Raja Ampat (Paradise of Divers)

For those of you who love the sport of diving, i am sure your life will feel incomplete if you have not visited this place. This underwater paradise is located between four adjacent group of islands (Waigeo Island, Misool Island, Salawati Island, and Batanta Island) in the western part of Papua island vogelkoop. 

The origin of the name of Raja Ampat by local myth comes from a woman who found seven eggs. Four eggs hatch into four princes who split up and each one becomes a very powerful king in Waigeo, Salawati, East Misool and West Misool. Meanwhile, three other eggs became a ghost, a woman, and a stone.

Waters of Raja Ampat Islands is one of the 10 best dive sites in the world, and number one for the completeness of underwater flora and fauna today. In these waters there are at least more than 540 species of hard corals (75% of the total species in the world), more than 1,000 species of reef fish and 700 types of mollusks. None of the places with the same area has a number of coral species as much as this. Some of the unique species that can be encountered when diving is some kind of dwarf sea horses, wobbegong, and manta rays. There are also endemic fish, namely Eviota king, which is a kind of fish gobbie. At Manta Point which is located in Dampier strait Arborek, you can dive accompanied by a few manta rays are benign. If you dive at Cape Kri or Chicken Reef, you can be surrounded by thousands of fish. Sometimes a collection of tuna, giant trevallies and snappers. But a little tense when we are surrounded by a collection of fish, barracuda, even though it is relatively harmless.

And for those of you who don't like diving, you don't have to worry. This place offers plenty of stunning beaches with white sand and the group of karst islands are also very beautiful. Unique flora and fauna endemic are also can be found here such as, red bird of paradise, bird of paradise wilson, maleo waigeo, various parrots and parrot, possum waigeo, as well as various types of orchids.

So visit this place, at least once in your life, because this place is one of the paradise that still exist on earth.