Finally! After months of receiving your stunning images, we’ve closed the 2026 Snorkel Venture Friendly Photo Competition, and we’ve declared a winner! This was an extremely tough choice, as the quality of the photos we received was top-notch. Nonetheless, we were able to carefully select our winner, who will be walking away with a $500 voucher for their next snorkeling tour with us. The other well-deserved placeholders will receive some of our new Snorkel for Good merch! 1st Place: Marilyn Stacey Location: Cenderawasih Bay, Indonesia Camera: Olympus TG-7 Judges Comments: This photo of two whale sharks feeding beneath the bags in Cenderawasih Bay, Indonesia, is not only a technical achievement, but it beautifully portrays the relationship between the bagan fishermen and the whale sharks in one stunning photo. To be able to split the waterline with the small size of the Olympus TG-7 Camera’s lens is a feat in its own right, but to frame it so beautifully with two whale sharks, the bagan, and the fishermen is just unreal! 2nd Place: Paul Gibbard Location: Alor, Indonesia Camera: Olympus TG-7 Judges Comments: Ahhh, the beauty of a muck snorkel! This photo is the epitome of what muck snorkeling is all about. When a few old mooring lines become a suspended reef that then turns into the hunting grounds for ambush predators, such as this white warty frogfish, who is surrounded by a cloud of razor fish. We absolutely love the slow burn of this photo. The longer you look at it, the more it reveals. The composition is just perfect! 3rd Place: Gary Narcowich Location: Togian Islands (Jellyfish Lake), Indonesia Camera: Nikon Coolpix W300 Judges Comments: This is a truly surreal photo that perfectly captures the experience and beauty of snorkeling amongst thousands of stingless jellyfish in one of Indonesia’s
Finally! After months of receiving your stunning images, we’ve closed the 2026 Snorkel Venture Friendly Photo Competition, and we’ve declared a winner! This was an extremely tough choice, as the quality of the photos we received was top-notch. Nonetheless, we were able to carefully select our winner, who will be walking away with a $500
Our Snorkel Guide Amy Vankanan joins us to talk about her recent trips through Indonesia's Raja Ampat and even reveals her favorite resort, Papua Explorers, in the north of Raja Ampat. Amy's a fantastic photographer, so we of course dive deep into photography gear and techniques for those just starting out in their underwater photo endeavors. We get a surprise call from another Snorkel Venture guide before wrapping things up with Amy's wetsuit tips for those who run a bit cold in the water. Then Amy reveals her blunt opinion on my carefully crafted cocktails, which is far from complimentary. Listen to it on Spotify here!
Our Snorkel Guide Amy Vankanan joins us to talk about her recent trips through Indonesia’s Raja Ampat and even reveals her favorite resort, Papua Explorers, in the north of Raja Ampat. Amy’s a fantastic photographer, so we of course dive deep into photography gear and techniques for those just starting out in their underwater photo
People often ask about snorkeling in Komodo versus snorkeling in Raja Ampat, wanting to know which one is better. The honest truth is that one is not better than the other. These are two of Indonesia’s most prolific marine protected areas where you’ll find more species of fish and corals than anywhere else in the world. Not only that, but Raja Ampat and Komodo are known to hold some of the largest populations of reef mantas in Indonesia and the world. Raja Ampat and Komodo are two very different regions of Indonesia, separated by over a thousand miles of ocean and just as many islands, with each area housing drastically different environments above and below the tidelines. So, rather than breaking it down into which one is better for snorkeling, I’ll simply give you my comparison and contrast in terms of the snorkeling experience. Here we go! Komodo & Raja Ampat Similarities Reefs and Marine Life Komodo and Raja Ampat are often put up against one another because they are two of Indonesia’s most popular snorkeling destinations. The reason Komodo and Raja Ampat have become so popular with snorkelers is that these two regions contain such an abundance and diversity of marine life that explodes from the stunning shallow coral reefs. When you snorkel in Raja Ampat or Komodo, you can be sure that you’ll encounter vibrant coral reefs, which are full of all your favorite reef fish, and larger fish too, like different types of jack fish, barracudas, Napoleon wrasse, bumphead parrotfish, batfish, and schools of fusiliers. Those encounters are sort of the staple snorkeling experience in both Raja Ampat and Komodo. Depending on the site, you can also have encounters with reef sharks like white-tip and black-tip, green and hawksbill sea turtles, and even manta rays. While
