Raja Ampat
A diver’s dream location, Raja Ampat (“The Four Kings” in Indonesian) encompasses a group of 610 Islands in the west of Indonesia’s province West Papua. The bigger islands are Waigeo, Batanta, and Salawati and in the South Misool, the largest is Waigeo. Many of the smaller islands are about the size of a big rock and do not even have a name. Raja Ampat covers a total land and sea area of 40,000 km2. The small town of Sorong in West Papua is the only access to this destination. And where our Raja Ampat cruises start. Flights to and from Sorong are scheduled via Jakarta, Makassar or Manado on Sulawesi.
Raja Ampat is all about diversity – not only diversity of species, but also of dive sites. There are some areas where soft corals and sea fans dominate, others with amazing diverse hard corals, seagrass beds, mangroves, shallow reefs, drop offs, caves, black sand, white sand. There are vertical walls, reef flats, slopes, sea mounts, mangroves, lagoons and pinnacles. The reefs are in pristine condition with miles of perfect hard corals and many varied colourful species of soft corals.
You will be treated to some truly amazing diving, world renowned, Raja Ampat lives up to its reputation and then some, the only way to see all this is by liveaboard, The Hatiku goes to both South and North Raja Ampat in its 10 night odyssey, encountering myriad fish, enormous schools of fish, a variety of pelagics including mantas, reef sharks, wobbegongs and an astonishing range of invertebrates and critters.
Above the water is equally spectacular as you sail through largely uninhabited beautiful islands that stretch as far as the eye can see, The whole region is an enigma of straits between small sandstone islands eroded by the waves. There will be a chance to look for the rare and beautiful birds of paradise in the North.