jacks.
Arriving at Misool Malangkari Blue Water Mangroves, we were told renowned underwater photographer David Doublilet arrived for an afternoon dive and stayed for three days. Fewer than several hundred divers have dived in this undiscovered mangrove. Saltwater channels meander through an area of four black mangrove-edged atolls. The site uniquely offers deeper diving in water blooming with soft and hard corals and, during high tide, exploring clear water jungle rivers edged by mangroves, coral attached to their roots. Archer fish, which prey on insects by spitting at them, school along the surface. A careless fin can destroy the visibility by stirring fine silt that doesn’t settle.
Deeper in the channel, soft and hard corals sway magnificently in the current. A few sightings included Palau-size tridacna clams, shy tomato anemone clownfish, and pygmy sea horses camouflaged in pink fans. Gold-speckled jawfish, much larger than their yellowheaded cousins, peered curiously from sandy holes, and one of many tasseled woebegone sharks that we would see daily were just a few sightings.
During the night we moved to Boo Island where we saw a rare sight, another dive boat, the Seven Seas. There used to be two dive boats operating in Raja Ampat, but currently there are almost two dozen, most operating on a round trip Sorong itinerary. Boo’s Fan Club and Pygmy Island had lots of swirling and several down currents flushing around and over its soft and hard corals. A pair of grey reef sharks cruised the wall. Pygmy seahorses clung to pink fans, a mottled small toothed emperor fish fled on our approach. A hawksbill turtle was content to sleep in our presence. At Keruo Island’s site, Melissa Gardens, large tridacna clams and four woebegone sharks were highlights.
Leaving Misool, we stop at Jef Fam, an oceanfront village consisting of approximately 25 families. The children were fascinated to see digital images of our photographs. In order to feed the village, the men were at sea fishing.
Night diving around their pier produced many interesting critters including the rare mimic octopus, leaf fish, robust pipe fish, cowries, hermit crabs, and juvenile lionfish. Another night near the jetty of a pearl farm, we saw a number of mating mandarin fish, crocodile fish, a red spider crab, leaf fish, juvenile cuttlefish, signal gobies, toad fish, and waspfish. The most interesting nocturnal critters in Raja Ampat were seen in the dark. In this nighttime realm of fascinating critters, I was hopeful that my long term quest to see a blue ring octopus, the ocean’s most deadly critter, might happen.
Moving northward we spent a day at Yangelo near Gam Island. Another day we stopped at Eagle Rock, a manta feeding station. The barren plateau yielded one brief sighting. A second attempt to see mantas at Airborei’s Manta Slope also produced only a single sighting.
At Waigeo’s Aluji Bay, we visited Atlas South Sea, an Australian and Indonesia pearl operation who cultivates 200,000 pearls annually, some as large as 20 mm. It takes two years to produce a pearl from the Pinctada maxima marine pearl oyster. Most valued are their gold pearls whose color comes from the silver and gold mantle of the shell. The primary market for these costly pearls is Russia.
As we headed to our final port in Sorong, we spent a day near the island of Kri and its underwater seamount Sardine Reef. Before entering the water, divemaster Hergen passed out reef hooks, about twice the size of those used in Palau. It is easy to be swept over the seamount if your descent isn’t fast enough. The hooks allow you to latch onto dead coral and stay put in the current while watching many schools of fish including curious batfish, jacks, tuna, barracuda, reef shark, trevally, beautiful coral bommies, and critters. As the afternoon current picked up, the scene produces a food chain feeding frenzie as sharks move in to eat barracudas who ate jacks who ate the fusiliers and on down the line.
The Cheng Ho had four American cruise directors, partners Hergen Spalink and Kerri Bingham who were training Kristine Hopson and her partner, Peter Fratesi. The four, who doubled as divemasters, previously worked and were friends in St.Croix. Hergen, who spoke Indonesian, was competent, informative, knowledgeable and helpful. Kerri was an excellent diver and critter spotter, as was Kristine. We also had two Indonesian divemasters, Nyoman and Bawa bringing the crew total to 22.
Kararu’s Cheng Ho videographer Steve Fish spent most dives lugging a 55 pound Sony Z1U high definition highlighting our 12 day trip by shooting a 20 minute video, which he sold for $75.00. When he wasn’t filming, he was happy to point out critters.
The crew could not have been friendlier or service oriented. Existing the gang plank from the two metal and one fiberglass tenders, we were greeted after each dive by four or five hooting and hollering crew at the top of the gang plank high-fiving us by our names and “Nice dive.”
