Blogs
Dive Indonesia Part 2: Raja Ampat Trip Report
This January The Scuba Place visited Ambon, Raja Ampat and Lembeh hosting agroup of divers. They stayed at some amazing spots and saw some amazing things. This is their trip report on their second stop in Raja Ampat.
Raja Ampat has always been on our bucket list – just like pretty much every other diver on the planet! We just had to go, and so the choice of liveaboard or resort was the only difficult one we had to make! We chose the latter and opted to stay at the enticing Dive into Raja Ampat.
This was, for some of our group, our second week in Indonesia, and we flew into Sorong from Ambon. Our other guests flew into Jakarta the night before, and flew on to Sorong in the early hours, catching the early ferry to Raja. Landing in Sorong, after walking across the tarmac and collecting our bags, we piled ourselves into the waiting SUVs and made the 20-minute trip to the port to catch the inter-island ferry.
It’s hot, loud, humid, busy, and seemingly disorganised chaos, but it works – welcome to the islands of Indonesia! Our drivers, provided by the resort, arranged for porters to take all our bags onto the ferry. We were shepherded upstairs into the VIP Cabin where the air-conditioning was very welcome. We checked every bag was present and got ready to relax for the two-hour crossing to our island resort. These are big and fast ferries, and they are super-stable, so we weren’t troubled by any seasickness, and a simple range of snacks (biscuits, crisps, and a local version of a pot noodle) and cold soft drinks were available from a small café on board. It seemed as though time flew, and we arrived into the port of Waisai on Waigeo, Raja Ampat’s largest island.
Disembarking was again an experience, but the resort staff were there to collect us and our bags, popping us into waiting SUVs and whisking us off to the resort – a mere 15 minutes away through some stunning scenery.
We arrived and were greeted with a cold drink, and a cold flannel, and welcomed to the resort. Our bags were taken to our rooms whilst we sat and chilled for a bit, and after a shower and a change, we were given a resort and dive briefing.
The resort, made up of 14 rooms, a restaurant, and the dive centre, sits underneath the jungle canopy and on a white sandy beach. There are three room categories – Garden terrace rooms, Seaview rooms, and Waterfront villas. The rooms are super comfortable, with effective air conditioning, vaulted ceilings with fans, a deck or terrace with furniture, en-suite shower rooms and an outdoor shower tap to rinse off. Each room also has its own water dispenser providing both hot and cold drinking water. The Seaview rooms and Waterfront villas have spectacular views, and the Garden terrace rooms have partial sea views too. More Waterfront villas are planned, and they really are on the waterfront – the sea comes right up the beach to the deck at high tide!
The restaurant offers water, tea, and coffee all day, and breakfast starts early for those who get up with the beautiful sunrises. Eggs and omelettes to order, plus fruit, cereals, toast, and a selection of hot offerings, both local and western, set you up well for the day. Lunch and dinner are again buffet style – a superb homemade soup, fresh slices of bread and then both Western and Indonesian main dishes, served with rice, noodles or potatoes. Fruit makes up the dessert at lunchtime, and a proper pud is offered at dinner. An afternoon snack is a welcome treat after the afternoon dive – expect cakes and pastries and all things non-diet related! Special dietary needs can be catered for if pre-advised.
The bar sits right alongside the restaurant and faces the sea – a great place to grab an ice-cold beer, wine from the small but decent wine list or a cocktail We sampled a few of these, in the pursuit of accurate research of course, and they hit the spot!
The resort fringes the jungle canopy, and it is just beautiful. Look up, and there is green everywhere – and birds of paradise, butterflies, geckos, and the cuscus bear – a sloth-like member of the marsupial family that clambers with great dexterity and no haste in the trees around the resort. Ask any member of staff and they will point to one without hesitation – which will save craning your neck for ages while you look for them with untrained eyes!
The dive centre is right on site, and the jetty to take you to the dive boats is a minute’s walk along the beachfront. The recently re-built dive centre has individual hanging spaces for each diver, rinse tanks behind and a superb camera room with separate rinse tanks, air guns and individual charging and assembly desks right next. Locked at night, the camera room opens at 6 am and closes at 10 pm, giving ample time to get in and organise yourselves! Nitrox, 15-litre tanks and even DPVs plus a whole range of equipment are available right on site.
The normal dive day comprises of a two-tank boat trip in the morning and a single-tank boat trip in the afternoon. The house reef is open all day! There are a couple of longer day trips with three dives and lunch on board the dive boats, and these are not to be missed. We took a trip to the famous viewpoint at Piaynemo and the manta cleaning stations, for both oceanic and reef mantas and these excursions should be on every visitor’s dive plans.
