Diving Raja

Mike - Indonesia Feb 2025

Our trip was fantastic. You might have broken us: we feel like we might have become "liveaboard only" divers.

All of the transfers and logistics were smooth and easy. Evan, the cruise director on Blue Manta, got a little stressed about getting us transferred to Papua Explorers, but it all worked out after everyone communicated.

Blue Manta was great: everything on the boat runs well; they know what they are doing. Our dive guide wasn't the most talkative guy we've dived with, and he was a little more fixated on pygmy seahorses than we were, but he showed us lots of cool stuff, made the dives exactly the right amount of exciting, and kept us feeling safe and secure. We had one entry in a zero visibility rain squall where I was nervous that we wouldn't be able to find the reef on descent or locate the boat after ascending, but they executed it perfectly. Food was good and plentiful. The sun deck on top of the boat was really nice. The only minor issue was no hot water at our cabin, but the weather was warm enough it didn't matter much.

Papua Explorers was also really nice. We certainly noticed more garbage floating in the water; on a few dives we surfaced into a giant patch of garbage where the guide had to clear a space with bubbles from his octopus during the safety stop. And we saw some bleaching. Other divers who paid more attention to bleaching conditions were disappointed with the first few dives. But further from the villages it got better. We had really great manta dives, saw lots of octopuses, and the big schools of fish and diversity that we were hoping for. 

It does seem like the Dampier Strait might be getting more traffic than it can sustainably support. But it's still pretty great. We will most likely head someplace different for our next scuba trip in a couple of years, but that's because we like to see new places more than there's anything wrong with Raja.

Thanks again for all your help on all our adventures. I can't believe it's been 25 years since you planned our first trip to Palau.

Mike & Regina