On my 5th trip to the island of Raja Ampat Indonesia, I spent a fabulous four days diving at Papua Explorers Resort. It is a wonderful place for divers or adventurers looking for thrilling diving, peace, and pristine nature. Read on my reviews of the resort and find out what to do in Raja Ampat. Is it the best diving resort in the world?
Content of this article:
Flying to Sorong, the airport for Raja Ampat
The gateway to Raja Ampat is Sorong, a small town on the west side of Papua. The easiest way to get there is to fly. You have several transit airport options like Jakarta International Airport, Sam Ratulangi International Airport in Manado, Makassar, or the Pattimura Airport in Ambon. Most people who are flying internationally connect via Jakarta.
Garuda Indonesia tends to be the most reliable airline when it comes to getting to Sorong.
TIP: At the time of writing this article, Garuda allows an extra 15 kg of luggage free of charge specifically for diving equipment. I flew back with Lionair and they charged 65000 Rp. per kilo for a flight from Sorong to Makassar!! So avoid this airline if you bring your diving equipment as your luggage will cost you more than the price of the flight.
TIP2: Citilink has a sports club that you can join for 450000 Rp. It gives you 20 kg of free diving equipment on all flights so you pay back the card with only one trip. To join, check here
Flights in Indonesia are frequently canceled or delayed, so you might want to spend a night in Sorong just to be safe. Nobody wants to miss their boat because of an airport mix-up. If you do spend a night in Sorong, read my Sorong guide here
At the time of writing, all flights from Bali to Sorong require an overnight stop in Makasar. There is an Ibis hotel within the airport that is convenient to get a few hours of sleep before hitting the luxury diving resort.
TIP3: if you have a garuda boarding pass, you can get a discount on the price of the room at Ibis Makassar Airport. I paid 350000 Rp. for the night.
Getting to Papua Explorers Resort Raja Ampat with their private boat.
Papua Explorers Resort feels like being at the end of the world. There are no cars or pollution around. You are surrounded by some of the most pristine coral reefs on earth! This is one of the reasons this diving resort is so spectacular.
I came directly from the Coralia liveaboard that is also owned by the Papua explorers resort. So it was easy to combine as the cruise ended in front of Papua Explorers Resort. It was a fantastic cruise and is great to combine with a stay at Papua Explorers Resort. You can read more about the Coralia liveaboard here.
If you are coming from Sorong, the diving resort offers free transfers twice a week from Sorong on their own private boat. It is much more comfortable than the public ferry.
Papua Explorers Resort organizes a full-service transfer. They will pick you up from the Sorong airport. Our luggage was also taken and delivered straight to the room.
We were taken from the airport to the SwissBell hotel in Sorong for breakfast while we waited for the other passengers. They also have a small gym which I used to stretch a bit after the night flight.
After about 40 minutes, we were taken to the port and onto a small speedboat that belongs to Papua Explorers resort and the Coralia liveaboard. The boat is super fast and it takes about 2 hours to reach Papua Explorers diving resort.
The captain was great at driving through the wave and the journey was very smooth.
TIP: There is no toilet on the speedboat but there is a toilet in the restaurant near the harbor that you can use just before boarding. There is also a little supermarket in the harbor where you can buy snacks or anything else you might need during your stay.
Getting to or from Papua Explorers Resort Raja Ampat with the public ferry
On departure, I took the public ferry from Wasai to Sorong as there was no resort boat scheduled on that day.
I booked the transfer package through Papua Explorers and it was extremely well organized.
They drove me to Wasai by private speedboat. They had purchased a VIP class ferry ticket for me in advance. The staff from Papua Explorers Diving Resort escorted me to the ferry and carried my luggage all the way in.
The public ferry is big and a bit depressing. All the seats are indoor and have small unopenable windows. So don’t expect a scenic journey through Raja Ampat Islands, Indonesia.