And the diving? Huge – that is the only word that I can use to describe the underwater world in Raja Ampat. Huge corals. Huge schools of fish. Huge reefs. Huge list of marine life encountered. And huge currents from time to time too!
The resort is in the Dampier Strait, home to many of the dive sites on any Northern Raja safari itinerary, so we sped out to the best of the best dive sites each day. And a strait it is – a through route between islands that inevitably brings in currents and big tides moving nutrients through the waters, both of which are reasons why the reefs are so incredibly healthy
We saw mobula and eagle rays, barracuda, jacks, snapper, grunts, banner fish, batfish, tuna, billions of glassfish and sweepers, rainbow wrasse and so much more. Cuttlefish that were happy to interact, wobbegongs sleeping below overhangs, huge green and hawksbill turtles, octopus, signal gobies, and blennies galore. We found numerous types of clownfish in their multi-coloured anemones. Even some very very territorial ones who would defend their homes from about 5 metres away! Frogfish, ornate ghost pipefish, banded pipefish, porcelain crabs, squat lobsters – the list goes on and on – and then on some more!
Oh – and the manta rays! We saw both reef and oceanic mantas. And let’s not forget the sharks! Grey reef, black tip, and white tip reef sharks were seen on lots of our dives, and on some of the bigger current dives, we saw them in big numbers off the edge of the reef.
Special thanks to Rob and Susie for sharing some of their amazing photos from the trip.
Visibility varied from 20+m to less than 10m, depending on the dive site, current and tide, but whatever it was, there was loads to see. The corals are immense, and the reefs go on and on. Staghorn coral forests, gorgonian giants, whip coral jungles, stunning sponges everywhere – I have never experienced so much life underwater anywhere! The water temperature hovered around 29′ for every dive, but there were one or two thermoclines that brought on a shiver for a moment or two. Most of us wore 3mm full suits and didn’t have an issue maintaining core temperatures, and we did a lot of diving!
We did some gentle bimbles along the reef, some deliberate drift dives, and some hard-core dives into the current to get to points where the shark action was taking place, and we did a dive in the biggest current I have ever experienced! All the big drift dives previously experienced across the globe became like a kid’s slide in a soft play park compared to this one at Kri Island. We were simply grabbed by the current without any notice and launched at breakneck speed over the top of the reef, whipping past bommies and pillars, using our fins to steer between fans and a shiver of half a dozen reef sharks, we were eventually catapulted out into the blue at the end of the reef – what an experience!
We did a couple of additional excursions in our week with Dive into Raja Ampat – a three-tank day trip to dive with the monitored populations of manta rays, and a three-tank day to take in the iconic views of Piaynemo.
The mantas are monitored by scientists, and there is an observation platform on top of the reefs where they visit a favourite cleaning station for the Oceanic mantas. Across the reef, we also dived on the lookout for reef mantas, and we had Lady Luck with us as they turned up! As we continued down the reef, a fever of at least 16 mobulas flew by in formation.
The trip to Piaynemo was great fun with two awesome dives, and then a big climb up the hill to the viewing platform. We had blue skies and captured that photo that is synonymous with being in Raja Ampat. A third dive on the way back home under a pier was excellent. It gave us a lovely backdrop for photography and was complete with turtles and curious batfish.
The dive staff were amazing for the whole week – they know their dive sites and found us all sorts, and they always kept an eye on us and ensured our safety. You can have thousands of dives in your logbook, but a different environment can be a real leveller, especially if there is a huge current or reduced visibility.
The dive boats are big, fast, and comfortable with a roof deck and an open bow area with seating if you wanted the sunshine, or a covered deck if you wanted to stay in the shade. A sea toilet on board made things easy and there was ample cold water, tea, and coffee, plus biscuits between dives! Backward rolls were our method of entry, and the ladder to get back into the boat was sturdy and easy, even for us with old bones and joints!
In one week, we dived most of the dive sites that a safari boat would do on the Northern Raja itinerary – we even tied up alongside one or two of them while our dive guides caught up with their friends on surface intervals! We love liveaboards, and there are some absolute stunners in Indonesia, but a week at Dive into Raja Ampat is exceptionally good value for money and considerably cheaper than a liveaboard, so we still can’t answer the opening question – Resort or Liveaboard?
We had a blast, loved the diving, loved the resort, and loved the whole experience – Raja delivered everything that we had anticipated, and more!
