Wayag panorama, breath-taking landscape…
Third day of the trip…
Early morning I woke up, as Temukira started moving again. After dawn, I went up to the upper deck. The ship had stopped in the calm waters, and it gave me the opportunity to photograph the sunrise from the top of the ship. But apparently I still had to wait until the day becomes brighter, because as calm as the water was the boat was still moving and it didn’t allow me to shoot photos with slow shutter speed. And the clouds on the eastern horizon was still blocking the morning sunrise. As the day went, I tried to shoot a few frames before the red color of the morning disappears, and quickly joined the others as we prepared the first dive in the third day…
“The current at the Magic Rock is pretty strong. So, for us not to miss out the cave entrance at the bottom, we need to descend fast. We have to do negative entry here… “, Weka warned us during the briefing. Our target this time, Magic Rock, is a large cave under the sea with multiple entrances at a depth of 25 meters, with strong currents in the vicinity. Despite doing negative entry, I was still not fast enough and needed to kick myself down to descend faster to avoid myself being drifted through the cave entrance.
From the mouth of the cave, Nia was busy photographing the silhouettes of other divers who were passing by. Koh Aliong dove around while instructing others – including me – to pose as the model behind a sea fan he photographed. Kasim, as usual, was busy looking for his favorite little creatures. Meanwhile, Doly engaged herself with her mini video camera recording others activities. A small number of Sweetlips and Bumphead come into play in this big cave. And there was a Napoleon, passing by alone! Going out of the cave, we all went “flying”, carried by the strong current to the left, as we slowly ascended to 5 meters depth for a safety stop…
Entering Magic Rock… (photo by Nia Aritonang)
The next two dives today – at Chango and Eagle Rock – had similar highlights with the Magic Rock. But that didn’t mean Raja Ampat stopped spoiling us. A sizeable Wobbegong Shark lounging in a small cave. A green turtle showed up, busy enjoying his lunch regardless of our surroundings. When we were busy taking pictures of the Pigmy Seahorse found by Noak, suddenly a dark shadow of a Manta Ray passed by on top of us, just a glimpse, then disappeared. Apparently he was just passing through…
Between the three dives, the activities on board of Temukira did not stop. I still kept myself busy wandering around the ship with the camera in hand. Hari and Reza were copying photo files from their memory cards to the laptop. Nia and Koh Aliong discussed about their lens preferences while at the same time switching their camera lenses for the next dive. Vita? Sunbathing on the upper deck. Ricky, Franky, Hadi, Doly and Erika accompanied Vita – while sheltering under the canopy – and chatted about almost everything. And there was Kasim, busy with his own activities in the dreamland…
Day four started at Gam Channel. Thick clouds greeted us this morning, but it did not dampen our spirit to gear up and step on the boat for the first dive of the day. And it paid off. Schooling was everywhere. Sweetlips, Batfish, Triggerfish, Jackfish, Tuna, and also lots of I-don’t-know-the-names fish. We even met with a small group of Barracuda and Napoleon. Also a young turtle who was having his breakfast at the soft corals nearby…
The day went and the ship moved toward Manta Sandy, our next destination. Named as it is because this dive spot with 19-20 meters depth sandy bottom is the point where Manta Rays gather around.
Approaching the dive point, the sight of three other pinisi ships emerged. Not only that, as after we arrived there were also two other pinisi ships joined in. The long queues at this location was attributed to the popularity of this dive spot and March was also one of the best months to dive in Raja Ampat. It was also caused by the limited numbers of dive points available in the area, as the Raja Ampat local government and one of the resorts operating on the Mansuar island made an agreement with a French television channel for a survival reality show shooting that took place in the area of Raja Ampat. For the next two months, numbers of areas in the region has been plotted for the shooting purpose, and the dive and live-aboard operators were not allowed to engage diving activities in those areas.
Sunbathing At Temukira…
Long queues at Manta Sandy. After communicating with other ships that had arrived before us, we agreed to have our turn to dive at 12 noon. During the briefing, Joni reminded us, “Do not cross the line that has been made on the sea floor sand, because it is the Manta’s pathway. If they feel disturbed, Manta will flee and it will take a long time before they come back to this point… “. And there we were, lining up neatly just behind the lines made of coral stones arranged by the guides. Two mid-size Manta Rays were swimming calmly through their path when we arrived at the base. All the cameras directly pointed to those beautiful creatures who were moving quietly in front of us, before disappearing. A few moments passed without a Manta passing in front of us. Then suddenly a large one, at least 4 meters wide, swimming outside the usual lane, next to me at the very end of the row of the lining divers. Chaos. within seconds, other friends immediately scrambled over to photograph this large Manta, but what happens was they bumped each others, one over the others in that limited space. When we returned to Temukira, we laughed ourselves out as we talked about the chaos over and over again…
After another dive in the afternoon at the same location, Temukira moved again, this time heading east past the Mansuar island. After sunset , she anchored off the coast of the Kri island. After dinner, we gathered in the cabin, sharing the images and throwing comment on the photos of the last four day. Some then went on a chat on the upper deck with a drink and snacks while enjoying the company of the full moon. Laughter and jokes were endless. Some of us were also busy with their mobile phones, as mobile phone signal started to be in reach again in Kri, and it was immediately showed big city creatures like us were indeed hard to break away from this technology. text messages, BBM, phone calls started immediately. It also included browsing for the latest news via the internet. And the most important thing: updating the status on Twitter and FB!
To be continued…
* Photos from this Wayag trip are stored at http://www.ismawanismail.com/gallery/index.php?/category/raja-ampat
