July 21, 2023 about our visit there on July 1-5, 2023
Wayag is the crown jewel of Raja Ampat and yet not all that many people visit this amazing island. It’s a bit out of the way and apart from a small rangers station, there’s nothing on the island. (I say “Island” but it’s actually hundreds of small islands grouped in an area called Wayag.)
We spent about 5 days there and even after 11 years in the South Pacific, this wins the #1 spot on our most-beautiful-places-we’ve-seen list.
I’ll shut up now and let you see for yourselves in the video below (turn on the sound for accompanying music), except for one more introductory item: We anchored in three places there – all great. We call them A, B and C in the video. (Hint: C is our #1 anchorage ever!)
Hike to Viewpoint
The “path” to the viewpoint from the Cruising Guide to Indonesia is in the middle of the beach pictured at about 2:00 in the video – just go past the big information sign. The “path” itself roughly follows our drone starting at 2:08.
I didn’t attempt this hike. I have something called common sense (and a will to live and a drone). Cyndi did and it almost killed her. She went up with two Indonesian guides and three young women who were camping on Wayag. It almost killed the women too. It didn’t seem to bother the guides.
The “path” that I keep putting in quotes was almost impossible to find and involved a lot of rock climbing. One of the young women came down after going to the top and threw herself into the water and said she wasn’t going to get out until she stopped shaking! Cyndi said it was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
And the guide book says…
Mount Pindito: Looks more challenging than it is… but the climb is actually relatively easy and most visitors, young and old, make it to the top in less than 20 minutes. This should be an obligatory hike for all visitors to Wayag.
Maybe he’s got some kind of secret path (that defies physics?).
The guide book also mentions moorings in the area of B. Nope. There were no moorings when we were there. The area around B is a somewhat difficult place to anchor as it’s mostly very deep. We found a place about 60 feet deep. (That’s not bad for this part of Indonesia!) In area A, we anchored in about 45 feet of water and C was around 30 feet deep.
Here are the routes we used for the three spots we anchored. Standard disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only. You’d have to be a complete fool to use these. You’d die!
Anchorage C really was the prettiest place we’ve ever anchored. It was easy to get into with no less than 20 feet on the entrance into the small bay.
The guide book says that the inner lagoon area of Wayag is very deep and mostly suitable for superyachts. We didn’t find this to be true. With satellite maps, we spotted quite a few suitable looking anchorages and riding around in the dinghy with our hand-held depth finder, we saw a few very close to C where we would have anchored if not for the upcoming weather.
It was forecast to blow for about a week and while we didn’t worry about this in the amazing protection of the places we’d anchored, we did need to get moving and if we stayed longer, it would be either another week at Wayag or a miserable beat back to the south. In retrospect, and after looking at this video again, I’m wondering why we didn’t stay the extra week!
-Rich
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