November 21, 2002

Pindito anchored at Pulau Wajam (00° 02' 171" S, 130° 09' 070" E)

The Pendito sailed at 00.00 last night, through fairly rough waves, to the east end of Waigeo, arriving 07.00.

On the first dive of the day, Gerry, Rod, and Edi dived a drop-off into a school of 1,000 plus tuna, a minute after diving, their boatman saw a dugong on the surface. The drop off wall was covered with soft-corals and invertebrates (tunicates, feather stars, sponges, and sea fans), and was sheer to 50 meters. Gerry saw a rare butterfly fish previously only ever seen 3 times before (Chaetedon burgessi), which he discovered in Palau, Micronesia. Diving on the north side of Wajam was reasonably rich, and added a few extra fish species and one new coral for the trip.

These were the last dives, since the teams will be flying tomorrow and need time for decompression.

Species lists for corals were 465 species - or roughly 50% of all known coral species in the world. The exact number needs to be confirmed, but at least 505 species of hard-coral have now been recorded from Raja Ampat.

During the whole trip 828 fishes were recorded, adding an additional 95 to the known total for Raja Ampat. Only three large sharks were seen in around 500 hours underwater.

The vegetation team spent the day writing up notes and packing - 45 packets of specimens (more than 400 plant numbers) will be shipped to the Bogor Herbarium for storage and identification.

From 2 in the afternoon, there was a wrap-up discussion for the trip. It's clear that many aspects have to be considered in choosing conservation sites at Raja Ampat - the fish group saw Kofiau as the site of highest diversity, followed by east Misool for its diversity and landscape value; Sayang and Ai are important turtle nesting sites, but relatively poor sites for coral conservation; and many of the most important sites for endemic vegetation have little economic potential so are unlikely to be targeted for development.

The group agreed that the most important factor is control of resources - Agus pointed out that all local communities are aware of destructive practices, but they have varying capacity to act. Next steps will have to include some ways of strengthening the capacity of local communities to protect their own resources.

The last night aboard - no surprise to anyone that the Ambonese crew includes some excellent singers, nor that beer consumption should rise dramatically, and carry on till 4 in the morning!