Raja Ampat: The Archipelago of Dreams
RAJA AMPAT
The Archipelago of Dreams
May 06, 2023
It took me three days to get tired of Malta. It took me another two to plan my next adventure. Then another two to have everything all figured out and booked.
I gotta say, after Momma Bear’s wedding, I was pretty okay with being in Malta. Perhaps cause of all the love and warmth I got to experience which reminded me that I do indeed have roots and a home. Or maybe, it was cause I knew I had this next journey coming up – a diving trip in Indonesia.
My first stop would be the archipelago of Raja Ampat – a special area in the form of a group of karst islands that lie right on the equator. Its geological uniqueness is on an international scale, with the discovery of the oldest exposed rocks in the world, aged 439 to 360 million years ago, located in Misool, representing almost a tenth of the age of our planet. Furthermore, the area boasts the same mega-biodiversity of Papua, with marine and terrestrial ecosystems being home to various types of endemic animals and plants which cannot be found elsewhere on Earth.
Designated as a National Geopark in 2017, the area is represented by some 29 geosites. Each site not only has local, regional, national, and international scale values, but also a function, both in terms of education and science, not to mention the element of natural beauty. The area also honours the ancestral heritage that has protected it so far, with the forest being seen as the mother, the sea the father, and the coast their child.
Of Hectic Itineraries and a Promised Paradise
I have to admit that after being on the road for so long, this felt a lot like yet another one of the many stops I made over my gap year. Given that I had sorted everything out before leaving and that I wouldn’t have to deal with any logistics, I didn’t think much of it.I guess my mind hadn’t caught up to the fact that this might have been my last trip for quite a while.
Having said that, I was gonna be busy. It would be a straightforward itinerary, but it was also a hectic one. My schedule was gonna be jam-packed to say the least. Multiple flights followed by a diving cruise in Raja Ampat, more flights followed by another cruise elsewhere, more flights and a couple of days chilling in Bali before I’d head back home. Simple, right?
Well, for it to pan out the way I wanted it to, everything would have to go according to plan. One misstep and everything would fall apart. Whilst usually this would turn me into a nervous wreck, eight months on the road had prepared me just for this. Only god knows how many things had actually gone wrong and how many times I had to play everything by ear. Sitting there in the airport, I found myself feeling more relaxed than ever – perhaps slightly annoyed at the fat old guy sitting behind me who kept standing and sitting down, rocking the entire bench every single damn time.
Hooked on the Deep Blue
Other than that, much like when I had left for my trip in Latin America, I felt quite unemotional. I guess it’s cause I had learned not to have any expectations. This could have been the best thing that I’d ever get to do or it could’ve been the worst.
That said, I was excited that it was gonna be my first diving trip. You see, less than a year before, I had never even so much as went on a try dive. Then I went to Belize and got my Open Water certification and then to Honduras to get my Advanced one, only to end up spending an extra two months in order to become a divemaster. As they had told us during that never-ending, mindlessly boring video at the beginning of the first course – diving simply transforms your life. And to me, that’s exactly what it did.
My life, at that point, was completely unrecognizable to how it was before I took my first breath underwater. That one breath opened up a completely different world to me, unlocking another dimension that has always been there waiting to be discovered. And now? Now it’s become yet another vice on the list of things I’m addicted to. Not a day goes by that I don’t look back on the days I spent in Utila. Sure, I had my ups and downs throughout the training programme and it was mostly type two fun, but all in all, I’d say those were amongst the best two months of my life. I swear, reading all about my adventures there leaves me in complete and total disbelief. Did I actually do all those things? Was it just a dream? Are those memories even mine?
Drowning on Dry Land
My diving adventures didn’t quite end there though. Over the upcoming few months, I found myself changing the itinerary I had been ever-so faithful to before I discovered this new-found passion of mine. My plans seemed to revolve more around diving than travelling – the very same reason I had left everything behind. Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama were suddenly all about diving instead of trekking or chilling by a beach.
By then, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. In fact, despite how much I loved my time in South America, there was still something that felt missing. I had become part of the ocean as much as it had become part of me. I had reconnected with the very same thing that I used to identify with as a young kid – the very same thing I had lost touch with over the years. Looking back, I have no idea how such a thing could have ever happened, how I could even let myself disconnect from that which brought me so much joy and happiness.
But I guess the important thing is that I had found my way back to the sea again – one way or another. And now, that was all I could think of. In fact, I allowed myself to be an optimist for a while. If everything were to go according to plan, this would shape up to be one of the best diving experiences of my life. After diving in Coiba National Park in Panama, I thought I’d be hard-pressed to find any other dive site that would compare to it. But, as it turns out, Raja Ampat is ranked as one of the best dive sites in all of Asia and amongst the best one in the entire world. I had heard about Raja Ampat in passing, jotting it down on my notebook expecting never to look at those scribbles ever again. Yet there I was, on my way to the underwater paradise, having upended all my plans on a complete whim.
That said, even just being underwater would suffice at that point. It had been over three months since I had held a friggin’ regulator in my mouth, and ironically, it’s above the surface where I felt like I had been suffocating.