Kamis, 30 Desember 2010

Kepulauan Raja Ampat

Kepulauan Raja Ampat is a place that has the potential to serve as a tourist attraction, especially diving tourism. Raja Ampat Islands waters according to various sources, is one of the 10 best waters for diving sites around the world. In fact, it may also be recognized as number one for the completeness of underwater flora and fauna at this time.



Dr. John Veron, coral experienced experts from Australia, for example, in a site it is revealed, the Raja Ampat Islands located in the westernmost tip of New Guinea, about 50 miles northwest of Sorong, has the best reef areas in Indonesia. Approximately 450 species of coral had been identified during the two weeks of research in the area.
Team member of Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and the National Oceanographic Institute (LON) Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) has conducted rapid assessment in 2001 and 2002. As a result, they are recorded in these waters there are more than 540 species of hard corals (75% of the total species in the world), more than 1,000 species of reef fish, 700 species of molluscs, and the highest note of gonodactyloid stomatopod crustaceans. This makes 75% of coral species in Raja Ampat. None of the places with the same area has a number of these coral species.



There are several areas of coral reefs that are still very good condition with the percentage of live coral cover to 90%, namely in the Dampier Strait (the strait between P. Waigeo and P. Batanta), Kofiau Islands, Islands and South East Misool Wayag Islands. Types of coral reefs in Raja Ampat is generally fringing reef with gentle slope to steep contour. But it was also found atoll type and type of burns or taka. In some places like the village Saondarek, when the lowest tides, coral reefs can be seen without a dive and with his own adaptation, the corals can still be alive despite being in the open air and direct sunlight.



Because the area of many islands and narrow straits, so most of the dive at a particular time has a strong current. It allows also to perform drift dive, dive, following a strong flow of water is very clear as he broke through a collection of fish. There is also a sunken airplane World War II relic that can be found in several places to make diving a great place to dive as in P. Wreck Wai. And many more reef sites that actually have never been touched. This makes diving in Raja Ampat was more challenging.