If you’re considering a Raja Ampat Snorkeling Tour, your mind is in the right place. There’s no place quite like Raja Ampat in the world. It’s the epicenter for marine life biodiversity; as such, you’ll find that over the course of your snorkel tour you will have snorkeled over and alongside more species of reef and fish than anywhere else in the world! All of this underwater awesomeness is only complemented by the surreal topside beauty that Raja Ampat has also become famous for!
Before you book your Raja Ampat snorkel tour, though, there are a few things you’ll want to take into consideration; for example, it’s a good idea to understand just how massive Raja Ampat is—approximately 46,000 square kilometers or 29,000 square miles—with the north and south offering very different snorkeling experiences. You’ll also want to decide how you’d like to snorkel in Raja Ampat, by which I mean: would you rather do so from a snorkel liveaboard or from a snorkel resort, which again will impact your final decision. If this all seems a bit more decision-making than you expected, not to worry, we’re going to break down all these different aspects so you can be sure you’ve made the correct decision for your next Raja Ampat snorkeling tour.
The North of Raja Ampat – Dampier Strait and Fam Islands
Where snorkeling is concerned, the north tends to offer a bit more diversity when it comes to types of snorkeling sites. You of course the have the iconic limestone islands characteristic of Raja Ampat with their classic mushroom shape, but you also have stunning mangroves that seem to grow right out of the reefs in clear blue water, a few places where mantas come to feed and clean, and several different villages whose large wooden piers or jetties have become the perfect safe haven for large schools of fish to take refuge from the predatory pelagic fish. Around some of the limestone islands, you’ll find that the natural erosion has created some pretty fascinating underwater topography where parts of the island have been worn away, forming small caverns, and in a few places, fun swim-throughs or windows. Thanks to the mushroom shape of many of the islands, you’re likely to find colonies of vibrant soft coral and sea fans growing just beneath the surface.
As the north of Raja Ampat has considerably more habitable land, there are more resorts and homestays in the area. You’re also likely to see more liveaboards as well, since the smaller, more budget liveaboards tend to run their tours in the north, as they don’t have the fuel capacity to make it to the south of Raja Ampat, Misool. What we’re trying to say here is that you’ll see more tourism in this area. That being said, it’s still quite minimal, and as snorkelers, we don’t really need to worry about this because the majority of the boats and resorts are catering to divers, so we won’t be meeting them on the reefs, and most of the sites we visit on our snorkeling tours are snorkeling sites and not dive sites.
Snorkel Resort Experience in the North with Papua Explorers
If you’re considering snorkeling the north of Raja Ampat from a resort, then we can’t recommend Papua Explorers enough, which is in the heart of the Dampier Strait. They are a fantastic resort that knows how to cater to snorkelers exceptionally well.
We’ve been running our snorkeling tours in Raja Ampat with Papua Explorers for years and can’t recommend them enough. From their beautiful over-water bungalows to the exceptional house reef to the delicious food and just the general atmosphere they’ve cultivated, there’s no other resort we’d even consider in the north. Papua Explorers is perfectly situated so that transfer times to Raja Ampat’s top snorkeling sites in the north are anywhere from five to thirty minutes at most. They can even access the Fam Islands and Pianemo via a day trip, which only takes about an hour each way.
The South of Raja Ampat – Misool
Snorkeling around Misool, which is what the south of Raja Ampat is known as, offers a slightly different experience. First of all, the islands around Misool are largely uninhabited, and except for Misool Resort, you won’t find any other resorts or homestays, which is nice as you won’t find too many other people around. You will, however, see a few liveaboards. Just like the north, though, most of the boats are carrying divers, so you won’t have to worry about crowded sites at all.
Misool is made up almost entirely of karst limestone islands, and as a result, the area doesn’t have the same diversity of snorkeling sites as the north. For example, there aren’t any of the village piers/jetties or mangroves like in the north. That being said, there is no shortage of amazing snorkeling sites by any means; it’s just that most of the sites are characterized by a shallow plateau covered in a mixture of hard and soft corals which eventually falls away into gentle slopes, walls, and ridges as you get further away from the island.
The area also has a number of really cool swim-throughs and an amazing channel between two islands, which make for an exciting snorkeling experience! There are even a few spots where both reef and oceanic mantas can be spotted cleaning! Also, because nearly all the islands in Misool have that abrupt undercut at the waterline, it offers snorkelers the perfect vantage point for exploring the colorful soft coral colonies that love the shady areas of the reef.
Snorkel Resort Experience in the South with Misool Resort
As Misool Resort is the only resort in the south of Raja Ampat, there’s not a whole lot of options to choose from as snorkel resorts go. Luckily, Misool Resort is one of the nicest resorts to snorkel from in all of Indonesia, and some might say the world. The whole experience is truly surreal, from the stunning accommodation, the delicious meals curated by their chefs, all the different activities available, to the absolutely amazing and expansive house reef; there’s no place quite like it. From Misool Resort, you can access some of the best Misool snorkel sites with a five- to thirty-minute boat ride.
If we’ve made picking a resort or region of Raja Ampat to snorkel difficult, why not do both with our Raja Ampat & Misool Snorkel Safari, which combines stops in both Papua Explorers in the north and Misool Resort in the south!
Liveaboards
We also offer Raja Ampat snorkel tours via liveaboard, which is another fantastic opportunity to explore the many different islands and regions of Raja Ampat. The liveaboard snorkel experience is very different than the resort-based experience. As you’re on a luxurious moving vessel, you will have the opportunity to explore the other incredible reefs that the resorts aren’t able to reach.
The resorts, on their normal snorkeling itineraries, only really have the ability to go a max of 30 minutes from the resort. Not only that, but in one liveaboard trip you’ll have the ability to experience what it’s like to snorkel in the north of Raja Ampat, while also being able to snorkel in the south around Misool. That’s one of the very beautiful things about liveaboards: while you’re dining and relaxing onboard between snorkels, the boat is moving, which means you’re always entering new territory, with short transfers to the reefs from the main vessel via their smaller tender boats. Transfer times from the main vessel range from a minute to five at most. We currently work with two different liveaboards for our Raja Ampat snorkeling trips; these include the Coralia and the Coralia Dua, their second boat, which is just finishing being built at the time of writing this, and we have plans to start running tours on this stunning boat as soon as it’s up and running.
Final Thoughts
There’s really no wrong way to snorkel around Raja Ampat; it all comes down to your personal preference in accommodation and what you’d like to experience on your Raja Ampat snorkeling trip. Whether it’s by resort or liveaboard, you’ll thoroughly enjoy your time in the water. Once again, Raja Ampat is an absolutely massive area, and there’s no real way to fully cover it in one go, even by liveaboard.
I used to live in Raja Ampat on a liveaboard for five years, snorkeling and diving it every day, and still visit it multiple times a year with our different Snorkel Venture tours, and I’m still finding new areas I’ve never been to before. What I’m trying to say is, you better plan on visiting it multiple times because the area just has so much to offer, and every trip is completely different than the next!
