Route Description - Dewi Nusantara Cenderawasih Bay
Starting and finishing at Manokwari, our 11-night Cenderawasih Bay cruises offer nine and a half days of spectacular and varied diving, with between two and four dives per day and many fascinating land excursions along the way.
The diverse underwater and stunning topside worlds of Indonesia have combined to produce yet another wonderful destination, with something very special for every adventurous diver and intrepid traveller the world over. Let Dewi Nusantara be your luxury home away from home in this beautifully unique part of the world.
Like the graceful manta ray, whalesharks are great favourites with divers and just seem to glide though the water, without a care in the world, feeding on microscopic plankton and other small organisms while all you have to do is keep up with them for a photo or video scene. Now we present a whaleshark encounter like no other, the Cenderawasih Bay Big Boys an awe-inspiring and humbling experience.
Fortunately for us and more so for the whalesharks, the local fishermen took their presence as a good luck omen and in time struck up a relationship with them, to the point where they can now hand feed the sharks the same as you would a cow.
The Cenderawasih National Park - covering 14,000 square kilometres and Indonesia’s largest, is half as much again bigger than that of Raja Ampat and has some splendid diving, even without the Indonesian Throughflows’ natural currents.
The World War Two remains of the US Navy and Japanese invaders conflict over Papua New Guinea left some extravagant wrecks and reefs.
Due to its inverted architecture, the Cenderawasih reefscape is one of the few places in the world where it is possible to observe and photograph marine species that normally live in far deeper water.
In the Arfak Reserve, it is reckoned that 320 bird species have been recorded, with around 50% of these endemic to the region.
Facing north out into the vast Pacific Ocean, Cenderawasih Bay has features that are rare, even when taking into consideration the incredible range and diversity of diving in other parts of Indonesia.
In contrast to many of the other Indonesian dive centres of excellence, Cenderawasih is the only one not to be greatly affected by what is known as the “Indonesian Throughflow”.