Papua Explorers, located in the northern region of Raja Ampat has a great house reef accessible by your water bungalow at high tide, or the long jetty at any point of the day, no matter the position of the tide. The end of the jetty is right where the reef slopes off into deeper water and offers two different entry and exit points.
Each of these entry points has a ladder made from wooden poles that lead up to the platform above. The space between rungs on the house reef ladders are slightly further apart than your standard ladder. Each ladder extends about three to four feet into the water.
The reef is very long and offers lots of space to explore. In the shallow plateau area, you’ll notice that the hard coral sort of fade out and you’ll find more seagrass, sponges, and anemones. This is also a great place to look for juvenile blue spot stingrays and other weird benthic bottom dwellers like moray eels and scorpion fish.
As you move back towards the reef slope the coral picks up again and this is where you’re likely to find more of your reef dwellers, like crocodile fish, groups of soldierfish, more anemones, medium-sized giant clams, sea turtles, and even the odd wobbegong if you are lucky. Underneath the jetty is where all schools of fish collect, and pretty much live year-round. Around these pilings you’ll find large schools of batfish, jacks, diamond spade fish, sweet lips, and many lionfish.
On night snorkels there are very good chances of encountering walking sharks, moray eels, nudibranchs, basket stars, octopus, cuttlefish, and so much more!
While most of the time the currents are quite mild on the house reef, there can be times when the current can be a bit on the strong side, particularly on the reef slope. If we feel that the current is ever too strong we may ask you to hold off on a house reef snorkel as it can be a safety issue. This only happens for a few days around the full or new moon.