Key Facts:
- Getting there :We suggest flying with Emirates from Heathrow to Jakarta via Dubai. From Jakarta you can fly direct to Sorong on Garuda Indonesia. We prefer Garuda with their free 23kg dive equipment baggage policy and the flight is 4 hours. We were greeted at the airport and transported to the ferry port for our VIP crossing before a quick 15 minute transfer to the resort.
- Air temperature : Wageo in Raja Ampat enjoys a tropical rainforest climate – average daily temperature throughout the year is 29 to 31°C. The warmest and driest months are August and September and the wettest months are usually November and December
- Water temperature :An average of 30°C. A 1-3mm full suit or shorty will suit most.
- Visa requirement : We purchased our Visa on Arrival at the Jakarta airport for $35 USD (or 500,000 IDR) The visa is for an initial period of 30 days. Make sure you have pristine bank notes if paying in USD or exchange your GBP when you get to Indonesia. The bills must be unmarked and undamaged to be accepted. The Customs Declaration must be completed online and the provided QR code is shown to the Customs officers.
- Currency : Indonesian Rupiah(IDR) or US Dollar are accepted most places. We exchanged Sterling for Rupiah at the Jakarta airport for an attractive rate.
- Electricity :230V with European style (round pin) two-prong plugs. Our room and the camera room had extension leads with UK plugs so no adapter was needed.
- Internet and Wi-Fi : There is wifi in resort and worked well in our room. We were able to email, WhatsApp and post on social media without issue.
Price Guide: A week at Dive into Raja Ampat, including flights from the UK with baggage and transfers, on a 3 dive per day package including full board accommodation in a Garden terrace room, costs from £2599 per person, based on double occupancy. The bulk of the cost is the flights, so the cost of staying longer is surprisingly low! Extras: Indonesian Visa on Arrival, NITROX, soft drinks and adult beverages, and tips.
Our Advice: Indonesia is an amazing destination. Dive into Raja Ampat was the second top on our three-centre trip and the perfect stop for the big stuff in between our macro destinations of Ambon and Lembeh.
Packing tips :
- Rechargeable fan(s) :Perfect for warm planes, stuffy transfers and still evenings. We can’t believe we travelled without them for so many years! Join the fan club and grab one off Amazon… you won’t regret it!
- Travel laundry line : We find this comes in handy for any mid holiday hand washing and definitely at the end of the trip to hang SMBs, reels, dive socks etc.
- Insect repellent : We’ve made a habit of throwing some repellent in our dive bags every trip!
Sunscreen : Don’t forget to protect yourself when you’re in the sun and on the water!!
Come Dive with Us!
The Scuba Place designs and builds custom scuba diving holidays. With personal knowledge and experience diving in many of our destinations, there is no one better to help build your dream dive holiday. Come Dive with Us!
Call us at 020 3515 9955 or email at reservations@thescubaplace.co.uk
Find us at https://www.thescubaplace.co.uk
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/thescubaplace
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/the.scuba.place/
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH684OdioYirI-zzdT58Ceg
Blogs
The Ocean Cleanup Launches 30 Cities Program to Cut Ocean Plastic Pollution from Rivers by One Third by 2030
The Ocean Cleanup, the international non-profit with the mission to rid the world’s oceans of plastic, has announced, at the UN Ocean Conference (UNOC), its plan to rapidly expand its work to intercept and remove ocean-bound plastic pollution.
The 30 Cities Program will scale the organization’s proven Interceptor™ solutions across 30 key cities in Asia and the Americas, aiming to eliminate up to one third of all plastic flowing from the world’s rivers into the ocean before the end of the decade.
This evolution follows five years of learning through pioneering deployments across 20 of the world’s most polluting rivers and represents a key next step in the organization’s mission and the global fight against ocean plastic pollution.
With the 30 Cities Program, The Ocean Cleanup will transition from single river deployments to citywide solutions, tackling the main plastic emitting waterways within each selected city. This follows a key learning from deployments in Kingston, Jamaica, which showed it is possible to scale faster when projects encompass whole cities, as the same set of partners can be involved with all deployments.
To date, The Ocean Cleanup has already prevented 29 million kilograms of trash from reaching the ocean. The organization currently intercepts an estimated 1–3 percent of global river-borne plastic emissions. With the first 20 river deployments close to being fully operational, it is now poised to reduce the plastic pollution flowing into the ocean from rivers by up to a third.