The VIP class cabin was however clean, with comfortable seats and a toilet. The ferry left with only 10 minutes of delays and we arrived in Sorong after 2 hours. The trip was very smooth as the sea was quiet on that day
TIP: I was traveling during coronavirus and was a bit worried that the cabin is enclosed with over 30 percent of people not wearing masks and a few of them coughing. So if you are worried about Corona Virus, you might want to avoid the public ferry at the moment. Make sure you bring a good mask and your own hand sanitizer if you take the public ferry. Or better, schedule your trip with the resort transfer. It is much more comfortable.
Getting off the boat was challenging as I had a big suitcase and a diving bag. We had to cross through another boat to exit and I struggled a bit to carry all my bags.
Arriving in Sorong, another staff was waiting for me. They escorted me and my luggage to a car that was waiting for us. The first stop was a clinic to do the antigen test to meet the coronavirus restrictions to fly into Bali. Papua Explorers diving resort had pre-booked the test for me so it was very quick.
TIP: At the time of writing, the best place to do a 24 hour PCR in Sorong is Rumah Sakit Angkatan Laut. It cost one million, six hundred rupees. They’re open Monday to Friday. Make sure you get the test by 11 am to get your results that evening.
I was then taken to my hotel and picked up early morning for the airport. The whole transfer is made seamless and well organized by Papua Explorers. But if you can, use their scheduled transfer in their private boat as it is faster and more comfortable.
Arriving at Papua Explorers Resort
Upon arriving at the resort, Apo, the manager was there to welcome us.
People took care of our luggage while we were escorted on the pier to the restaurants.
Just walking on the pier for one minute and we had already seen 3 sharks in the water!!
In the restaurants, we were offered a fresh fruit cocktail and Apo gave us a short briefing about the resort and the corona procedures in place.
We were quickly escorted to our rooms where our bags were already waiting.
The room at the Papua Explorers Resort
Papua Explorers has 16 rooms and they are all in overwater bungalows.
It is always special to stay in an overwater bungalow as you can hear the sound of the waves from underneath.
I stayed in bungalow 8, located in the middle of the resort. All the bungalows looked the same. The only difference being how close you are to the pier and the restaurant. Bungalow 1 is the closest to the restaurant, Bungalow 16 is the furthest away.
The room is simple, comfortable, and perfectly clean. What makes it special is its location over the water and the amazing view over the reef. It is hard to find a more peaceful place than that where you feel close to nature!
The bungalow feels quite spacious and has been entirely built with natural materials: Wood, bamboo, and alang alang. The vibe is ethnic with traditional wood carving.
It is perfect for people looking for a holiday close to Nature yet with modern comfort.
The high roof creates natural ventilation so that the room is quite breezy.
There is no air conditioning but the natural ventilation and the fans will be enough for most people. It was enough for me. I never missed the air conditioning during my stay and even felt cold at some times. I think because the bungalow is located on top of the water, the water provides a natural coolant.
The room has panoramic windows overlooking the sea.
I was first drawn to the terrace. The terrace is spacious with 2 lounge chairs and a hammock.
Stairs are going down to the sea directly from your balcony.
I loved sitting on the steps with just my feet hanging in the water.
You can use the steps from your bungalow for a snorkel or a quick swim.
There was a lot of action in the water right below my bungalow. An anemone was home to a family of nemos just to my right. I would often see sharks cruising by. The most spectacular was the schools of small fishes being hunted by the trumpet fishes jumping out of the water.
The forest nearby is full of birds. Their singing combined with the sound of the waves under the bungalow created the most unique soundtrack for total relaxation!
We saw all kinds of colorful birds so this is a great place for bird watching.
TIP: There is a shallow reef just below the bungalow. It is best to swim from the bungalow only at high tide to avoid walking on the corals and damaging them. If you want to swim during low tide, you can do so from the end of the pier.
The room itself has a cozy sofa, a desk, and a king bed covered by a mosquito net.
The bed was very comfy and I slept superbly.
There is plenty of storage room and a lockbox for your valuables.
A gallon of water is provided in the room making refilling the aluminum water bottle provided easy and avoiding the use of plastic bottles.
There is also a tea and coffee facility in the room.
TIP: Don’t bring food in the room to avoid insects.
