420 Dive Log Australasia OCTOBER 2026

NEW SITES Over the next three days we explored a few sites I hadn’t been too before. At Sapokren we enjoyed a muck dive with seahorses, marble snake eels, sand divers, waspfish, nudibranchs and other critters. East Friwen and Batu Rufus both had lovely corals and abundant reef and pelagic fishes. We saw a few reef sharks at these sites. It was also lovely to see dozens of small blacktip reef sharks patrolling the shallows at the resort, even swimming under our bungalows. The sloping reef and jetty at Arborek was better than the last time I dived it, with more fish, wobbegongs, ribbon sweetlips and reef sharks than my previous visit. While Melissa’s Garden was just as I remembered it, with lovely gardens of hard corals and masses of reef fish. Manta Sandy was a little disappointing, with no reef manta rays and not much else to see. However, on previous trips to this site the manta ray encounters have been a little average as you are required to kneel about 8m away from the bommies where the manta rays get cleaned. MANTA MAGIC Fortunately, we made up for this with an early morning return trip to Blue Magic on the last day hoping to encounter an oceanic manta ray. It was a dark and gloomy morning for this dive, with heavy grey clouds. The schools of pelagic fish entertained us for the first forty minutes, then suddenly out of the blue a huge 4.5m wide oceanic manta ray arrived. For the next twenty minutes this curious and playful ray circled us and even swam straight at us as it was getting cleaned. It was a magic end to a wonderful trip. Overall, the diving at Raja Ampat was as good as I remembered it, with healthy corals, abundant fish life and more reef sharks and stingrays than previously. I know I will not be waiting seven years until my next return to Raja Ampat.

Under Sawandarek Jetty.

Spotted Boxfish

Lamarck’s Angelfish

Common Sea Horse

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DIVE LOG Australasia #420 October ‘26

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