“When we take on an entire city, instead of individual rivers, we can scale faster, reduce costs, and maximize impact,” said Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup. “Our analysis shows that strategically deploying Interceptors across just 30 carefully chosen cities can stop up to a third of river plastic pollution worldwide. This is the next big leap toward our ultimate goal of a 90 percent reduction in global ocean plastic pollution.”
City-by-city: a Faster Path to Scaling
Using the latest scientific modeling and on the ground experience, The Ocean Cleanup identified 30 major plastic polluting coastal cities which include:
• Panama City, Panama – First deployment to go live in the coming months.
• Mumbai, India – Mapping of all waterways completed; preparations for first deployments underway.
Furthermore, the organization is developing plans to expand on its existing work to all polluting rivers in:
• Manila, Philippines; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Jakarta, Indonesia; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Bangkok, Thailand and Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Other cities will be announced once the necessary partnerships and agreements are in place. Planning and fundraising activities are underway for all 30 cities. To realize these ambitious plans, the organization is currently also expanding its engineering and operational capacity.
Data Driven Restoration at Scale
Before Interceptors are deployed, each city project begins with an intensive analysis phase. Aerial drones, AI-powered image analysis, and GPS-tagged “dummy” plastics are used to chart every visible waterway and track how waste moves from streets to sea. These real-time insights guide optimal Interceptor placement and provide a public baseline against which progress can be measured.
Alongside intercepting new plastic, the 30 Cities Program will also remove debris from nearby coasts, mangroves, and coral reefs. This twin-track approach—shutting off the tap while clearing the legacy pollution—enables The Ocean Cleanup to achieve long-term impact, which includes the restoration of fish nursery habitats, boosting coastal tourism, and strengthening of natural storm surge defenses for local communities. Alongside local partners, the organization also advocates for improvements in waste management and awareness raising amongst communities.
Completing the First 20 Rivers
While laying the foundation for the 30 Cities Program, The Ocean Cleanup is also nearing completion of its first 20 river projects. The next landmark achievement—expected as soon as the second half of this year—is in the western Caribbean, where the team aims to resolve the plastic pollution problem in the Gulf of Honduras by intercepting the trash feeding into this body of water.
A Stepping Stone Toward a 90 Percent Reduction
The 30 Cities Program represents the first major scaling step in The Ocean Cleanup’s journey to eliminate 90 percent of floating ocean plastic pollution. In parallel, efforts are continuing to remove plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Whilst extraction operations are currently on hiatus, work to deploy cutting edge technologies to map the “hotspots”, or areas of intense plastic accumulation, in order to make future extractions more efficient and economical, is ongoing.
By combining river interception and coastal cleanup with its offshore cleanup systems targeting legacy pollution that’s already in the ocean, the organization is charting a path to turn off the tap and mop up the mess.
About The Ocean Cleanup
The Ocean Cleanup is a nonprofit organization that develops and scales technologies to rid the oceans of plastic. By conducting extensive research, engineering scalable solutions, and partnering with governments, industry, and like-minded organizations, The Ocean Cleanup is working to stop plastic inflow via rivers and remove legacy plastic already polluting the oceans. As of June 2025, the non-profit has collected over 28 million kilograms (62 million pounds) of trash from aquatic ecosystems around the world. Founded in 2013 by Boyan Slat, The Ocean Cleanup now employs a multi-disciplined team of approximately 200 people. The organization is headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with international operations in 10 countries. For more information, visit www.theoceancleanup.com.
Blogs
Excerpts from Jeff Goodman’s Book Action Camera Underwater Video Basics, Part 2 of 6: Underwater Lights & Lighting
Having spent your money on a camera, you may be a little reluctant to spend any more on a lighting system. But believe me, it is worth the investment. Even a small, simple light is going to make a world of difference to your images.
Remember the basic rule with lights, as with everything else, is that you get what you pay for. A small plastic-cased light of low lumen count will cost far less than a large aluminium-cased light of high lumens. A more expensive light should give you more power options, allowing you to choose output strength. This is usually controlled with power button presses: one for full, a second for half power, and a third for quarter power. This gives great flexibility in your lighting when close to a subject, allowing you to balance the power of the light with the camera exposure and ambient light. Lower power output options will also extend battery life. Higher-end devices should also give a wider spread of good, even light without any hot spots. Read the manufacturer’s specifications carefully, and also have a look for advice online from people who have already bought the light you are looking at.