The bathroom is large with a shower with hot water. The hot water pressure was a little weak but sufficient to shower.
TIP: laundry is complimentary once a week at Papua Explorers Resort so you don’t need to pack too much.
The room was cleaned in the morning and a turndown service is provided during diner to close the mosquito net and the curtains.
Talking about insects, my room was insect-free. I only had a mosquito on the first day and then didn’t see an insect for the rest of my stay.
Covid procedures at Papua Explorers Resort
Raja Ampat is a great place to travel while keeping a distance from other people as all the hotels are very isolated.
The first thing you will notice when you get to Papua Explorers resort is that it is big and there is a lot of space to socially distance.
All the rooms are independent overwater bungalows. The restaurant is large and there are plenty of seating and lounging areas scattered through the resort.
Hand Sanitizer is available everywhere and they have placed 2 sinks at the entrance of the restaurant to encourage guests to wash their hands.
The restaurant’s buffet has been covered by a protective glass and a member of staff serves the food from the buffet avoiding guests having to touch the serving utensils.
They have also closed the access path to the nearby village to prevent interaction.
I think that during Coronavirus, travelers must be extra careful not to infect local villages that are Covid Free. Papua explorers is isolated enough that you will not come in contact with anyone from outside the resort.
Review of the food at Papua Explorers Resort.
Meals at Papua explorers are served at 7 am, 1 pm and 7 pm. Afternoon tea and cookies are also provided at 4:30 pm.
They take their coffee seriously and have an espresso machine and a professional barista.
Breakfast was served on a buffet. Every day, there would be 2 or 3 hot local dishes. toasts, jam, cheese butter, and cereals are on offer. Eggs are available on demand.
During my stay in pandemic times, with only a few guests, lunch and dinner were served at the table as a set menu. However, normally lunch and dinner are also in buffet
form, with a nice variety of dishes for everyone’s taste.
The food is simple. It starts with a tasty soup. The main course was chicken, fish or beef, rice or potato, and vegetables.
Papua Explorers is very attentive to the provenance of its fishes and will make sure they are not fished in the protected area. They also have a hydroponic garden so some of their vegetables are coming straight from their garden. The limes from their garden were delicious.
They would show us the menus ahead of time and substitutions could easily be made if you don’t like something or are vegetarian. Desert consisted of fruits and cakes.
Beers, soft drinks, and wines are available for purchase. Prices were reasonable considering that alcohol is expensive in Indonesia and even more so in Papua.
Sustainability at Papua Explorers Resort
Papua Explorers resort does a lot for economic and environmental sustainability in the region.
2 years after its establishment, the resort created the Sea Center Foundation.
The Sea Center foundation has been active in coral restoration. You can see an artificial reef that they planted in front of the resort. Sawandarek is another project the sea center foundation. They built the iron structures and built the coral structure. And it pays off, we had a great dive at Sawandarek and it was full of fishes. The Sea Center foundation also do the monitoring and reports temperatures at various dive sites.
Some of the coral plantings are done by divemaster students coming for an internship
The Sea Center Foundation is also a sponsor of Marine Mega Fauna (MMF), an NGO that supports Mantas. Marine biologists from MMF come to stay at the resort 3 or 4 months every year to research the local manta population.
Papua Explorers supports the local village.
They organize Sunday schools where they teach traditional skills. math, geography. but they also learn about corals and how to plant and grow corals. They seethat corals are animals. they also study about gardening. Every kid got a small plot of the garden and planted vegetables.
Guests can donate school supplies for the local kids. All the material is donated to local teachers.
You can bring clothes, shoes, pens, books, masks and snorkels, paper.
Parents are not forgotten, Papua Explorers Resort is currently developing an aquaponic system that the villagers could use to grow vegetables. The idea is that they can grow and sell vegetables to the resort. This would reduce their dependence on fishing and create an alternative income stream. It also allows Papua Explorers to source food locally and therefore reduces transport fuel.
Our dive guide, Martin, comes from the local village and has worked his way up to becoming a divemaster.
