Valentina Serrazanetti – Project Manager
I joined the Raja family once again just a month ago, and as always, this jungle immediately feels like home, embracing me with open arms and a warm heart. This initial period in the Raja Ampat project has been filled with beautiful experiences, from an ocean thriving with plankton to the manta season revealing its stunning beauty.
Our current group of interns is growing together every day, pushing themselves to improve with each dive. They are spreading the energy of a shared, deep passion for the ocean and its health, becoming more eager to learn and engage in all our activities.
From dive master development to research projects, all the interns are constantly ready to get involved, asking questions to deepen their understanding of the marine environment and how to help others see its wonders.
Some of our recent graduates are poised for bright futures in ocean conservation. For instance, Kerem has become an excellent dive master. He has consistently shown remarkable proactivity and has developed the empathy, patience, and knowledge necessary to guide divers and share his strong passion for ocean conservation. This was not his first conservation role, and with his background in marine biology, he is now embarking on his Instructor Course. We are hopeful for future collaboration with him.
Another impressive student who recently left us, with a few tears, was Hannah. She has grown into an outstanding dive professional and will soon work as a whale guide in Tonga, raising awareness about these magnificent creatures.
At present, we are fortunate to have some incredible individuals contributing to our science efforts and training to become certified dive masters. Izzy, who comes from a veterinary background, is always eager to learn more about the ocean. She is currently preparing for her Instructor Course to share her passion for the sea with the world.
Our students face daily challenges and consistently prove themselves to be extraordinary individuals. They are always fostering a sense of family and collaboration, creating valuable and beautiful moments together.
For Christmas, we organized a large barbecue with the amazing crew of Scuba Republic—a wonderful occasion for everyone to connect across cultures, cooking, singing, and laughing together.
We frequently share precious moments, from stunning sunsets at the jetty to playing card games at the beautiful new bar built by Scuba Republic, where we often gather to play guitar and sing Indonesian songs.
The magic of this jungle casts its spell on everyone who comes here, teaching us important life values and reminding us of the beauty of having a family to rely on in such a remote and special place.
Riccardo Zini – Program Coordinator
Since October 2024, we have welcomed 15 new interns. Abdul, the taxi driver, and Scuba Republic have been a great help in organizing their pick-ups from Sorong airport. The first day for the students is very important to help them understand ‘jungle life‘ and the program in detail. We provide them with plenty of information on how to make the most of their time here.
The management at Scuba Republic has completely changed since Dana left, and now Duan and Lea are in charge of collaborating with us. They have built a new equipment area exclusively for the Indo Ocean Project, and we now have our own private space to store and dry our dive equipment. Duan has also decided to build a new bar next to the jetty, and to be honest, I really like it! This area provides space for everyone to chill and share moments together, even between students and Scuba Republic customers.
We are now diving with two new boats: the Flying Fish and the small Safari boat, as our large ‘kapal besar‘ needed to be repaired in Waisai. As the name suggests, the Flying Fish is a quick boat, and we can also use it to reach places like Arborek in a short time! The high season has started, with many customers at the resort, and we’ve had our first sightings of mantas underwater, especially at Blue Magic and Lao Lao Pinnacle.
The weather is a bit more rainy compared to the monsoon season, but not too much. Navigation is easier now, with low swell and local winds, and the surface is usually flat. We experienced a few weeks of poor visibility due to the plankton season, but over the last month, it has improved again, reaching between 15 and 25 meters.
Sadly, the Dampier Strait area is currently experiencing widespread coral bleaching, especially at Yenbuba dive site, our favorite Coral ID site, which is suffering a lot.
During our days off, many students want to dive more, and they all really enjoyed the trip to Arborek. We took them diving with Githa (the owner of the Arborek dive shop) multiple times, and they were able to see many mantas at the cleaning station there. Githa could also potentially be helpful for the Indo Ocean Project, as she expressed interest in collaborating with us on science dives in her area. She specifically mentioned BRUV (Baited Remote Underwater Video) dives, as I told Pascal. She is protecting a local ‘secret’ dive site close to the island, which is a cleaning station for oceanic mantas, with support from the local government.
Other interesting activities we did during our free time included visiting Saporkreng and snorkeling at the beach near the village. The community visit with Maxs and Lois was also very successful—the students appreciated the time spent with the Papuan children at the school. I am also trying to help students organize trips around the archipelago after their internship, sharing contacts, good dive shops, and places to stay to enhance their travel experience.
In the last three months, we certified 15 new Divemasters and conducted 46 Divemaster workshops. For leading dives and tides, I introduced a quick explanation of the large pinnacles we have here, to help students better understand the topography of these
expansive dive sites and the current directions there. We are always teaching them techniques to improve their buoyancy, even during drift dives, and different kicking techniques to avoid touching the reef. Many of them also want to improve their skills with the SMB, so we start practicing it together from the checkout dive. We always try to have them assist in courses and with certified divers as much as we can, and by the end of the program, they should have led at least 7-8 dives with us.
Since October 2024, we have completed 23 citizen science dives and uploaded 81 new species to iNaturalist. We are a bit behind on entering Unite data, but our smart intern Isabella is uploading the last two months’ data to the laptop very quickly!
Lois Alberto Sitohang – Research Assistant/Jr Marine Biologist
Since October 2024, we have been conducting bi-monthly Dive Against Debris events. These dives take place at the Scuba Republic House Reef and Upside Down, a nearby pinnacle.
The activities are shore dives, with participants gathering on the deck for a briefing before each dive. The equipment used includes mesh bags, gloves, and knives. Each dive lasts up to 60 minutes, after which the collected waste is weighed using a measuring instrument and sorted into categories.
