Kevin Raymond – Senior Instructor
Seven and a half months in, and Raja Ampat still finds ways to surprise me. I thought I’d hit a ceiling on wonder — that eventually the magic would plateau into something comfortable and ordinary. I was wrong. This place keeps reaching into its bag of tricks, and I keep falling for it.
On the house reef alone, we’ve had a season to remember. A shovelnose ray materialised out of the sand on a refresher dive — the kind of sighting that makes a student forget they’re supposed to be learning. A marble ray. A dugong, doing its slow and unbothered thing just off the jetty. A resident school of barracuda that hangs around like regulars at a café. Porcelain crabs nestled in their anemones, tiny and perfect. And nudibranchs — glorious nudibranchs — in every colour combination you can imagine. The house reef, which new arrivals sometimes underestimate, has been quietly having its best season.
Even more exciting is what Scuba Republic added to it. They sank one of their old safari boats just off the reef, and nature has wasted absolutely no time moving in. The wreck is already draped in glassfish that shimmer and shift like a living curtain, reducing the visibility to near-zero the closer you get. Nudibranchs and bubble snails dot the hull, and the bigger residents —like giant grouper and double-spotted queenfish — have clearly realised this is a very reliable buffet. There’s something poetic about watching a boat that once sailed these waters become part of the reef itself.
I’ll admit: I’ve done many of these dive sites nearly a hundred times now, and I wondered if that would start to dull things. It hasn’t. What I’ve found instead is that familiarity opens doors. When you stop trying to see everything for the first time, you start noticing differently — a new route, a shallower section of reef that hides more than you’d expect, a deeper ridge you’d always kicked past without stopping. The same sites keep unfolding. I think they always will.
We also had a wonderful visit from Pascal, our Scientific Director, who ran a coral course that was equal parts technical masterclass and infectious enthusiasm. Having a world-class coral expert break things down in person — with the actual reef just a giant stride away — is the kind of learning experience that sticks. Interns left that week looking at coral differently, and I think a few new passions were quietly ignited.
On the geeky side of things, I finally got around to something I’d been meaning to do for a while: a statistical deep-dive into our dive log data — 3,240 logged dives from 2022 to 2026. Crunching through patterns in visibility, current, trash, and more turned up some genuinely fascinating insights about the rhythms of this place. A lot of it confirmed things we already felt intuitively — that trash and currents peak seasonally, that visibility swings are tied to the upwelling — but there’s something enormously satisfying about seeing your gut feelings backed up by four years of data. Turns out the reef has been keeping records too.
This quarter also brought some heavy lifting of a more literal kind. One morning, a significant amount of trash washed up on the beach — the kind of sight that tightens your chest. We rolled up our sleeves and got to it, pulling out 442 kg of waste before the day was done. It’s always bittersweet, that kind of effort. Sad that it has to happen. Proud that it did.
The intern cohort this quarter has been a genuinely wonderful crew — people arriving from France, the USA, Portugal, Spain, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, India, Switzerland, and more. Among them, a handful of zero-to-hero students: people who arrived with zero dives and are pushing all the way to Divemaster. Watching that transformation up close, from nervous first breaths underwater to confidently leading dives is one of the greatest privileges of this job. To bet on yourself like that, and then deliver on it, is something to behold.
Life between dives and workshops has been anything but dull. Science talks, paint-and-sip nights, guacamole contests, evenings at the local pool hall in town, and even popsicle experiments (spicy margarita being a crowd favourite). The integration between interns, Scuba Republic staff, and guests has been one of the highlights of the quarter, daily volleyball games, shared meals, and a constant, loving battle over the speakers between Papuan music and whatever the western contingent is lobbying for that night. A compromise is rarely reached. “Neeeeeeext” is heard often.
Even Rufas — the notoriously grumpy resort dog who usually regards all human enthusiasm with deep suspicion — has been joining in. More than once, he’s wandered into a bar or jetty dance session and started doing his own thing. I choose to believe he’s having fun.
We’ve also had a few familiar faces return — past instructors, staff, and interns from my own time here as an intern. There’s something special about reconnecting in the same place where those memories were first made. It reinforces the sense that this project doesn’t really end when you leave — it just evolves.
As is always the case, this quarter has been about people. Meeting new ones continues to be exciting; saying goodbye is always hard. Everyone who passes through here leaves a mark — on the place, and on each other. There’s always a mix of emotions when someone leaves, but I’ve made peace with it — because there’s a quiet validation in knowing that if it’s hard to go, it means they’ve connected with this place in a real way. Just like I did. It means they felt it too.
Until next time — from the jetty, as the sky does its thing.
Abd Sulaeman – Research Assistant
“Jackpot!” is truly the only word to describe my time here. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine witnessing four Oceanic Mantas throughout a single dive at Blue Magic. Or watching the harmony of thousands of schooling fish shift in an instant as Red Snappers, Giant Trevallies, and Bluefin Trevallies burst through them on the hunt.
From spotting a Shorthorned Pygmy Devil Ray while coral gardening at the house reef to the sheer luck of seeing a Dugong, Bottlenose Dolphins, or even a Minke For this first quarterly report, I have to mention another kind of “jackpot.” Between February and April, we conducted four beach cleanups, collecting a staggering total of 583.8 kg of trash.
The biggest haul happened after a storm washed an immense amount of debris toward Scuba Republic; we managed to collect 420 kg in just a single hour.
just passing by the jetty—Raja has been incredibly generous. These past few months as a Research Assistant and Divemaster in Training have been a continuous streak of luck.
We are also thrilled to have restarted our community outreach programs. We’ve been teaching English and marine biology to children aged 7 to 12, using a “learn through play” approach. Looking ahead, our goal is to develop a more comprehensive curriculum that remains fun and engaging for these young ocean guardians.
Our BRUV (Baited Remote Underwater Video) cameras captured some incredible footage at Lao-Lao Pinnacle: an Oceanic Blacktip, a Blacktip Reef Shark, and a Whitetip Reef Shark all appearing in the same frame!
As April came to a close, the water temperature rose to 30°C, and the visibility became crystal clear. But the biggest surprise was the return of the Oceanic Mantas. For three consecutive days, the team spotted them during a safety stop at Cape Kri, right after dropping in at Chicken Reef, and even during a surface interval at Mioskon. That is the magic of Raja—you never know what jackpot is waiting around the corner.
I am happy to share that I officially finished my Divemaster training at the end of April! I want to extend a huge thank you to the entire IOP team, especially my “Jungle Family” in Raja.
Beyond the research and the diving, living here has been a personal jackpot for me. Raja is more than just a location; it’s a feeling, a place that captures your heart and makes it very hard to leave.
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