I have talked with many divers who feel that the more powerful the light, the better their video will be. For me, this is not the case. Over-lighting can produce horrible results, especially when you are quite close to the subject. However, powerful lights can be an advantage when lighting large areas from a distance. On the face of it, lighting looks extremely easy. Just put the light on and shoot away. If only it were that simple. Adding artificial light is crucial to getting great underwater video but, at the same time, if done badly, it can totally ruin all your efforts. I would say that no lighting at all is far better than bad lighting.
Early lights were always fitted with a tungsten filament, which was red in colour output. Now most lights use LEDs, which are blue-biased, matching daylight. Surely this new trend is an improvement? Well, yes, it is. One of the first colours to disappear (get absorbed by the water) is red, so it does make sense to put some of that red back into a scene, as with tungsten lights. But a video light will only influence colour as far as its beam travels. So if you add red light onto a fish that is near to you, it may well look good, but the background water or reef will take on a very strange and artificial colour hue. On the other hand, a daylight-balanced light, such as a modern LED one, adds all the colours of the spectrum to the scene. So the subject simply becomes brighter, where the colours are rebalanced, thus closely matching the ambient and distant water colour.
Different camera operators have their own favourite type of light for particular applications. For general filming, my favourite is one of coated metal construction for durability and small in size for manoeuvrability — approximately 15 x 5 cm (6 x 2″) tubular. It has a maximum output of 2,500–3,000 lumens, with a dimming option for half power, a wide beam angle of 120 degrees with no hot spots, and a colour temperature of 6,500K. The following image of a turtle was taken using a single hand-held video light. There is more on lighting in the ‘theory’ chapter.
Lighting
My aim when using artificial illumination is to only raise the exposure level to that of the ambient light and no further. I am not actually lighting a subject; I am simply putting back some colour, balancing the video light with the ambient. Obviously, this only applies to daytime videoing, as at night your light source dominates, dictating exposure. Be careful not to over-light. In my opinion, this is the most common mistake any camera person can make — having a video light that is too bright and/or too close to the subject.
In the second image of pouting, the video light level matches the ambient light level. Areas not touched by my light still look natural. The fish on the right are gently enhanced with added colour, but overall exposure is unaffected — they remain in balance with the background. The light has simply replaced some of the lost colour and detail.
Remember that your video light, depending on its power output, will only have effect up to a certain distance. This is usually a maximum of about 2–3 m (6–10 ft) in daylight and 5–6 m (16–20 ft) at night time. If it reaches further than that, then it is likely too powerful for you to have next to your camera and should be turned down (if that is possible), or held further away by a willing assistant.
The above photos of a sea urchin on a reef are examples of a light that is too close to the subject and then at the correct distance. The resulting ‘hot spot’ in the over-lit image effectively ruins the shot.
NEXT WEEK:
Part 3 of 6 – Buoyancy
Action Camera Underwater Video Basics by Jeff Goodman is available now from DIVEDUP Publications:
https://www.divedup.com/shop/action-camera-underwater-video-basics-the-essential-guide-to-making-underwater-films/
About Jeff Goodman
Jeff is a multiple award-winning freelance TV cameraman/filmmaker and author. Having made both terrestrial and marine films, it is the world’s oceans and their conservation that hold his passion, with over 10,000 dives in his career. Having filmed for international television companies around the world and as author of two books on underwater filming, Jeff is Author/Programme Specialist for the Underwater Action Camera course for the RAID training agency.
Jeff has experienced the rapid advances in technology for diving as well as camera equipment, and has also experienced much of our planet’s marine life. He has witnessed, first-hand, many of the changes that have occurred to the wildlife and environment during that time.
Jeff runs bespoke underwater video and editing workshops for the complete beginner up to the budding professional.
Gear News3 months agoIntroducing the all new GROUNDTRUTH x PADI UNDA range
- Gear Reviews3 months ago
Gear Review: Hollis ST Elite System (Watch Video)
- Blogs3 months ago
Making a Splash: My Path to Becoming a Master Scuba Diver at 12
- Blogs3 months ago
Here’s That Lifeline You’ve Been Waiting for, Dive Industry – Make Sure You Grab It with Both Hands
- News3 months ago
Rhode Island Native Clinches Title of New England’s Youngest PADI Certified Master Scuba Diver
- News4 weeks ago
Aqualung Group Enters Court-Supervised Reorganization Process
- News3 months ago
Relive the Red Sea’s Golden Age: New Paperback Edition of Treasures, Shipwrecks, and the Dawn of Red Sea Diving
- Gear News3 months ago
Poseidon Unveils the Next Evolution in Dive Footwear: The New One Shoe
