Day 7 - Dampier Strait

Saturday, April 16, 2016
Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia
We woke to the terrible news today that Youris had passed away in the hospital at Sorong. It is a wet and miserable day which really sets the mood that we are all feeling.
The boat is parked in a beautiful area where there is a resort on one island and a little village with a spired church on another island .
Nobody feels like diving as the crew are all very upset so I am not sure how the day will pan out.

We did our first dive of the day after our breakfast and we began with a minutes silence in respect of Youris.
It was near a little village that had a long wooden jetty jutting out from the beach. Upon jumping in the water the cold hit like a shockwave and then I pretty much froze for the whole dive. Later I discovered the water temperature was only 26 degrees, whereas previously it had been as warm as 30 degrees.
We swam along the reef at about 15 metres and there were a lot of schooling fish including a small school of lined Sweetlips. There were weird little creatures in the holes and a few Nudibranchs scattered among the rocks. I found a Barramundi cod under a coral but it wouldn't come out for a decent photo.

There were patches of warmer water to thaw out in but they were few and far between so we only managed just under an hour in the water .
Hopefully the next dive will be a bit warmer and I won't be shivering in my 3mm suit.

The second dive was at a site called Mios Con, fortunately it was warmer than the first one and there were some nice patches of lukewarm water to luxuriate in.
There were hundreds of Blue lined snapper in columns swirling around all over the place and a Carpet bag shark swam around us at the beginning of the dive.
Various reef fish were milling about the bommies and we saw a massive Moray eel poking out of a hole. There was another smaller one under a sponge which came out swimming as well.

There were a couple of little Nudibranchs on the hard coral and a hermit crab up in the sand, also a tiny black Pygmy seahorse waving about on a soft coral under an overhang.
I tried to get a photo of it but it refused to keep still.
Towards the end of the dive there was a crocodile fish basking on the sand.
All in all, a pretty good dive, even though the visibility has deteriorated since the first couple of days.

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