Scuba Diving At Raja Ampat Indonesia
I was on the Lady Denok liveaboard for my first dive trip in Raja Ampat this past late November to early December, 2024. Raja Ampat is a very remote area in Indonesia near Papua New Guinea. Population is sparse and few tourists venture there except for mainly scuba divers.
This was my first trip diving in Indonesia and I’ve wanted to come here to either Raja Ampat or Komodo for a long time. Scheduling turned out to be better for a Raja Ampat for this trip since both Raja Ampat and Komodo liveaboards run on different seasons.
As expected, the travel from Canada was brutal. It was two days of straight flying with stopovers starting in Toronto, connecting in London and Singapore before finally making it to my destination. Flying economy all the way, I barely slept for the two days of travelling to Asia.
I then took the overnight red eye flight from Jakarta to Sorong which is the port town where Raja Ampat liveaboards usually run from. The town of Sorong itself is a dump with very poor infrastructure and I saw piles of garbage along the way during the drive from the airport to the dock where the Lady Denok crew was waiting.
I knew that the travel for any Raja Ampat trip would be brutal since we are going to such a remote area in Indonesia. It’s not a main tourist destination like Bali. But like most of the best dive destinations in the world, it’s pretty well given that traveling to remote and less touristy areas will give us the most pristine dive sites.
Not surprisingly, Raja Ampat is also a very beautiful and scenic area on land when you get outside of Sorong. Although most of my week there was spent at sea, I did get a chance to go on land on my final day there as the crew of the liveaboard ran an excursion to a lookout point (top photo above). Here’s a video I made of this excursion with both footage from the boat to get there as well as breathtaking views at the top where the lookout was. As an entertainment bonus, this video is also a lyrics music video for the tune In Harmony by Unity Power Force.
I’ll give my observations on Raja Ampat diving in general and then move onto my review of the Lady Denok liveaboard.
Raja Ampat Diving
The Lady Denok trip I took was a week long trip that went through mainly central Raja Ampat area. This liveaboard offered four dives (three daytime and one night dive) daily which gave us a good variety of diving. This type of dive travel is considered pretty extreme even for most scuba divers since liveaboard diving means staying on a boat for an extended period of time without setting foot on land until the final day. The schedule means get up at 6 am, then dive and eat repeated four times throughout the day until finally going to bed at about 9 or 10 pm. Repeat this for an entire week and you can easily realize that this is not some relaxing vacation!
On top of all this, add in that brutal travel to get to the dive boat from my home in Canada but I can confirm that the diversity of marine life in Raja Ampat is probably the highest anywhere in the world with so many different types of fish and coral observed.
I thought Little Cayman was high in marine life diversity and by Caribbean standards, it still is the highest for that region by my diving experience. But Little Cayman pales in comparison to Raja Ampat. Not only is the diversity of marine life higher, the sheer number of fish observed during most of the dives is also significantly higher. The size of the schools of fish are also bigger compared to what I saw in the Caribbean as well as at Galapagos with the exception of sharks since the sharks are the main underwater attractions for divers going to the Galapagos.
Certain fish species found in the Caribbean were also more numerous in Raja Ampat. For example although I’ve seen clown fish before, I’ve never seen so many of them than here at Raja Ampat. Of course, lionfish were also higher in numbers here which is expected since they are native to this part of the world (while they are considered an invasive species in the Caribbean).
One difference I noticed with many Raja Ampat fish is that they tend to be less afraid of divers. Many Caribbean fish are quite skittish if you get too close to them. I came across many fish both large and small who didn’t swim away whenever I got closer to them. They often just stayed put and looked right back at me which I found extremely entertaining.
As expected, I saw many marine species that I’ve never seen before diving in other parts of the world. For example, wobblegong sharks were new to me and I got to see several of these weird looking sharks and got quite close to them too. There were many special dive moments like meeting trio of big cuttlefish just hanging out and even witnessed two sharks mating.
Water temperature was pretty constant at 28 to 29 degrees C by my dive computer and a 3 mm wetsuit was more than adequate although I did wear a beanie cap for most of my dive week. Some dives sites like those in the Dampier Strait had pretty strong currents. These were drift dives but unlike typical drift dives like those in Cozumel, there were often times when it was necessary to stay in one place rather than just go with the current because there was a huge school of barracuda, jacks or an entire community of different size fish just hanging in place against the current. This was something I’ve never seen before.
The divemasters claim that the currents were bringing in food so the fish were feeding but it seems to me that these fish were also enjoying the feel of the water rush past them. It was almost like they were getting some sort of current massage as different species of fish were all hanging in some sort of bliss. I was able to come right beside a school of barracuda enjoying this current and like all the other fish doing the same thing, they didn’t seem to care whether I was there or not.
Needless to say, it was a bit of a challenge to stay in place given the strong currents. We tried hanging onto rocks whenever possible but we also used reef hooks several times which was something very different compared to your typical relaxing Caribbean drift dive like those in Cozumel.
I was less impressed with the night dives here but our divemaster did find some very interesting nudibranchs, seahorses and shrimp. Many fish seemed to be sleeping within the rocks at night at least from what I saw.