Review of the scuba diving at Papua explorers Resort
The main draw to Raja Ampat is diving as it has some of the most beautiful reefs in the world.
Papua Explorers is located nearby some of the best dive sites in Raja Ampat and the diving was stunning!
They know the dive site very well and can time the dives for the best conditions and the most wildlife.
The diving organization at Papua Explorers.
Diving is well organized. The dive center is located at the end of the pier. Each diver is assigned a cupboard to store wetsuits and other gears.
There is also a spacious camera room.
During my trip, we were 3 divers and 2 dive masters. The maximum group size at Papua Explorers is 3 divers per divemasters so that it never feels crowded underwater.
All the dives are done with the help of a small boat.
Most dive sites were a 10-40 minutes boat ride away. We would typically leave at 8 am, do 2 dives with a surface interval on a beautiful beach and then come back to the resort for lunch. The afternoon dive was at 3 pm.
The boat is small but comfortable with a shaded roof. There are no toilets on board but given that most of the dive sites are near the resort, it was OK.
The dive staff would take care of everything for us. They would load our equipment onto the boat, unload it and rinse it after the dives. It was a full 5 stars diving service.
The maximum dive time is 60 minutes and Nitrox is provided free of charge.
We dove with Apo, the resort manager, and Martin. They were both splendid guides and their enthusiasm for the reef was visible.
Overview of the dive sites from Papua Explorers
On the first day, we dived the Sawandarek dive site. It is a reef by the Sawandarek village that is protected by the community. The foundation of Papua Explorers is helping the village with an education program and has been replanting corals that now look healthy.
The site was very fishy with schools of yellow snappers and sweetlips on the small rock at 25 meters. I saw the biggest turtle ever, It was probably over 1.5 meters. Schools of fusiliers and barracuda were patrolling the area. We saw a Wobbegong shark and a few blacktips sharks. It was overall a great dive.
Manta ridge dive site was exceptional for us today. Mantas were everywhere and stayed with us for over 60 minutes. There were about 15 mantas and it was hard to know where to look as they kept coming from every direction. We gave them enough distance so they felt safe with us and stayed around for the whole dive. They also came very close to us.
One of them came to check me out from behind and when I turned back, it was almost touching me. What a show!
On the second day, we went to the Mayhem dive site, a submerged peninsula. It was very fishy with schools of fusiliers and barracudas. The most amazing is that we saw a wobbegong swimming and getting cleaned by 20 small yellow fishes. He was totally oblivious to us and at some point, I thought he was going to bump into me.
The dive interval was also special. We went to a mangrove with a beautiful beach.
There is no need to go diving in Raja Ampat. From the pier, I saw a snake and over 10 sharks!
The next dive was the Lalosi dive site.
Lalosi is a sloping reef composed of a sandy bottom and many corrals bommies.
It was also very fishy with a few blacktip sharks and wobbegong sharks.
On our way back to the resort, we got caught in a storm and got completely soaked.
Don’t forget that Raja Ampat is a tropical area so it rains a lot. Fortunately, rainfall is usually short in time and you can go from total downpour to blue sky within one hour.
In the afternoon, we dove Cape Kri. It is one of the most amazing sites in Raja Ampat as it is located at the entrance of the Dampiers straight where 2 different currents intersect. It holds the record for the highest amount of fish species spotted in a single dive.
It is a sloping reef that goes down to about 40 meters.
Visibility was not great when we dove it due to the heavy rain a few hours before.
It was still fantastic with thousands of fishes everywhere we looked. Barracudas, parrotfishes, fusiliers were there en masse. Sharks were patrolling the area. A huge grey shark came near us. The school of yellow sweetlips is very photogenic. Don’t forget to look out in the blue as anything can happen here!
For our last day of diving, we dove Friwen wall. It is a steep wall covered by the most beautiful soft corals. The first part of the dive was very fishy with a school of sweetlips and a few sharks. We found plenty of nudibranchs. The wall is covered in soft corals and tunicates of the most beautiful colors.
