Lauren Rebbeck
For anyone who loves the thrill of the chase—and I count myself among those ranks—diving is a fitting pursuit. No matter where you go, chances are you’ll encounter someone who’s already been there and done that—and tells you that you really should have seen those same reefs 20, 30 or 40 years ago. You could be diving with mantas and whale sharks, but you’ll soon enough learn where you might have seen even more of them.
Alas, the more you dive, the more there is to do. In more than half a lifetime of dive adventures, one place was always just out of my reach.
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I’m certain I heard about Raja Ampat long before I had any inkling where in the world the archipelago in remote West Papua, Indonesia, actually was. Whenever any surface interval discussion turns to the best places in the world to go scuba diving, you can bet that Raja Ampat is on the tip of someone’s tongue. But I was always left wondering if those storied islands could really live up to the hype. I longed to go, of course, but worried that the Four Kings would let me down like the first time I attempted to view the northern lights—bright green and pink and saturated to the max in every photo I’d seen, in person they were just a white wispy cloud low on the horizon that only my iPhone managed to capture in color.
But if there’s anything the past few uncertain years have taught me, it’s that wherever you go underwater, the glory days are right now.
When I finally made it to Raja Ampat in late 2025, more than a quarter-century since I’d gotten certified, it was in the utmost of style and worth the wait. I’d been invited to spend a week aboard the largest wooden phinisi ever built, Lamima, awash in rich teak planks and with an upper deck that begs for stargazing. But for all the cold, lavender-scented towels to temper my sweat, bright-pink dragon fruit smoothies proffered on platters post-excursion and unlimited onboard massages at the spa to the yacht’s stern (yes, heaven is a place on earth), all I really needed in that archipelago was to be underwater.
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No place I have dived has lived up to the hype like Raja. What the plankton-rich water lacked in visibility during my December trip, the dives made up for in superlatives I’ve encountered nowhere else. There were waving sea fans, one after the other and each the size of an industrial refrigerator, that made up entire underwater forests, clinging to slopes and bending in the current. It was like I couldn’t even see the forest on most dives for the trees! The entire water column was stacked from reef to surface with fusiliers, bannerfish, moorish idols and walls of baitfish that were cut through by hunting giant trevally.
Every minute underwater was marine-life mayhem in the very best way—and just the kind of underwater views that make you believe there are no more glorious diving days than the ones we’re living right now.
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