Week 6

Day 47: Mayhem

On our free day we decided to take a trip to Piaynemo: the place with the iconic Raja Ampat view. It’s also supposed to be one of the most beautiful dive sites in the area. We left early for the 2-hour boat ride, but the weather wasn’t fully on our side, so we couldn’t enter Piaynemo itself. Instead, the crew offered us two other dive sites: Mayhem and Citrus.

Well… now I understand exactly why they call it Mayhem. It was chaos, beautiful, underwater chaos. And honestly? I think this is officially my favourite dive site in Raja Ampat (yes, I know, I’ve said that before).

Here’s just some of what we saw: multiple blacktip reef sharks, grey reef sharks, whitetip reef sharks, massive trevallies (I mean giant), blue-fin, gold and bigeye trevally, narrow-barred Spanish mackerel, both pickhandle and chevron barracudas, and four tasseled wobbegongs (!!!). On top of that, we watched trevallies hunting huge schools of fish right in front of us, hundreds of fish darting in perfect synchronicity as the predators rushed in. It was mind-blowing.

At the end of the day we did a short hike (sadly not the Piaynemo viewpoint, but still a nice view). By then I was completely socially exhausted, I definitely needed some introvert alone time after that day.

Day 48: 100 Dives!

Big milestone: my 100th dive! I was lucky enough to do it with my favourite dive instructor. We had three dives planned.

The first one was a DSD (Discover Scuba Diving) simulation. For context: DSD is for people who have never dived before and don’t have a certification. Sometimes they don’t even know how to swim properly. As the “pro,” you’re doing almost all the work for them: you inflate/deflate their BCDs, hold their tanks to guide them around, and basically keep them alive and moving underwater. It’s exhausting.

Our second dive was a BRUV deployment, and our team worked like clockwork, we were done in 10 minutes flat, the fastest yet. But here’s the catch: for my 100th dive to actually count as my 100th, this dive needed to be at least 20 minutes long (PADI rules). At 14 minutes we were already at our safety stop, and I was panicking inside—what if my next dive wouldn’t be #100? But everyone stalled, and we made it to 23 minutes. Relief.

Which meant: the BRUV retrieval dive would be number 100.

So, I went in with a slate that said “100,” and yes, I went naked, following Dive Master tradition. Let’s just say it didn’t go quite as smoothly as I imagined (I got stuck in my BCD, which wasn’t ideal), but eventually we got it done. Luckily, another girl was in the group so I had some cover to shoo the guys away while I sorted myself out.

Day 49–50: Reshark!

For the shore dive I had the lead that day! It was on the house reef, so nothing too crazy, no currents, just follow the reef left or right shoulder and turn back. Still, I managed to navigate correctly and was pretty proud of myself. We even saw the “residential” tasseled wobbegong (he/she’s always there, like the reef mascot).

It was also an against debris dive, and we decided to spice it up: whoever collected the most trash won a beer. Fun for the team, but not gonna lie, it made my job harder, everyone was so focused on finding trash that I had a tough time keeping an eye on everyone. But hey, we all got back safe and a bit cleaner.

The next day we finally visited ReShark. Last time I had to miss it for a skills workshop and was super disappointed, so I was stoked I got to join this time. Their work is incredible, they’re bringing back Zebra sharks to Raja Ampat after they were completely fished out a decade ago. They collect eggs from aquariums, raise the sharks until they’re big enough, and then release them into the wild. So far, 40 have been released, with a goal of 500. They’re even tracking them to see how the project is working. Really amazing to see this kind of restoration effort in action.

Day 51-53: Fun on the Fun Dive

Friday was our first deep dive! Beforehand we had a workshop on gas usage, and underwater at 30m, 25m, 20m and 15m we had to write down how much air we used per minute (SAC). After the dive we did the math and my average came out at 6.2, which is really good considering most people are around 10–11. At 20 and 15m I was even down at 4.5. I'm sure I have gills hidden somewhere.

Saturday we did a chill fun dive on the house reef. Just exploring, and our DM let us practice some skills underwater, like dealing with a loose tank strap or BCD removal. Of course, we also had to make it… a little more fun. One of the interns had it rough: we stole his fins, hooked ourselves onto his BCD with our reef hooks so he had to do all the swimming, and I even surfed on his tank. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a hell dive for him, more of a comedy show.

That evening was another snorkel test, this time for someone I’m really going to miss. It was bittersweet, but honestly the most fun I’ve had at a snorkel test so far. Still, it’s strange watching people you’ve lived with for weeks leave, knowing I’ll be one of the next.

Luckily Sunday was a free day. I needed the rest, especially socially. The others went to Blue River (apparently stunning), but I think staying behind was exactly what I needed.