This is our first anchorage in Raja Ampat, and like nothing we have ever experienced before. The island is a series of 200m high cliffs that drop straight down into seas that are 100m deep in places.
To anchor, we must find places that are shallow, With 100m of anchor chain spliced onto 100m of nylon rope, we can anchor in places up to maybe 30m deep, as the rope can not reach to the bottom as the rocks and corals would cut through the line, and a scope must be provided so that the chain lays along the bottom and does not lift the anchor vertically. Finding somewhere shallow is not a simple task. The charts here are useless. The electronics charts from Navionics are reliable in popular parts of the world, but here in Indonesia they are not accurate with either depth or location. I have found examples where the chart has placed islands more than 500m from where they really belong, and in other places, omit them altogether. If they are that bad for features you can see, I can only imagine how they are for the features that are under the water. The most reliable source of information here is satellite images. We collect these images on a special waterproof computer with an inbuilt GPS and rely on that for navigation in areas like this.
Our arrival to the southern islands of Misool, part of the Regency of Raja Ampat, was properly timed so that we had the light to find our way through the maze of islands and into this lagoon that had been spotted on the satellite. Information from other yachties indicated that we should be able to anchor in the middle of the lagoon, and then tie back against the rock wall to prevent swinging around the anchor.
With calm weather, that is how we sat for the first night, but in the morning supplemented the anchor with a line from the bow across to the opposite side of the lagoon. We are tied up with the stern within metres of cliff that drop from 200m high, fringed around the waterline by a coral ledge drop off, with the boat suspended above the edge of the cliff that plummets to the bottom of the lagoon. From here we swim to the ledge to watch the fish swimming in and out of the staghorn corals.
I think it will take a few days of relaxation to properly experience the scenery of this location.
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