Raja Ampat Liveaboard Trip Report December 2025

A trip report of my Raja Ampat liveaboard in December 2025, diving classic Waigeo and Misool dive sites along with a few surprises too.

Manta and barracuda at Cape Kri, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

In December 2025 I was back on Damai 2 liveaboard for a week diving the classic Raja Ampat Misool and Waigeo route, departing and returning to the port of Sorong.

December is squarely in Raja’s peak dive season October to April, with the best chance of good weather and calm seas.

Below is a quick chronological overview of most of the sites we dived. There’s more photos and details of each dive site on its own dedicated page.

Andiamo

Bumphead parrotfish at Andiamo, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Andiamo is a varied site in the Daram area that combines ridge, slope and pinnacle diving in one — key highlight on this dive was a sudden encounter with a school of bumphead parrotfish who were coming the opposite way along the slope and were almost as surprised as us.

Candy Store

Soft coral at Candy Store, Daram, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Candy Store lives up to its name — wall, slope and swimthrough sections draped in soft coral in vivid reds and greens with ribbons of glassfish constantly shifting formation over the reef. A swimthrough at two metres surrounded by soft corals gives the site its name, although we were more preoccupied with the very friendly batfish hanging around it.

Boo Window

Boo Window, Misool, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

One of Misool’s most iconic dives — a natural archway cut through the rock that opens into a coral-draped slope teeming with fish activity on both sides. We spotted a good size green turtles just along from the window, and the reef deeper along the wall from the window had some great coral and with patrolling midnight snappers. We dived early morning while rain passed by, so it was dark and dramatic down there.

Magic Mountain

Pink soft coral, Magic Mountain, Misool, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Magic Mountain is a large submerged seamount in Misool that functions as a manta ray cleaning station — although I’ve never really had much luck seeing more than a manta fly by here. On this time we got lucky – a small manta cruised in, more white than black, although no shots as it looked skittish. The seamount itself is richly encrusted with soft corals and fans – down deep there were sharks and banner fish spotted.

Nudi Rock

Hard coral at Nudi Rock, Misool, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Lots of current on this dive with a bit of downcurrent in places so proceeded very gingerly along the wall. Nudi Rock is always a solid site for some lovely hard corals – there are some beautiful bommies which are great for photos as the corals all crust together. It’s called Nudi Rock not because it has a lot of nudis but because on the surface, it does, in fact, look like a nudibranch.

Four Kings

Sunburst through the fish school, Four Kings, Misool © [email protected]

Four Kings is a superb pinnacle dive in Misool with incredibly rich encrusted corals and the kind of fish action — jacks, angelfish, dense schools streaming over the structure — that makes you lose track of how much air you have left. The wedge-shaped bommie at the front end is particularly dramatic, with fish pouring over it from all sides on any current at all.

Mapon Marse

Fish racing over the reef, Mapon Marse, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Mapon Marse is a pinnacle dive in the Fiabacet area where the bommies are absolutely smothered in glassfish — so dense in places that you can’t see what’s behind them. Clownfish, yellow snappers and fast-moving schools of fish over the reef make this a thoroughly busy dive from the moment you descend.

Wagmab Wall

Sardines at Wagmab Wall, Farondi, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Wagmab Wall in the Farondi area delivered one of the most spectacular sardine shows of the trip — millions of them moving as one organism through the shallows and down into the blue, forming balls, ribbons and columns that shifted shape constantly. It’s the kind of thing you describe to non-divers and they simply don’t believe you.

The Swarm

Fusiliers over the bommie, The Swarm, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

The Swarm is a seamount in the Fam area that lives up to its name — fusiliers in their tens of thousands circling the bommies, barrel sponges and plate corals in a constant, relentless stream. There’s interesting stuff to look at down at the base too, with crayfish tucked into the reef structure below all the noise above.

Melissa’s Garden

Glassfish among coral, Melissa’s Garden, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Melissa’s Garden in the Penemu area is a hard coral garden on a sloping reef — it is spectacularly pretty, with usually excellent viz. The fantastic, dense reef makes for a million hiding places for marine life – a wobbegong tucked under a ledge, a crayfish wedged in among the coral heads and glassfish hanging in golden clouds over the staghorn tables. We also saw several black tip sharks patrolling over the reef. Always a joy to dive.

My Reef

Sunburst through fish school, My Reef, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

My Reef blew my mind when I dived it back in 2023 and my return visit didn’t disappoint. It feels a bit like going to an IMAX cinema – you’re hovering in the blue over the reef around 10 metres with nothing going on and then suddenly the current shifts up a gear and the blue is filled with hundreds of fish racing past you. Absolutely frenetic.

Manta Ridge

Manta with pilot fish, Manta Ridge, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Manta Ridge in the Dampier Strait is one of the most reliable manta sites in Raja Ampat — a sloping hard coral reef where mantas cruise in close over the reef top, often with pilot fish in attendance. We saw a couple of small mantas on scuba, but it was the members of our group who elected to go snorkel who had the best encounters as the mantas decided to stay at the surface.

Mayhem

Fish surge over the reef at Mayhem, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Mayhem is a seamount in Yangefo that absolutely earns its name — a massive baitball of fish circling the structure with Napoleon wrasse moving through the middle of it like they own the place. This is sensory overload diving at its most intense – absolutely bonkers.

Cape Kri

Sweetlips school at Cape Kri, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

As soon as we got in the water we spotted barracuda so went down to find them, only for a manta ray to shoot overhead up in the shallows. It set the tone for an epic dive that was Cape Kri in full effect, fish and sharks shooting back and forth along the steep slope of the site, and the big school of sweetlips waiting patiently down at 35 metres for visitors. Following on from Mayhem and My Reef, it felt like we were really hitting the sweet spot of Raja diving.

Blue Magic

Fish explosion at Blue Magic, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

Blue Magic is one of the Dampier Strait’s most celebrated seamounts — a site where manta rays are regularly encountered alongside awesome fish action – it didn’t disappoint with some close encounters with a manta ray circling around one end of the seamount with a big school of jacks out in the blue.

Lau Lau

Manta ray at Lau Lau, Dampier Strait, Raja Ampat © [email protected]

The final dive of the trip, and an absolute banger. Lau Lau is another seamount similar topographically to Blue Magic, and our luck held – another manta ray showed up, coming even closer than the one at Blue Magic. Amongst the corals at the other end of the site, a wobbegong shark broke cover and lazily swam out across the reef before picking a new spot to settle down.

Raja Ampat Liveaboard Damai 2 December 2025 Dive List