Let the Scuba Diving Begin!
We arrived at our first diving location in the late afternoon on Friday, January 1oth for an easy checkout dive with the diving staff aboard. This is standard operating procedure for most diving operators to evaluate the divers abilities with their gear and their diving techniques like air management and bouyancy control in the water. This is especially critical given the potentially challenging conditions we might encounter.
Raja Ampat is known for strong current conditions at many of the dive sites, so strong swimming skills, good operating scuba equipment and the ability to stay calm in these diving conditions is critical to the safety of all divers. This was important because we had some relatively new scuba divers with us on this trip and we wanted them safe but we also wanted to be careful with the reef structures to do no harm or damage due to bad bouyancy control or fins position near the coral formations.
Dive site#1 was called Saonek Kecil. The Saonek Kecil Island is a location close to the Waisai Harbour. I normally dive wearing a 0.5 mm wetsuit (or skin) in warm water (82º F to 86º F) using about 12 to 16 pounds of weight depending on the salinity of the water and whether the air tank is aluminum or steel. In this part of the world they use kilograms not pounds so some thinking had to go into determining the appropriate weight for diving in Raja Ampat. I started with 8 Kg or 17.6 pounds which I thought initially was too much. Later I adjusted to 6 Kg or 13.2 pounds which worked out better for my bouyancy control. With weight and wetsuit thickness dialed in after the first dive, we got back on board.
Our second dive site was offshore the Sapokren Village near our PapuArts stay location. This was our first night dive on the trip and everyone was excited about seeing the underwater nightlife. This would be the first time using my new iPhone DiveVolk underwater housing with a Sealife 2500 lumen flood light.

This was a good sign of the fun times ahead for our group as the joking and banter continued on the dive deck. With our torches (dive lights) attached and chemical glow sticks secured to our tanks we boarded the dinghies for a back flip entry into the abyss. The site did not disappoint us as we encountered a seahorse almost immediately as well as multiple cuttlefish during the dive.

Our last encounter was with a Leaf Scorpion Fish found by our guide Sahril. This diving location is referred to as a "Muck Dive" because of the sandy or muddy bottom contour. This was not the prettiest dive site but it was teaming with all kinds of creatures that generally only come out at night.
We all returned safely to the speedboats and were ferried back to Jelajahi Laut to secure our diving equipment. Our next destination on day two would be enroute to the northern most Raja Ampat Islands.

Dive Site#3 Preview: There are several dive sites around the Eagle Rock complex. Eagle Rock is also home to the largest population of manta rays that can be found in the northern part of Raja Ampat. Stay tuned for more scuba diving stories!
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