People often ask about snorkeling in Komodo versus snorkeling in Raja Ampat, wanting to know which one is better. The honest truth is that one is not better than the other. These are two of Indonesia’s most prolific marine protected areas where you’ll find more species of fish and corals than anywhere else in the
The Banda Sea is a large, semi-circular body of water that lies northeast of Alor and runs up to the Seram Islands just south of Raja Ampat’s Misool. The western part of the Banda Sea is open to the Flores Sea. At the same time, the eastern border of the Banda Sea is fringed by an arching chain of islands, atolls, and numerous semi-active volcanoes, commonly referred to as the Forgotten Islands. It is this chain of volcanic islands that gives the Banda Sea one of its more popular monikers, The Ring of Fire. The Banda Sea is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting bodies of water in all of Indonesia. As you can see from the map, many different seas border the Banda Sea, like the Ceram Sea, Maluku, Flores, Timor, Arafuru, and the Aru Sea, all of which flow into the Banda Sea and deliver an abundance of nutrients that feed not only the corals but also the marine life, big and small. As a result, you can find more species of coral in the Banda Sea than you can see in Raja Ampat. Wakatobi, for example, in the western Banda Sea, has an estimated 750 coral species. Raja Ampat’s coral count is estimated at around 550. A quick teaser video from our last snorkel tour through the Banda Sea and Alor with the Mermaid II liveaboard Another aspect that makes the Banda Sea so special is its remarkable remoteness. Only a handful of tiny villages can be found on its islands, and with the exception of Wakatobi, which has had to build its own airstrip to comfortably and conveniently service its luxury resort, there aren’t any resorts in the area. The inaccessibility of the Banda Sea’s Islands has almost entirely spared the area from
The Banda Sea is a large, semi-circular body of water that lies northeast of Alor and runs up to the Seram Islands just south of Raja Ampat’s Misool. The western part of the Banda Sea is open to the Flores Sea. At the same time, the eastern border of the Banda Sea is fringed by
What Is A Split Shot? Also Known As A Half-half Or An Over-under Shot? Well, in the world of underwater photography, technically they’re a way to show the above world and the immediate underwater, all at once, and they’re a really fun way to let the viewer know what it is we do, all captured in the one image. A picture where the topside of the picture and the land or seascape is visible, but the bottom half of the view is the underwater reef scene. As travellers with Snorkel Venture, we’re very lucky to visit some of the most beautiful tropical paradises in the world. And I’ve always been fond of taking shots that show the viewer exactly what it is we do and where, so what better way than a split shot? It’s like two for the price of one click of the shutter. And the great news is that they’re easier and much less expensive to achieve than you may think. The Necessary Kit And Equipment. Being an underwater photographer, also teaching underwater photography workshops alongside my job as a Snorkel Venture guide, has meant that I have amassed a lot of expensive underwater photo kit over the years. My bigger camera, lenses, housing, and strobes come to more than $15-20K, and it allows me to do some extraordinary things with it, but aside from the price, it’s huge and costly to travel with. So it was a revelation that when I started doing more of the Snorkel Venture trips, I could leave it all at home and instead use exactly what the majority of our SV clients use, and that was, in the main either GoPros or similar or the seemingly ubiquitous Olympus Tough range, currently the Olympus TG7. Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical at
What Is A Split Shot? Also Known As A Half-half Or An Over-under Shot? Well, in the world of underwater photography, technically they’re a way to show the above world and the immediate underwater, all at once, and they’re a really fun way to let the viewer know what it is we do, all captured
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The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
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