Day 5

Thursday, April 14, 2016
Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia
Sunrise this morning and there were big thunderstorms on the horizon and fish jumping in the sea. There were even a couple of Dolphin hunting near the boat.

We headed out on the first dive to a popular dive site called Karang Bayangan which proved to be as good as its reputation . Upon descending I was buzzed by a beautiful manta ray. It was a large one with lovely black and white markings. I managed to get a few photos of it before it disappeared along the reef wall but it also appeared briefly halfway through the dive.
Straight after the manta, a turtle went past on its way up for air.
As we continued along the wall there was a large Wobbegong shark basking in a sand patch on the edge. We all stopped for photos and he just slept on.
The reef ended on a pinnacle around which was milling schools of Trevally and snapper and a couple of massive Giant black Trevally. We stayed there for a while waiting to see if any reef sharks would turn up but as the visibility wasn't very good we turned back and headed towards the top of the outcrop.

Along the way a baby white tipped shark cruised past, then when we got to the top there were hundreds of different fish including schools of barracuda and a few giant blue male Maori wrasse. They all posed for photos as a lot of them were being cleaned by the little cleaner wrasses that inhabit the reef . There were Lionfish and clownfish, unicorn fish and all kinds of fusiliers. It was just spectacular and nobody wanted to leave.
Another turtle descended past me on its way to feed on the coral and the many large schools of fish incorporated the divers into their midst.

It was such a fantastic dive that we all decided that we wanted to do it again later this morning.
The popular sites have lots of boatloads of divers wanting to dive them so we will have to wait for another group that is going at 11.00 before we can dive again. This way we don't have too much crowding on the relatively small sites.

After my pancake breakfast we did the same dive again. The wind had picked up as there were storms on the horizon and the sea was quite choppy, but when we got below the surface the water was still with no current again.

There didn't seem to be so many schools of fish this time and the water wasn't as clear but the Manta graced us with its presence again and so did the Maori Wrasses .
There were lots of closed up anemones in all different colours and a large turtle came down and munched on the coral making for good photos.
It was another long dive, over an hour although shorter than we would have done since there was another group of divers waiting to dive the site.

Back on board the boat and lunch was an Indonesian dish of chicken and noodles which was just delicious. The next dive will be on a different site this afternoon and then we will move to another area tomorrow.

The last dive of the day was at a site called Yilliet Kecil which was a similar kind of site to the other one in that it went to a deep drop off and then came up to a series of little rock mounds which were covered in coral.
The manta followed us from the first site and flew along the edge of the reef again. From the photos I could see it was a female.
There was also a very big school of Batfish when we first entered the water that was swimming along in a column. Unfortunately the visibility had deteriorated from this morning and was down to about 15 metres so you had to get close to things to be able to see them properly.
There were lots of colourful anemones closed up again and a large crocodile fish on the sand.
I had a tiny wrasse that got right in my mask and I was not sure if he wanted to nibble on it or he just wanted to clean it.
It was still an enjoyable dive even with the low visibility and there were lots of things to look at on the top of the reef. I was amazed to see a Nudibranch moving quite quickly along the reef, as they are usually stationary.

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