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The Four Kings

Raja Ampat means four kings in Bahasa, and the name comes from the local myth of a woman who finds seven eggs, four (ampat) of which hatch and become

kings (rajas) and occupy four of the area’s biggest islands, whilst the other three become a ghost, a woman and a stone.

Location, location, location…

The remarkable landmass of New Guinea is the largest tropical island in the world, and it sits just below the equator along the southern rim of the “Ring of Fire”—the belt of volcanoes and tectonic plates that runs around the edge of the vast Pacific  Ocean. Divided by colonial legacy and cold-war geopolitics into two roughly equal halves, the eastern part of the island is the inde- pendent country of Papua New Guinea (PNG), while the western half, which is now generally known as West Papua, became part of Indonesia in 1969. Although occu- pying less than half of 1% of the Earth’s.

The incredible reefs and tremendous biodiversity of the Raja Ampat area have made this remote part of the Indonesian archipelago one of the hottest dive locations in the world, and those currents are the very lifeblood of the area. For they carry the rich nutrients from the deep basins of the Pacific Ocean to the northwest of Raja Ampat and have helped to create what are generally considered to be the finest coral reef ecosystems in the world. The amazing biodiversity of the area, and the currents that flow through it, are two sides of the same coin, and a basic under- standing of this mechanism is the key to truly enjoying one of the best diving experiences there is.

Those four islands are Waigeo, Salawati, Batanta and Misool are surrounded by about 1,500 smaller islands and about 40,000 squ km of water. Surveys of the area have identified over 600 species of hard coral, which is nearly 75 percent of the world’s total, and in excess of 1,700 species of reef fish—more than any other similarly-sized region on the planet. Raja Ampat truly is the global epicenter of marine biodiversity.

Diving Raja Ampat

There are three principal areas to dive in

Raja Ampat: in and around the Dampier Strait

that separates the main islands of Waigeo and

Batanta; Waigeo itself; and the area around the

island of Misool in the south. Triton Bay on the

south coast of the main island is also technically

part of the Raja Ampat area, but its remoteness

means that it is treated as a separate trip. All

three areas offerspectacular diving and

underwater experiences,which could fill a

couple of books, but there are certain signature

dives in each area that really should not be missed.

The Dampier Strait

The dives sites of the Dampier Strait are

where most liveaboards start and finish their diving programs, because they are the closest to the town of Sorong and its airport, which is currently the point of entry to the Raja Ampat area.For those of you familiar with fluid dynamics, the Dampier Strait can be thought of as a venturi, where a restric- tion in diameter automatically increases the velocity of the fluid passing through it. For all the rest of us, think strong cur- rents—because the Strait is the principal channel through which the flow of water from the Pacific Ocean passes through on its way south. These currents and the rich nutrients in the water have created some of the most spectacular reefs, bommies and encounters you are ever likely to experience.