subject to change without prior notice, at the discretion of cruise director and captain
Day 1: Arrive to the ILIKE at Sorong
Day 2: Waisai
Day 3: Dampier Strait
Day 4: Misool, Warakaraket Island
Day 5: Misool, Daram Island
Day 6: Misool, Fiabacet and Boo Island
Day 7: Misool, Pelee and Wayilbatan Island
Day 8: Pisang Island
Day 9: Patintie Strait, Saleh Kecil Island
Day 10: Goriachi Islands
Day 11: Tifore Island
Day 12: Lembeh Straits
Day 13: Disembark ILIKE at Bitung port
On our way to Raja Ampat, Pulau Pisang it’s a mandatory
stop, small rocks off the island offers big plateaus covered with hard corals and gentle slope with barrel sponges gives protection to various marine life.
Raja Ampat translated from the Indonesian language it means Four Kings. It refers to an archipelago with more than 1500 islands with the four main islands of Waigeo, Batanta, Salawati and Misool and is part of the Coral Triangle making it one of the richest biodiversity of the world.
Once we arrive in Misool you will be amazed by the diversity you will find here. An abundance of marine life, a variety of underwater seamounts, smaller pinnacles, coral walls and
coral gardens, covered in giant sea fans, soft corals in all colours, massive table corals and countless fish. The massive sea fans house the smallest seahorses.
This is a great place to find the elusive epaulette shark, or walking shark. This nocturnal shark sneaks up on its pray by ‘walking’ closer and closer to it. It is largely a marine park set up by Misool Eco Resort in cooperation with all the local villages and proudly supporters like ILIKE, not to fish inside this area. It gets patrolled by the park rangers.
More than 1300 different species of fishes and more than 600 different spices of corals are some of the beauties
from this Indonesian paradise.
It is also one of the few places in the world where we can find two species of Manta rays on the same dive sites
The Dampier Strait, between Waigeo and Batanta, beautiful coral gardens, underwater pinnacles or seamounts, sandy bottom with coral heads and cleaning stations. Here we can find even more nutrients bringing in bigger predators like giant trevallies, yellow fin tuna, rainbow runners and even some sharks like blacktip, grey reef, white tip sharks. It is also one of the few places in the world where we can find two species of Manta rays on the same dive sites.
In Lembeh most of the macro photographer’s dreams can became reality in matter of couple of dives.
Muck diving at its best!!!
Once in the middle of the Moluccan sea we will visit Tifore Island, separated from main land by more than 70 miles. An underwater pinnacle close to the island hides, when the current its favourable, a big school of Barracudas between others
big pelagic fish.
Arriving to Halmahera, Goraichi Island is a system of
islands right at the edge of the Molucca sea offering a big diversity in Macro or big pelagic.
Then in the heart of Halmahera, we find a channel in the Patintie Strait were pinnacles and coral formations are
different due to currents being funnelled thru the channel as two seas meet.