Raja Ampat Liveaboard Diving Guide

Raja Ampat has more fish species than any other reef area because it sits where Pacific and Indian Ocean currents meet, at the centre of the Coral Triangle, on a mix of habitats that ranges from mangroves to deep walls. Survey teams have recorded more than 1,600 reef fish species across the Bird's Head Seascape and more than 550 species of hard coral, roughly three quarters of the world's known reef-building corals.

Currents carry larvae across the region and nutrients onto the reefs. The islands also shelter an unusual range of environments within a few kilometres: blue-water pinnacles, sheltered lagoons, mangrove channels where corals grow in murky, low-light water, and seagrass beds. Each holds its own set of species.

Protection matters too. Shark finning and destructive fishing were banned across the regency in 2010, and the marine protected areas are patrolled with local community rangers. The result is that sharks and large fish are common on dives, which is not the case on many reefs in Asia.

Raja Ampat is one of the few places where both reef and oceanic mantas are seen regularly. Reef mantas gather at cleaning stations such as Manta Sandy near Arborek and Manta Ridge, while the larger oceanic mantas cruise past pinnacles like Blue Magic and Magic Mountain.

Researchers have photo-identified hundreds of individual reef mantas in the region, and work like theirs helped persuade Indonesia to protect manta rays nationally in 2014. Divers are asked to stay low, behind any marked lines, and never to swim directly above a manta at a cleaning station. The article on whether manta rays are dangerous explains manta behaviour and encounter etiquette.