We spent this past Christmas and New Years on a live-aboard boat in the famous diving area Raja Ampat in West Papua. We booked our holiday through Grand Komodo Dive and chartered our own boat. We were 2 families traveling together, 4 adults and 4 children (4, 7, 7 and 9 years old). We flew wth Express Air from Jakarta to Sorong, which actually went via Makassar. The only issue with Express Air is that you can’t book your tickets more than one month in advance.
Once we arrived in Sorong we decided rather than go straight to the boat we would stay overnight in Sorong, as sometimes flying to more remote destinations there are flight delays, but we were lucky and pretty much got there on schedule. We stayed the night at the JE Meridien. The hotel is clean and just across from the airport. We could have walked except we had quite a bit of luggage so we took a car instead. The hotel had a big spacious room with 2 queen beds in it. We got a good night’s sleep and our guide met us the next morning at 9am to board our boat, the PUTRI PAPUA.
Our boat had 5 cabins for a maximum of 9 people (note, 1 cabin only had a single bed in it). There were 4 bedrooms located below deck and 1 above deck. Each cabin had a double or single bed in it with your own ensuite. All cabins were equipped with air conditioners. We had a crew of 9: 1 guide/dive master, 1 dive master, 1 captain, 1 vice captain, 1 cook, 1 houseboy, 1 machinist and 2 all rounders. All meals were included and our chef on board was amazing
There was a mixture of Indonesian and Western dishes. Also as we traveled with children we requested beforehand to cater for them. We also ate some amazing fresh caught fish and seafood. The boat has its own small motorised (dingi) boat which accommodates everyone to either go diving or to the beaches or just driving around the different bays/lagoons.
The Putri Papua is a fully equipped dive boat with its own dive platform. Our husbands were the only divers on the boat. They had unlimited dives (tanks included) during our cruise, we only had to either bring or rent our own dive equipment. Our husbands said the dives were amazing, they saw Mantarays, turtles, and sharks. Hard to beat! As the rest of us didn’t dive we usually did a dive/snorkel trip in the morning, which meant the guys went down for a dive and we went snorkeling or sometimes were dropped at the nearby beach to go swimming from there. Snorkeling also was amazing as the coral was beautiful and we saw lots of different kind of fish.
The Raja Ampat area is quite big and the islands are far apart so we often sailed all night. During the day we either went to one of the beautiful deserted beaches or visited a nearby village. We also got to see the famous bird of paradise bird as well as visited a Pearl Farm at Alyui Bay.
Most of you have seen the famous photo that is in most magazines, Wayag. We took a 30-minute hike up to the top of very sharp rock formation mountain to get that amazing view.
The last night we spent on board in Sorong Harbour. As it was New Year’s Eve there were fireworks all around us which was spectacular.
Contact Information
Express Air: www.expressair.biz/home.php
Komodo Alor Dive: www.komodoalordive.com/
Our boat: Putri Papua
Contact Person: Tian, email: gkomodot@indosat.net.id