Snorkeling in the North of Raja Ampat

Choosing a destination to snorkel in Indonesia can be confusing, and with over 17,000 islands knowing which one is best is no easy feat. To make things even more confusing, certain snorkeling locations, such as Raja Ampat, are broken up into sub-regions. If you’ve ever looked into a snorkeling trip through Raja Ampat you’ve probably noticed that it’s broken up into either cardinal locations like “the north, or “the south” or into areas knows as the Dampier Straight and Misool. Just when you thought you had it all narrowed down to a single destination you’re forced to once again make the hard decision of figuring out which location will be the absolute best for your snorkeling trip. So, to help provide a little insight, I’ll go ahead and quickly explain what to expect from Raja Ampat’s north. 

over under perspective with reef below and tropical island above

When people refer to the north of Raja Ampat they are typically talking about the area around the Dampier Straight. This is arguably one of the most popular areas to visit in Raja for multiple reasons. One being that it’s logistically a lot easier to arrive to when compared to Misool in the south, and two it offers some incredibly diverse snorkeling. Snorkelers will enjoy fantastic drifts, pinnacles, manta cleaning stations, channels, mangroves, and the infamous village jetties. The variety of types of snorkeling sites in the Dampier region is absolutely one of the highlights of this area. 

oceanic manta on cleaning station

The marine life is equally impressive as each locations offers something unique. The mangroves are a great place to find archerfish and some other fish you wouldn’t otherwise find on a typical reef snorkel, while the shallow pinnacles and channels are a great place to encounter larger marine life life like schools of jacks, barracudas, and manta rays. Like Misool in the south, the north is also one of the few places in the world where you can see both ocean mantas and reef mantas in a single day. One of my personal favorite places to snorkel in Raja Ampat is around any of the jettier or wooden piers in front of the little villages. The hand built wood structures are typically full of fish as they provide a hiding place from larger predators. Not only that but the pilings will usually be covered in brilliant soft coral and sponges. 

sun shining through mangroves with coral reef below

Snorkeling in Misool

Orange soft coral in front of swim through in reef

Choosing a destination to snorkel in Indonesia can be confusing, and with over 17,000 islands knowing which one is best is no easy feat. To make things even more confusing, certain snorkeling locations, such as Raja Ampat, are broken up into sub-regions. If you’ve ever looked into a snorkeling trip through Raja Ampat you’ve probably noticed that it’s broken up into either cardinal locations like “the north, or “the south” or into areas knows as the Dampier Straight and Misool. Just when you thought you had it all narrowed down to a single destination you’re forced to once again make the hard decision of figuring out which location will be the absolute best for your snorkeling trip. So, to help provide a little insight, I’ll go ahead and quickly explain what to expect from Raja Ampat’s Misool in the south.

snorkelers floating above coral reef wall

Misool is the southern most region of Raja Amapt, and in many ways it is the quintessential Raja. The landscape is made up of hundreds of small limestone islands with that classic mushrooms shape where they meet the ocean. The snorkeling is characterized by shallow reefs just beneath the iconic islands which give way to ridges, plateaus, pinnacles, and amazing shallow swim throughs. The coral is easily some of the best of the world with vast colonies of hard and soft coral as well as sponges and sea fans. Raja Ampat is often referred to as the Kingdom of Coral, and it’s my belief  that people are referring to Misool when they say this. 

orange soft coral and underwater topography

While the coral might be absolutely amazing, the marine life is equally impressive if not more so. In a lot of snorkeling locations around the world big schools of fish are a bit deep snorkelers, not in Raja Ampat and definitely not in Misool. Shoals of fusileers can be found around each of the different islands and on certain islands there are exceptionally large schools of barracudas, jacks, and friendly batfish hanging out just beneath the surface. Another charismatic ocean resident not uncommon in Misool are the manta rays, and actually it’s one of the only places in the world where it’s possible to see both species of manta ray, the oceanic manta and the reef manta. 

Reef manta cleaning on reef

Another awesome thing about Misool is that because it is quite isolated down in the south or Raja, it’s out of range of the speedboat day-trips leaving from Sorong in the north, as well as many of the liveaboards, completely eliminating crowded sites. Not to mention the fact that there is only one resort in all of Misool, and it just so happens to be one of the nicest snorkel and dive resorts in Indonesia and we are very pleased to be be offering our guided snorkeling safaris with them!

Snorkeling With Current

reflection of coral reef on the surface

There’s a common misconception that snorkeling with current is dangerous, should be feared, and avoided. For those of you that feel this way, I want to share a few things that will hopefully help you look at the oceans current in a new, more positive light. 

1.  Current is essential to marine life and coral

colorful soft coral colony

Currents move around the oceans nutrients delivering them to the different reefs. Indonesia for example, has a vast network of currents and in many ways the epicenter for marine biodiversity. Compare that with the Caribbean, which has much more mild currents and a fraction of the marine life. It’s said that one reef could have more species of coral and fish than the entire Caribbean ocean. dad

2. Current makes for some fantastic drifts

Certain sites work really well with the current. Sites with long fringing reefs for example can snorkeled as a drift where we jump in the up current side of the reef and let the current do all the work of moving us over the reef. All we need to do is float and enjoy the relaxing ride. 

3. Current opens up the coral polyps and bring in the fish

If you were to snorkel a site when the current is slack, the time between the two tide cycles when the current is not doing any thing, you’ll notice a huge different in marine life and the reef when compared to the same reef when the current is running. As we learned earlier the current pushes the oceans nutrients around, and when the current starts to rise or fall all the coral polyps will open up to feed on the passing particles, making this all the corals look a lot more vibrant and alive. Similarly, the fish will also be a lot more present as they too use the current as their food delivery service and you’ll find them facing into the current snapping up all the bits of food passing by. 

large school of fish in front of orange sea fan

Current should still very much be respected in it’s power, however if you approach current the same way you wold a ski slope, with a bit of caution and not acknowledging the conditions, there isn’t much to worry about really. There are certainly times when the current is too strong to snorkel certain sites, in which case you might want to move to a more protected site like a bay or a drift. Basically, just because a location is known to have stronger currents doesn’t mean the snorkel sessions are going to be like a wild ride down a river, very much the opposite actually. On all of our guide led snorkeling safaris we pay extra attention to the current and with the local knowledge of the resorts we always make sure to jump in certain sites so the current is always working in our favor.