Hi there,
Sorry for the delay in sending the report from our recent Raja Ampat trip. I’d meant to do this earlier but work obligations caught up with me since my return. I also wanted to use this note as a reminder that we have a Komodo snorkelling holiday in July. Our trips are specially designed for snorkellers … if you wish to dive, you can of course. The divers we get tend to relish the chance to be in a tiny group, usually less than 6 people. But on the whole these days, we’re 75%+ snorkelling.
I’ve assembled some information about Komodo here: https://wildiaries-travel.com/en/komodo. There’s also a page about our tall ship and the cabins, which are spacious, comfortable and have their own ensuite and air-con. I’m proud to have be chosen to work with Pindito which is still pioneering expeditions in eastern Indonesia after 30 years. On almost every trip, we visit places we’ve never been before and our flexible itinerary makes for the most incredible wildlife encounters.
Komodo 2024 Trip Report
Komodo is a thrilling place to snorkel. Unlike Raja Ampat, which is like tropical rainforest, Komodo is more like the African savannah. It’s a place where fish and other marine life are bountiful and diverse. There are rolling underwater plains covered in Unicornfish, large schools of Jackfish, whales, dolphins, Manta Rays and Whale Sharks. Last year, all the snorkelers were even in the water multiple times with Manta Rays. The year before they were scarce (that’s nature) but instead we saw pods of Sperm Whales, Melon-headed Whales and Risso’s Dolphins.
Every year we swim with whale sharks, an experience quite unlike anything you might imagine. We tend to think of Ningaloo, where spotted planes find sharks, then boats zoom in and drop swimmers in for as long as they can keep up. Where we go, the sharks are resident and they swim around us.
There are two cabins still available and I would like to extend an invitation to come along. We have an absolutely lovely group of guests already booked, many of whom are returning from previous trips. Plus, I’ve got an offer on at the moment which fixes the $US exchange rate more favourably and I’m giving the first repeater discount to anyone who books before the end of April.
Raja Ampat Trip Report, Feb 2025
This was the first of our Raja Ampat trips for 2025. What made this trip unique was the eclectic group of people. From day one (when we were in the hotel in Sorong) everyone was getting on like a house on fire. It just got better and better.
And this trip delivered with spades, as they all do. One of the highlights was having an Oceanic Manta Ray swim past our snorkelers! This hasn’t happened in 8 years of trips. Later on we all got to watch Mantas at cleaning stations, which was lovely. As usual, later in the trip, the snorkelers and divers (of which there were four) realised that they’d seen more or less the same things, while each party had had their own unique encounters. It’s always that way. The FOMO gets the best of everyone at the start but in the end, everyone shares the same level of experience.
Omura’s Whales
Another highlight was watching rare Omura’s Whales feeding at sunset … twice! I first saw these off Australia in the early 2000s before the first scientific paper that ‘discovered’ them in the wild off Africa. This species was only described this century and is now a regular sighting in eastern Indonesia and beyond. They are relatively small compared to the other tropical baleen whales (Bryde’s Whales) and hurl themselves through schools of fish.
The sea conditions were perfect, so we jumped in the zodiacs and headed near to where they were feeding. All we had to do was drift with the engine off and wait, which was sublime.
Best wishes,
Simon.