Assigned to one of the three tenders, we simultaneously backrolled at the count of 1-2-3-go. Everyone, with the exception of a few photographers, who surfaced to retrieve their cameras, made an immediate descent. The tenders had two benches lined with rubber with sturdy, but awkward exit ladders. One was short, the other narrow. Our only gear responsibility was to wear our weight belt and mask down to the boat. We could choose to put on our tank in the tender and take it off in the water. Many chose to gear up and undressed on board the dive boat. As days’ passed, more divers took advantage of this hospitable carrying service.
The spacious bow rubber matted dive deck was lined with aluminum 80 tank holders and a sit-on bin for gear. Three tubs, for cameras, masks, and wet suits, were changed daily. Two deck showers rinsed us after dives. There were no toilet facilities other than those in the cabins.
After each dive, a warm towel, with our names taped on them, waited for us. There was a “wet” table for camera gear and hangers for dry suits. Nitrox, used by almost everyone for an additional $200.00, was the mixture of choice and tanks were filled in the holder. Adom, who filled the tanks, brought each diver a sheet to sign off for percentages (although an analyzer was available), and he was consistently between 31.5+ and 32 percent. After a few days, he posted the percentage on the briefing board. The current was checked before each dive.
Briefings were accurate as to the terrain and potential critters, but the current direction was frequently too squirrelly to predict. Divers wore vests, skins, or 1-3 mil suits. Divers were tracked by whether their tank was in the water or holder, and anyone not going on a dive was to cross them name off the tender list. The deck might have been very cramped, and seemed sometimes overcrowded, but with three tenders we tried to dress at varying times.
Cheng Ho, an Indonesia Pinisi Schooner, might be best described as unique. Nine years old, the 49 meter typical Indonesian sailing teak boat use to operate as a Bali party boat. It offers amenities like wireless Seawave internet, a plasma 48 inch television screen, and dozens of electronic surge strips, in both 110 and 220V, for photo gear, chargers, and computers.
But, the nine year old wooden gal ain’t what she could have been. Following a typical afternoon squall, ceiling leaks mysteriously appear, anywhere. One night some divers on the lower deck had to evacuate their cabins when leaks dripped over their beds. Hergen advised us to keep anything electronic covered. “Joking, at least those leaks are not from the hull.” Anything stored on a buffet-like area in the middle of the large salon, considered a “dry” area, was always kept covered.
Kirsten Treais, owner of Amazing Adventures Travel, brought nineteen Americans on the thirteen night Cheng Ho trip. Fun loving, she insisted that everyone wear a sarong to an evening cocktail beach party. With rum poured freely, along with beer and wine, several divers plunged into the surf. Soon chanting began as each diver was summoned into the water. While we packed in three day dives and a night dive whenever possible, part of the trip fun was other activities.
A tender trip guided us through narrow channels between heavily vegetated towering limestone cliffs. Fish eagles, herons, and other shore birds shared our tranquility. Our destination was a bat cave. We scrambled up the island treading lightly over slippery guano. Stalactites hung from the ceiling as bats flew in and out of the narrow passage.
The boat could be described lovingly as dysfunctional. There is nothing not to like, but its designer had to be dyslectic. A wide deck circled the boat thirteen cabins, with the dive deck on the bow and crew quarters on the stern. There were several “staterooms” on the upper deck, three rooms on the salon floor, and five on the engine deck. The lower deck has a cinema room for viewing DVDs.
The day began around 6:30 am with a light meal of croissants or toast, tea or coffee, and fresh fruit and cereal. The previous night we requested a menu item for a full breakfast served after the first dive.
There were morning dives at 8:00 and 11:00 am. Lunch was served after the second dive. There was no requirement on dive time or any buddy system. We were assigned to one of three boats and could follow one of the divemasters or explore on our own. A bell ran 15 minutes before dive time. There was a three o’clock afternoon dive, and when it was possible to dive at night, the 6:30 dive was followed by dinner.
If the boat was not under way, dinner was served outside on the upper deck. Soup was served at both lunch and dinner with the rest of the meal presented as a buffet. Each meal featured a different ethnicity: Indonesian, Western, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian. Each meal was served as a buffet except for breakfast, a meal we ordered the previous night that was served after our first night. Dinner was served at eight after the night dive, a late hour for those who weren’t diving.
Oh, did I mention the highlight of the trip? On a night dive at Kri jetty, I saw not one but two deadly blue-ringed octopus, plus several flatworms, a pleurobranch, and juvenile cuttlefish. The thumb-size octopus flashed it blue spots at our flashlight. What a thrill, it made some of the boat’s dysfunction all worthwhile.
Kirsten Treais, www.amazingadventurestravel.com, 888.762-6294