Travel

A diver cruises over a stunningly colored wall, covered in soft corals
 

Triton Bay has long been a well-respected destination for well-traveled divers. They sell T-shirts there that say: “Hard to get to but worth it”—and that certainly is true! Triton Bay is located on the west end of the island of West Papua and the nearest airport is Utarom, in the town of Kaimana, with most divers getting there via flights from Sarong. From Kaimana, it’s an hour and a half by boat down to the island of Pulau Aiduma, where Triton Bay Divers is located in a stunning location in the channel between the island and West Papua itself.

In recent years, some liveaboard boats have started to dive this area, but my preference is the land-based operation at Triton Bay Divers, as for me this offers the best option for photographers. The dive guides based here are top class and they really know where the critters are at any given time, so photographic opportunities are optimized. Set up in 2016, Triton Bay Divers is located on the beach in a stunning bay surrounded by jungle. You wake up each morning to the sounds of the rainforest and the waves breaking gently on the beach. A few mornings into this experience and you begin to realize that it’s a very special place. In what was a far-sighted move at the time, the owners of the resort made an agreement with the neighboring villages to restrict all fishing in return for a share for the resort’s profits. Now, a decade later, the thing that first hits you is the sheer quantity of fish, of all shapes and sizes, on every dive.

Although it’s not unusual to have quite variable visibility on some of the dives, this nutrient-rich water means the reefs here are extraordinarily healthy, with beautiful stands of soft corals found in unusually shallow water. We would often pull up to a dive site and look over the side of the boat; if the current wasn’t flowing and the corals weren’t out, we’d just go somewhere else. In terms of the critters, there is an extraordinary variety found on these reefs: It’s one of the few places on the planet where you can reasonably expect to see four species of pygmy seahorse after spending the morning swimming with dolphins and whale sharks.
 

An aerial view of Triton Bay, Indonesia
 

A whip coral goby perched on its host
 

Perhaps the world’s most famous seahorse, the pygmy! And a pregnant one, no less
 

Whale sharks wait to scoop up scraps that fall through the fishermen’s nets
 

One of the world’s most venomous animals, the banded sea krait
 

A diver explores a cave-swimthrough combo
 

A stunning soft coral, host to numerous symbiotic creatures
 

A handsome sweetlips rests beneath a plate coral, surrounded by a bustling reef
 

The world’s most venomous cephalopod, the famed blue-ringed octopus
 

Stunning eyebrows on this lawnmower blenny
 

Triton Bay’s reefs are stunning, thanks in large part to a constant influx of nutrient-rich waters
 

Denise’s pygmy seahorse, perfectly adapted to its sea fan host
 

A photographer explores a spectacular soft coral and crinoid-covered reef
 

A painted frogfish does its best to camouflage against a miscolored sponge
 

A pair of bannerfish hold their place in the current in front of a large soft coral
 

The smallest seahorse in the world, the Pontohi pygmy. Three pygmy species can be found in Triton Bay
 

A classic Triton Bay reef scene, complete with crinoids, soft corals, sponges, and a photographer
 

A batfish swims through sun rays that cut through the overhanging jungle
 

A spectacular gorgonion, covered in crinoids
 

Sharks aren’t common in Triton Bay with the exception of the well-camouflaged tasseled wobbegong
 

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