Raja Ampat – diving at it’s best

First things first!! It was time for an Açaí Bowl at KYND Community.

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All good things are three isn’t it a german saying? Flo and I were traveling together for the third time and it wasn’t the last.

To be fair, I heard about that special place from my parents friends daughter in the first place. It wasn’t easy to get there but worth every effort. It took us almost a full day and two flights as well as two ferry rides to get to Arborek. Since we only had 10 days, we decided to focus on two islands instead of rushing too much. The first 5 days we stayed at Arborek Island at a lovely guesthouse with an amazing sunset view.

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Raja Ampat was more or less just about diving for us. Besides that there was one other unique place we really wanted to go to – Piaynemo viewpoint. I don’t want to spoil, but it was more than worth it!

How did a normal day looked like for us? We woke up! Had an amazing view while having breakfast. Went almost every day diving 2 or 3 times. Had lunch in between and dinner after our last dive. And finally the best part of the day – stunningly beautiful sunsets every day while relaxing in a hammock. We couldn’t have asked for a better time!

One special trip while being at Arborek Island was the diving day trip to Piaynemo. Im not going to say a lot, but it was probably the best view I have ever seen in my life. A lot of people say its a million dollar view and it definitely is an amazing view. I can’t even express the feelings I have had on top of the viewpoint. Just have a look and you know what I mean.

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After 4 days of diving at great dive sites, at this point big thanks to Arborek Dive Shop, such as Melissa’s Garden, Fam Wall, Manta Ridge and Manta Sandy, we spent another 4 days at Kri Island. We stayed at Byuk Beya Homestay. The host and his family was awesome. The food was a lot and always freshly caught out of the ocean and grown in their own garden. We can highly recommend to stay there. You pay a reasonable price per night including three meals a day.

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On this island it was way harder to find a reliable and good diving company. There is one big one, but they were booked out and they are actually a bit pricy. Online we found one other recommended dive shop – Lumba Lumba. I don’t want to complain at all, but it was kind of funny. Its hard to explain or to tell the entire story, but I would say it was quite an interesting experience. Don’t get me wrong the equipment or so wasn’t bad, but usually we were used to better quality in all terms. But to be honest, we were far east in the middle of nowhere somewhere in the ocean! So no complain at all.

Strong current they said. YES, strong currents it was! I have never experienced such strong currents even though I was diving in Indonesia before, but Raja Ampat is different. On our 11th dive while being in Raja Ampat we experienced the strongest down current you could imagine. And I actually got kicked into it by an older lady. Now I can laugh about it, but it wasn’t that funny when it happened. We were holding on a dead coral reef with a hook and out of a sudden the older lady let go and took me with her right in to the down current. And of course it happened without knowing that there is a down current. We were at around 20 feet so we were able to see the surface. Out of a sudden, I wasn’t able to see the surface at all and then I realized that I got pushed down by a down current and then up again – luckily! It felt a bit like a rollercoaster. It actually happened again, but I was prepared that time and it was su much fun. Besides that everything went well.

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Diving around Raja Ampat was a great experience and special because of its current. On top of that its not crowded at all yet. If you want to experience amazing dive sites almost by yourself, Raja Ampat is a great place to go to.

Next:
After 10 days of diving it was time to fly to Lombok to explore the Gilis for 5 days.