Last leg of my Papuan tour onboard MSY Seahorse. Raja Ampat is a marine park. I'm not quite sure to what rules and to what extend they are enforced guard this area. All visitors are required to purchase and wear a badge to dive here.

Over here we started to see other liveaboards as well. I sighted "Pindito" and "Raja Ampat". I must say that both of the boats looked a bit tool tall ie. like house boats. The back of the them where built pretty high and to my estetic eye (regards to Dr. Tuisku) they looked a lot uglier than Seahorse with it's sleek and low scooner charasterictics.





As I'm able to write this only about a week post-my-trip, I'm going to be very brief with the last West Papua update. Raja Ampat is already pretty established are to dive in. I was told that in 2008 season, there will be 24 liveaboards operating in the area. Give or take, that's quite a few, competition is getting stiff. As I understand, not too many are *yet* chartering all the way down to Kaimana. I hope CI and other similar NGO's get to protect the Triton Bay area and set ground rules for sustainable tourism before lot of other arrive.

All in all a very pleasant trip thanks to the efforts of the crew and company of other guests. The boat was spanking new, so not running quite as smooth as Stardancer in PNG, but then again that was compensated easily in other areas. It's hard to go wrong with here
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Here we are, in Triton Bay. Only about four hour boat ride from Kaimana (MSY Seahorse speed, picture below). This is the place everyone keeps talking about when is comes to new species or marine biodiversity in general. I have the next five days to find out.
On a different note, Kaimana seems to be a difficult place to stock up on food and stuff. Our boat crew did their best to source things locally, but some foodstuff had to be flown in from Bali. Hopefully the shipment will arrive before we leave the area



In the evening of our first diving day, Richard, working with Conservation International and building a research station right here in Triton Bay. When completed, it will be able to service up to 16 researchers/conservationists at a time. Richard took the opportunity to tell us about the efforts in West Papua and Triton Bay in particular. I take the question local's are interested in: How to build sustainable marine tourism in the area. It's remote. There is very little (if any) scientific studies about the Bay, why is the water green rather than blue? How does is affect the marine life? The little I've seen so far is absolutely beautiful. Seems that the fish are on steroids. Huge Bumphead Parrotfish and Wrasses. We even spotted a tiger shark on surface in the morning of 2nd dive day.

As it is, many claim this area has the highest biodiversity on earth. I can believe that.

This time around it was very easy to get into the 'diving' again. I spent few days on dry land after Stardancer and off I go again. Very comfortable from the start. Thermal exposure will be between scratchy and 3mm. Water temperatures *should* be between 28 and 30c. As for the visibility... almost like asking about show conditions in the mountains, depends on who you ask. Our first day was perhaps 10 meter viz. Triton Bay should be at it's best in Jan-Feb in terms of visibility I was told.

My aim for this this is to take underwater photos and practise a bit more natural light photography. I'm using either 10.5 fisheye or 12-24 zoom and Dr. Mustard's "Magic Filter" with Hugyfot D80 housing. (Not sure If I've mentioned my setup earlier). On the boat we have very accomplished underwater photographers as guests as well. Namely Tim Rock and Felipe. To be honest Linda does not take bad pictures either and Alan&Barbara are making winning shots as well. Downside for me is that everyone seems to be using strobes and not natural light. I'm sure the next two weeks will be rich in photographs, I just hope few of mine will turn out good.

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Try this out in two days: Fly from Hoskins to Port Moresby to Brisbane to Singapore. Sleep six hours, do a bit of shopping and fly to Jakarta to Sorong to Makassar to Ambon to Fak Fak to Kaimana. 10 hops and the plane kept shrinking on the way. Good news is; I'm here and on my way to Triton bay.

I wrote the updates from PNG in Finnish and I decided to switch for the duration of West Papua. Fair? This ride is most propably with some serious UW photographers, so let's see what I can learn on the way. As the title suggests, getting to Kaimana was not easy, I'm hoping it's worth it I'll try to get to pictures sorted first, I still have few other blog entries as well.

It's been a while since my last update due to the remoteness of the West Papua. No connections for updates..
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