Raja Ampat Ambon Cruise with Mermaid II, February 14-25, 2018

It’s been a blissful and awe-inspiring twelve day trip full of postcard scenery, schools of juvenile black tip reef sharks, crystal clear blue water FULL of schooling fish, and just about every macro critter you could ever desire, oh, and lots and lots of reef! Mermaid II has just finished it’s epic trip from Raja Ampat through the Banda Sea and into Ambon. This is the epicenter of the Coral Triangle where the marine bio-diversity is off the charts.  It’s difficult to know where to start when concisely summarizing a trip like this, but the beginning is typically the best place so lets start there.

We started with four full days of diving Raja Ampat, which as usual, was teeming with life.  The divers enjoyed drifting past the layers upon layers of colorful sea fans lined the reef’s slopes which are the natural home to countless pigmy seahorses. While the diving in Raja was off the charts, one of the most memorable moments of the Raja portion of the trip didn’t take place within the depth of the ocean, but in about six inches of water along a beautiful white sand beach. Here along this picturesque beach in Misool, dozens and dozens of baby black tips reef sharks patrol these shallows and will literally swim over your toes!

Leaving the waters of the Raja Ampat we entered the Banda Sea and we continued to have incredible encounters with just about everything imaginable. Multiple dives with scalloped hammerhead sharks maintained an aura of excitement on board as did the abundance of sea snakes at the volcano knows as  Manuk. At the small island of Koon, which is eastern Indonesia’s largest aggregation site for mating fish, we witnessed shoals of mating blue fin travellie and giant travellie.

The last two days were spent in Ambon, which some consider to be one of the critter capitals of the world. After all the schooling fish and pristine reefscapes of Raja Ampat and the Banda Sea,it was a nice change of pace to slowly sift through Ambon’s unusual sub-strait in search for those iconic creatures like ghost pipe fish, frog fish, and nudibranches, which we found in abundance.

In looking back on what we had encountered over the past twelve days days, I don’t believe there is any dive trip in the world where you can see as many pristine reefs or variety of fish as we do on these Bio- Special trips.

Mermaid II, Raja Ampat – Ambon Diving Cruise,
February 14-25, 2018

Alex Lindbloom

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