The surface interval was on a stunning beach on Friwen Island
Mike’s Poin dive site is a mix of slope and wall, It was heavily bombed during WW2 so you can see craters. The corals have recovered and now covering the whole area. There is also a swim-through cave at about 15 meters. This site is also great for nudibranch and soft corals lovers.
Other Activities at Papua Explorers Resort
Fluoro diving or snorkeling
I tried Fluoro diving during a night dive and it is terrific.
This is done at night, using the blue led light stand a yellow mask. It allows the natural fluorescence of the reef and its living animals to come through.
The reef came alive like never before with colors of yellow, green, blue, and red. Absolutely mesmerizing. It was my first time fluoro diving and I highly recommend it. Don’t miss it!
TIP: Make sure you have done a few night dives and feel comfortable before trying fluoro diving as the yellow mask and blue light reduce your visibility.
Relaxing on your terrace
All the bungalows have a fantastic terrace overlooking the water with lounge chairs and a hammock. This is the perfect place to read a book and watch the gentle waves.
Snorkeling and Marine life watching
To be honest, you don’t even need to put your head underwater to see Marine life at Papua Explorers Resort. The reef around the Papua Explorers pier is surrounded by small fishes. We often saw blacktip sharks patrolling the area as well as Bamboo sharks. On our first morning, we saw a few dolphins right by the dive center!
TIP: Always inform the staff of the resort if you go snorkeling as the current can be strong in front of the resort.
Kayaking
Kayaks and also stand-up paddleboards are available at all times, free of charge. That way it is easy to go and explore the nearby mangroves on your own. It is so peaceful and allows you to be very close to nature.
Redbirds of paradise trekking
We searched through the rain forest for the red birds of paradise.
Those birds have an almost mythical status because they are beautiful and their singing is hypnotic.
We started our tour by a small boat ride to the nearby local village. We walked through the village, passing kids and locals going about their daily life.
We crossed a bridge overlooking a mangrove to enter the forest.
Walking through this dense forest is an experience in itself. It has a majesty to it. Some of the trees along the path were over 60 meters! The path is uphill and downhill but relatively easy to walk. It took us about 30 minutes to reach an area with benches.
We didn’t have to wait long as within 10 minutes, we could hear the birds of paradise. We saw 5 or 6 of them a few minutes later.
They stayed on very tall trees so I can’t say we had an amazing view of them but the whole experience walking through the rainforest was awesome. This is a great way to visit a local village (please be mindful of Corona. Wear a mask and keep your distance from the local people), see some mangroves and pristine rainforest. The whole tour lasted about 2 hours and we had a great time.
TIP: Be silent when you walk through the forest to avoid scaring the birds away. It is also a great chance to listen to all the animals living in the forest.
The internet at Papua Explorers Resort
Internet is provided in the restaurant area but it doesn’t extend to the bedrooms.
If you want internet in your bedroom, get a Telekomcel SIM card with 10 GB of data upon landing in Indonesia. Those cards are affordable and they will give you faster internet than the resort’s connection. The 4G connection was relatively good around the resort and in the Dampier straight, allowing me to do WhatsApp calls and browse the internet. It was however often not good enough for video calls.
In Conclusion of my Papua Explorers Resort review
The Papua Explorers resort in Raja Ampat is a special place for people looking to explore the marine treasures of Raja Ampat. It is easy to access from Sorong, simple but comfortable with a great vibe. The staff will make you feel right at home and show you some of the most amazing dive sites in the world. I highly recommend Papua Explorers Resort and hope to go back there.
Make sure you book ahead as it is normally fully booked months in advance, especially during the high season from November to March.
To book, you can find the rates and contact info on their website.
For more info about diving in Raja Ampat, read my other articles about the Coralia Liveaboard, Misool Resort, Neomi liveaboard trip to Misool, Ilike liveaboard trip from Ambon to Sorong ( with Banda islands and hammerheads sharks), and Ilike liveaboard trip from Sorong to Kaimana with Triton Bay and Whale Sharks)
Raja Ampat the most beautiful diving place in the world.👍👍👍