Indonesia: Raja Ampat + Bali - March 2012
Dear English-speaking readers, this page is an automatic translation of an article originally written in French. I apologise for any strange sentences and funny mistakes that may have resulted. If you read French, click on the French flag below to access the original, correct text:
Français
Here, cliffs covered with jungle strangle the sea. This is one of the mythical sites of Raja Ampat: The Passage.
In the wake of Sir Alfred Russel Wallace
West Papua, Indonesia. In the Raja Ampat archipelago, the islands of Gam and Waigeo almost touch each other. Their karst cliffs covered with jungle, one in front of the other, form a kind of canyon that winds in the sea, oriented east-west.
The Passage is a spectacular and famous place. The British naturalist Sir Alfred Russel Wallacewho was looking for birds of paradise, is the first to have described it, in the 19th century, in his book The Malay Archipelago (1869).
Below is its route, on a map of the time, compared with a modern map. The Passage is at the red circle.
Atmosphere dive
For divers, this is a very different site from the others. From the boat, you have the impression to navigate on a steep river. Once underwater, we still have this strange impression of diving in a river, because of the shallow depth, the proximity of the vegetation and the rock.
At the same time, the underwater fauna is there. There are sponges, corals, tropical fish that have nothing to do with a river bed...
Underwater, the atmosphere is strange, bewitching, between the bright colors of the gorgonians at the bottom of the gully and the green light coming from the surface, filtered by the foliage of the trees.
There is something unreal in this underwater walk, between the coral and the vegetation so close, a bit like in the blue mangrove which I was talking about in a previous post.
It's funny, when you look up, to see its bubbles that seem to fly straight towards the trees...
Strong currents
The Passage is a place well known for the strength of the current. When the tides rush into this narrow gully, there is no need to fight. You have to let yourself drift. The boat lets you go at one end and comes to pick you up at the other.
Fortunately, there are bends between the two walls of rock, which form underwater coves that are suddenly peaceful, where divers can stop for a moment, before leaving like rockets, carried away by the powerful flow of the Passage.
Although shallow, it is a dive rich in sensations, really singular, between moments of calm and sudden accelerations.
UPDATE. A little addition after the fact: I've put below a short video that was made with the GoPro, the day of our little outing. You can see me paddling vigorously with the others in the juice and putting my head upside down with the housing of my 7D to take a picture...
During this underwater walk, you will discover caves, passages in the cliffs, through which you can go back to the surface, tree trunks with ghostly appearance fallen on the bottom, huge rocks colonized by underwater fauna...
The best time to dive is around noon, when the sun's rays are diving right under the surface, creating a play of light and shadow.
Bad luck for me: when I was there, the blue sky of the morning had turned to grey, and a huge shower welcomed us at the exit... As a result, my pictures are a bit dark, they lack those beautiful rays of light, filtered by the leaves of the trees, to illuminate the background.
But I don't intend to stop there. I promised myself to go back!
Equatorial flood
Once back on the boat, we headed to the nearby village for lunch.
Navigation unreal, there again, almost ghostly, like in the middle of nowhere: the islands around us had disappeared, drowned in the grey of the flood.
What consoles, under these latitudes (we are almost at the level of the equator), it is that the rain is warm... That changes from the Breton drizzle!
😂
In spite of the humidity, I decided, with a lot of precautions, to open the waterproof housing of the camera, in order to trade my wide angle lens for the macro (see → Diving and photo: my equipment) in anticipation of the next dive. Because it is a pity not to be able to do macro on a site with the promising name of Nudibranch Rock...
This little stop also gave me the opportunity to show off my beautiful rain poncho, which is so stylish, on the pontoon. I even posed for the picture.
Guaranteed success with the people and children of the village!
😂
→ To see all the articles about my dives at Raja Ampat : a click here !
