So you want to go somewhere wildly different but cannot afford to book a Virgin Galactic flight? Never mind. Plenty of extraordinary otherworldly action happens right under the waves, in the seas of Asia.
Diving Southeast Asia co-author David Espinosa expresses particular passion for the Raja Ampat area in West Papua. The area’s reefs are the most beautiful Espinosa has seen in 20 years of diving.
‘They're what I imagine the rest of Asia's reefs looked like 50 years ago,’ he says. Find out where else in the eastern hemisphere to flip your fins and gawk in wonder. Espinosa pinpoints some of Asia’s most dazzling undersea haunts.
1. Cannibal Rock, Komodo, Indonesia
Some of Espinosa’s greatest diving memories come from working in Komodo on a live-aboard for four years. The diving in southern Komodo, on and around a site called Cannibal Rock, is remarkable, he says. He adds that Cannibal Rock has some of the best invertebrate life in Southeast Asia and – along the outer walls – big fish and gorgeous coral. Other attractions include pygmy seahorse, forests of lime-green whip coral ferns plus green turtles.
2. The Passage, Raja Ampat, West Papua, eastern Indonesia
Espinosa describes the West Papuan diving zone Raja Ampat as ‘probably the best diving in my life’. He adds that Raja Ampat has become the most popular dive site he knows, with dozens of live-aboards and several resorts. ‘The reefs are so chock-a-block with life that it's difficult to decide where to look,’ he says. One site has ‘dozens’ of manta rays.
But the most famous and fertile site in Raja Ampat’s waters lies between two small islands, Gam and Waigeo. Espinosa raves about the site simply called the Passage. For a start, he says, just riding with the current in the Passage is fun. He adds that the Passage’s edges ‘are pocked with stunning caves and grottoes’. Then there are ‘weird critters’ like archerfish, and soft corals that grow to within centimeters of the surface where they are met by dangling tree branches. ‘Truly unique.’
3. Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi, Indonesia
Lembeh Strait is the strangest diving destination in Southeast Asia. Lembeh is known for hosting the world’s most bizarre collection of weird and wonderful critters. Watch out for ‘hairy’ frogfish, which are covered in fine hair-like tendrils, plus hairy octopus among other aquatic animals. ‘And it's not just these weirdos that get people excited,’ Espinosa says. There are hundreds of species of nudibranch on Lembeh – many at a cove called the Nudi Retreat – plus ‘crazy crabs’ and seahorses. Standout oddballs include the spectacular 'wunderpus' and mimic octopus. The mimic apes the behaviour and colour of other species of marine life like flounders, those flower-like living fossils called crinoids, and sea snakes.
4. Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia
Bali has one particularly ‘gorgeous’ shipwreck off Tulamben: a fishing village on its north-east coast, says Espinosa. The wreck – the Liberty, a US Army Transport ship torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1942 – languishes just offshore. During high-season, up to 100 divers explore the Liberty daily. With a little luck you can see the giant fish that fixates divers, the whale shark, plus another biggie: the jellyfish-gobbling mola mola, aka the ocean sunfish – the heaviest known bony fish in the world.
More beautiful coral, big fish:
Southeast Asia’s beauty is that it has far more than just one big undersea attraction, says Espinosa. Thailand’s Similans have a feature site called Richelieu Rock, which lures mantas and whale sharks. In the Philippines at Davao, snorkelers can swim with whale sharks.
Meantime, the Maldives has too many manta and whale shark sites to list. Then there are Sabah Malaysia's eastern islands – the world-famous Sipadan, and Mabul, which are Malaysia's answer to Indonesia's Lembeh Strait.
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