The data from these activities is uploaded to diveagainstdebris.org via PADI AWARE. In October, we collected 0.38 kg of waste, in November 0.51 kg, and in December 0.47 kg. The events have consistently gone smoothly without any issues or accidents. So far not too many trash that we can found during diving.
We also organized a beach cleanup around the Scuba Republic. All participants wore IOP t-shirts, brought trash bags, gloves, and booties. The meeting point was on the deck, where a briefing took place before the cleanup.
The primary focus was on collecting non-biodegradable waste such as plastic, metal, and fabric. The cleanup occurred during the day, and despite the hot weather, participants remained enthusiastic. Both the land area and intertidal zones were covered, with the cleanup always scheduled during low tide.
Occasionally, local children, local staff, guest, and residents join in, assisting with trash collection and providing additional trash bags. Afterward, the collected waste is weighed using a measuring tool and sorted by category. A group photo is taken at the end of each session.
Although no beach cleanup was conducted in July, two cleanups were carried out in October and December, with 18.87 kg and 50.8 kg of waste collected, respectively. This activity will continue monthly, with plans to expand the coverage area.
Benthic surveys are conducted monthly, using a combination of cameras, torches, and PVC pipe structures to assess the seafloor environment. In Raja Ampat, these surveys were performed 8 times in October, 8 times in November, and 9 times in December, providing consistent data on the benthic ecosystem’s health and changes over time. Each survey plays a crucial role in monitoring the area’s biodiversity and informing conservation efforts.
Maxs Marten – Marine Biologist
Over the past three months, the situation in Raja Ampat has been very dynamic and fluctuating. Since the end of October, the rainfall intensity has increased significantly, causing more runoff into the waters. This influx of organic material has made the water murkier, with a rise in plankton, which has attracted Marine Megafauna like Mantas and Whales. It was on October 22 at the Sauwandarek dive site that IOP interns and staff first encountered a manta, a young melanistic reef manta, passing in front of the team as we performed a safety stop. From mid-November through early January, sightings of Mantas, Mobula rays, and Whales became increasingly frequent around the waters of Raja Ampat, with locations like Lao-lao Pinnacle, Blue Magic, Batu Lima, Kri, and Sardine Reef offering a higher chance of encountering these magnificent creatures.
For IOP, Lao-lao Pinnacle was the first location where we encountered an Oceanic Manta, and from there, sightings continued to grow, extending from Blue Magic to Sardine Reef. We also started spotting more Shorthorn pigmy devil rays at sites like Batu Lima, Cape Kri, Yenbuba, and even at the House Reef. On January 13, we were fortunate enough to witness a Balaenoptera whale breaching at Sardine Reef before and after our dives. While I’m not entirely sure whether it was a Bryde’s or an Omura’s Whale, Riccardo believes it was an Omura whale, based on his earlier sighting during a boat ride from Arborek. Just a few days ago, I had a surreal experience while having an online meeting with the IOP marine biology team. As I sat at the bar at Scuba Republic, I looked out at the sea and saw a Balaenoptera whale breaching 15-20 times, just 200-250 meters in front of the jetty.
Sadly, the coral ecosystems have been hit hard by a mass bleaching event in the Dampier Strait. Since early October, water temperatures have steadily risen, with temperatures ranging between 29.6°C and 30.4°C, sometimes even exceeding 31°C.
By October 17, I started noticing mass bleaching, especially with the Stylophora colonies in Mioskon, which turned completely white. Over the next few weeks, more coral species began to bleach, initially with partial bleaching, followed by complete whitening.
Acropora, Diploastrea, Goniopora, Pachyseris, and Galaxea were among the hard coral species affected. The largest and most obvious bleaching occurred around the foliose coral area in front of the Yenbuba jetty, which is made up mainly of two genera, Pachyseris and Echinopora. These genera likely share a similar resilience to rising water temperatures. Some species like Porites, Isopora, Seriatopora, and Tubastrea seem to have shown more resistance to the bleaching event, likely due to their better adaptation to warmer waters.
It’s been heartbreaking to witness the impact on the coral nursery as well, where over 600 nubbins bleached and completely died. However, in the past three weeks, water temperatures have started to improve, and we’ve seen temperatures drop below 30°C, often hovering between 28.6°C and 28.9°C. During a recent dive at Yenbuba, I noticed some colonies starting to regain their color, a hopeful sign that they are beginning to host zooxanthellae once again. I truly hope the situation continues to improve
In addition to the condition of the ecosystem here, I will also talk about the activities of IOP interns that I have accompanied. IOP really needs the help of interns to carry out several routine scientific dives, such as roving surveys to observe the dynamics of fish populations, benthic surveys to monitor benthic cover, and BRUV surveys to observe the dynamics of apex predators like moray eels, sharks, turtles, and manta rays.
To become a survey diver, the biggest challenge for interns is passing the live test, where they must correctly identify and write the names of 80 images of marine creatures within 20 seconds each. They get five attempts to pass, and if they fail five times, they have to repeat the species ID workshop. Some people have excellent picture memory and may pass on their first attempt, while most will pass on the second or third. However, by the fourth or fifth test, the pressure and fatigue can be overwhelming, but I remind them that it’s all about repetition—if I’m good at something, it’s because I’ve practiced it frequently.
The benthic surveys require good buoyancy control, as you need to maintain a distance of no more than 20 cm between the benthic structure and the substrate. In addition to checking your camera screen, you also need to monitor your dive computer to ensure you’re staying within the correct depth. For BRUV surveys, the challenge increases when the moon is near full or new, as the currents are stronger at these times. These strong currents can submerge the SMB BRUV, making the retrieval process more difficult. Despite these challenges, I promise that all of these scientific activities are incredibly rewarding and offer invaluable experiences for those in the Dive Master program.
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