A four dives per day schedule for an entire week is very intensive and there are only two ways to dive Raja Ampat – either by liveaboard or by staying at some eco resorts. Our boat passed by a few of these resorts which were located in very remote islands.
If staying on these eco resorts, don’t expect comforts of a five star Caribbean type of operation. Hydro is probably by generators and amenities will be quite spartan, not to mention the mosquito action.
Either way, Raja Ampat is still pretty unspoiled which is reflected in the diving. Not all dives during the week were spectacular but most of them were way above the Caribbean average.
Like most Raja Ampat trips, we had one shore excursion hiking to the top of a lookout platform. The view was just breathtaking and to realize that this is a destination that the vast majority of tourists out there will never get to see because of its remoteness was really something.
On the way there and back, we got to see the rock formations of the islands up close which made it look like we were on another planet.
So if you are willing to rough it out in the long journey required to get there especially if you are from the Americas or Europe, Raja Ampat is totally worth it. My Raja Ampat trip turned out to be half the price of my Galapagos liveaboard trip but of course we’re seeing different marine life. I know for me, my future dive travel dollars for the Caribbean will be in serious jeopardy even though it’s so much closer to my home base in Canada.
Review Of Lady Denok Liveaboard
Unlike most modern steel yacht type of liveaboard (like my Galapagos liveaboard boat), the Lady Denok is of a traditional wooden sailing boat that is common in Indonesia. So I wasn’t looking for modern amenities but was quite pleasantly surprised at the comfort level of this boat. I took one of the two single cabins available which was a main reason why I booked this boat. My cabin was spacious enough for one person and the bed was surprisingly comfortable. It was even more comfortable than a few of the hotel beds I slept on during my Asia trip. The private bathroom was adequate especially given that not all liveaboards offer private bathrooms.
Lounge and dining areas were cozy plus there was a spacious top deck even though it was not used much as the Indonesian daytime heat made the deck floor too hot especially since everyone was barefoot on board for the week.
The dive area was spacious enough with plenty of room for changing into our wetsuits and we didn’t have to bother with dive tanks on board since the crew transferred all tanks with our BCDs attached back and forth to the two small dive boats we used to get to the dive sites. The two dive boats served their purpose but I’ll comment that the design of the seating could have been better. Unlike most dive boats where there is usually enough room on the benches to sit on with tanks in slots behind us, on these two boats there was no room on the benches to sit in front of tanks. We had to sit beside the tanks instead of in front of them which made getting in and out of our BCDs a bit tricky.
I made a video tour of the Lady Denok which includes a brief view of these two dive boats.
Also, although the boat looks great with the sails up in the promotional photos, not once did the sails go up during our week on board. This was the same though with all the other dive liveaboards there with the same wooden traditional style as none of them put up their sails.
The service of the entire Lady Denok crew was awesome though. Everyone was super friendly and welcoming all the time. Each time we came back to the main boat after dives, there was crew waiting to give us a big loud welcome along with some a really good variety of beverages as soon as we climbed back on board. This great service extended even after my departure as I mistakenly left my wetsuit on board as the crew and office staff helped facilitate shipping it back to me in Canada.
Unlike my Galapagos liveaboard trip, the Lady Denok did not travel overnight so sleeping was always on calm waters which was great considering the early 6 am wakeups each morning.
Of course as with most trips there are some things I would have like to see better. In general the food served was pretty good with a mix of Indonesian, other Asian and western fare. However, most of the meats at times were usually overcooked. Other dishes including desserts and afternoon snacks were good but they just couldn’t get the meats right which kind of reminded me of food in Cuba.
I’ll also comment on the divemasters. We got through each dive okay and the divemaster I had all week was great at finding critters although he seemed to favour macro. He was also great at helping us get secured with reef hooks when needed to during some drift dives.
As a divemaster myself, I would have liked to see a bit more effort for dive safety such as more frequent checking with the divers as pretty well all the day time dives were 60 minutes long while the night dives were 45 minutes. At times I think he could have done a better job in keeping the group together. During one dive where visibility wasn’t that great, we did lose two divers until they finally found us near the end of the dive.
Sometimes during drift dives there was confusion on whether we were to drift along with the current or stay in place which resulted in using a bit too much air in fighting against the strong current. To me, the gold standard in running drift dives is still Cozumel which I felt were run at a higher overall level.
Experienced divers would not be fazed by all these but for less experienced ones who are not use to strong currents, I think it would have been nice to have an extra divemaster at the back to help keep the groups together. This would have helped alleviate anxiety levels that some divers experienced during strong current dives.
I dove on air all week while some of the other divers used nitrox. Unfortunately, nitrox was not free nor available on a flat rate like my Galapagos liveaboard offered. Divers had to pay extra per tank for nitrox.
Overall, the Lady Denok is a decent liveaboard and I would consider booking with them again for Komodo in the future as long as I am able to secure one of the single cabins again. For me personally, I would be able to tolerate some of the deficiencies I noticed as long as I got a cabin to myself without paying a significant premium as a single supplement.
