Cendrawasih Bay National Park: The Whale Sharks dive trip

 

The large Cendrawasih Bay National Park in the north of the island of Papua, otherwise known as Teluk Cenderawasih, includes Indonesia’s largest marine national park, and is one of the best dive-sites in the archipelago.

Here are magnificent vertical drops, picturesque hard coral gardens, sponge life and myriads of fish

This is the playground of one of the world’s largest animals: the spotted whaleshark or rhincodon typus. If elsewhere in the world divers consider themselves lucky to meet one or a couple, here they come in pods and divers can swim along with them quite unharmed except to beware not to be hit by one of their powerful fins.

 

 

Scientist Dr. Gerald Allen calls the Cendrawasih Bay: “The Galapagos of Indonesia’s Reefs”.

Whalesharks are migratory animals, and are known to grow to 18 meters in length or more. Biologists tell us that they are an acient species originating some 60 million years ago, and are usually found in the open sea. They have a lifespan of 70 years. A 7 meter whaleshark can weigh up to 22 tonnes. Unbelievably these huge animals are docile since they live only on plankton, clouds of egg roe and small fish, which in Indonesia are called “ikan teri”.

In the village of Kwatisore near the town of Nabire, these giant fish usually gather by the floating platforms, called bagan, where fishermen haul in their catch of small fry.

Kwatisore can be reached from Nabire in around three hours by boat with two 40pk outboard motors.The only accommodation available in this village are simple rooms at the SD Imanuel Primary School in Kwatinsore.  

Here the local government trains 20 students to become dive guides and to develop facilities in Kwatisore to serve more tourists.

Comprising land and coastal areas, islands, coral reefs and pristine seas, the Cendrawasih Park covers a total area of 1,453,500 hectares.

The Cendrawasih Bay Park combines coral reef ecosystems with mangrove, islands and terrestrial tropical forest ecosystems. Here are colonies of black coral, blue coral and soft coral. The Park is famous for the 209 fish species that make this Park their habitat, among which are the butterfly fish, the damselfish and parrotfish, and, of course the whaleshark, while mollusks found here include the trumpet triton, the great clam and the cone shell.

Best time to visit is between May through October.

Since a few years, a corner of Cenderawasih Bay close to the hamlet of Kwatisore and the town of Nabire, in Indonesian Papua, is gathering major buzz as probably the best place in the planet to swim with whale sharks.

Here, whale sharks don't just pass by seasonally, like in most other places, where expensive tours drop you in the path of one shark for 5 minutes (and you better swim fast). 

Here they stay year-round, gathering nearly every single day to circle under fishermen platforms called "bagans", in the hopes of sucking some fish out of their storage nets.
Here you have a very good chance to have not one, but SEVERAL behemoths CIRCLE around you.

Here you'll have to swim to AVOID the sharks bumping into you (which happened to me and my wife).

However, at the time of writing this review, Nabire remains a VERY remote corner of Indonesia: we saw NO westerners over our entire stay there. There are few hotels, catering mostly to Indonesians, and who very surprisingly have no idea of how to get you to the whale sharks. Most people who see the Cenderawasih bay whale sharks come on liveaboard boats. Very few people organize trips to see the whale sharks from Nabire, and those who do are difficult to contact. 

The only person who replied to our emails was a Rudy from Kali Lemon, a "guesthouse/dive resort" near Kwatisore, but he asked for more than 800 dollars for an overnight trip (no, thanks).

So we landed at the Nabire airport with NO reservations, nothing booked in advance. One option to go see the whale sharks is to ask taximen at the airport; they can put you in contact with fishermen who'll take you. We instead finally managed to reach a person listed in our guidebook, Merry Yoweni and her husband Chris, who organised the trip with local fishermen. She's a local, speaks great english, and is very knowledgeable about the region, it's politics and economy, etc, since she worked for several NGO's.

So the next day, we sat aboard a narrow wooden fishermen longboat rigged with two 40hp outboards (a configuration the Lonely Planet calls “a recipe for disaster”), while 15 papuans were dragging it to the water at Nabire beach. We then left with 3 papuan fishermen, one of which (the captain actually), we soon realized, was mute and deaf. 10 minutes later, the boat started taking in water, which to our great surprise they fixed successfully with a knife and a piece of plastic bottle. Luckily we had good weather, but the experience could have been a lot less comfortable in rougher seas.

After 1h45 of navigation we arrived in the zone of the bagans. After asking 6 bagans unsuccessfully, we finally arrived at one that had 3 whale sharks under it: 2 “juveniles” and one enormous (Apparently 3 is not a lot for Cenderawasih, where many people report from 5 to 10+) .

It was of course magical as you can imagine. The sea was flat like a pool, the visibility was forever, the sharks were slowly circling around us through the rays of light that plunged in the blue as far as light can reach. Our guidebook said to “discourage the locals from interfering with the animals” but we failed miserably: the Papuans were out of control jumping around joyfully, riding the whale sharks, even divebombing from the bagan next to the whalesharks (they must think they love the bubbles). 

Last point: juvenile whale sharks are quite curious, and seem VERY attracted by shiny/white masses, such as untanned European tourists. Wear a wetsuit or expect some collisions. One of them pushed my wife's head against a bagan floater with his humongous mouth, an experience she did not appreciate as much as I did…

Besides the whaleshark, four species of turtles inhabit these waters, they are the hawksbill turtle, the common green turtle, the Pacific ridley turtle and the leatherback turtle. Here are also found dugongs, coconut crabs, dolphins and sharks.

While on Mioswaar Island can be found a natural cave with ancient remains, thermal springs and waterfalls, and at Tanjung Muagguar is an underwater cave with a depth of 100 feet.

On Yoop Island and Windesi waters visitors can go whale and dolphin watching, while Nusrowi Island is ideal for diving, snorkeling, marine tours and animal observation.

On Rumberpon Island one can observe birds and deer, dive and snorkel. A sunken military aircraft wreck lies on the seabed.