Route Description - Raja Ampat and Triton Bay
Experience the phenomenal biodiversity of Raja Ampat as well as the beauty of Triton Bay.
More than 1500 islands make up the Raja Ampat archipelago off the Bird’s Head of West Papua. These islands and their surrounding coral reefs support the richest tropical marine bio-diversity found anywhere in the world.
The area includes 4.6 million hectares of diverse marine habitats and is home to more than 1,000 species of fish, 700 species of mollusks and some 540 species of hard corals (75% of the world’s total!). Larger marine life includes sperm whales, baleen whales and even orcas coming through this area and there are green turtle nesting beaches on the island of Sayang in the North.
No wonder that this ecosystem attracts more and more divers and other tourists and is a focus area for the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Culture as well as for the private sector for eco-tourism development. Several resorts are have started up in the Raja Ampat archipelago, but due to the immense size of the area, the large distances between the top sites and the great variety of islands in different parts of this region, a comfortable liveaboard like the Seven Seasis still the very best way to explore Raja Ampat. And the Seven Seas has all the local knowledge and experience to be your number one choice for this adventure.
Of 30 known dives sites around Triton Bay and possibly just as many yet to be discovered, the better known of these sites were discovered by the Conservation International survey team in 2006, but there are a few that we like to think are known only to us! Indeed, the region is so rarely visited that we are still doing exploratory dives!
Some of the highlights of a Raja Ampat cruise with the Seven Seas include the great diving, snorkeling and cave exploring around the rocky islands off South East Misool, the coral reefs of the Fam Island group, the fish and manta rays of the Dampier straight, the critter diving at Batanta and in Aljui Bay, and of course the great karst formations of the Wayag Archipelago up North. Kayaking among the bee hive shaped karst formations in the Wagmab Island chain in the South is nothing short of stunning, and scattered deserted beaches throughout the Raja Ampat islands make for excellent sunset hideaways. Village visits are unique throughout this region, birds of Paradise can been seen at various locations, and an enormously extended Atoll can be found around Ayau Island in Pacific waters in the far North. Of course, for the real adventurers willing to explore this vast archipelago, there are many islands and reefs still unexplored and many new highlights yet to be discovered…