Raja Ampat - Dampier Strait night muck dive
Part of the regional summary: Indonesia - Raja Ampat
More info
West Papua (NOAA CRW virtual station)A night muck dive over sand with pockets of trash on the seabed, where small cuttlefish, squid, and frogfish were seen. No coral-cover figure applies to this muck habitat.
Penyelaman muck malam hari di atas pasir dengan kantong-kantong sampah di dasar laut, tempat terlihat sotong kecil, cumi-cumi, dan ikan kodok. Tidak ada angka tutupan karang yang berlaku untuk habitat muck ini.
Terjemahan ringkasan ini oleh AI; versi bahasa Inggris yang berlaku.
Four independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
One other CRD dive site within 5 km is shown in orange; it has no page of its own.
5 of the 30 photographs on this page are shown beside the text that discusses them under "Site description" below.
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Photo: PierreSite description
Coral cover
- Nothing on the map attaches a coral-cover measurement to this site — the rest of this account is descriptive background, not a survey result.
Comparisons with other data
We found no other surveys confirmed at this site as of 2026. Within 5 km, four independent stations recorded station-year means of 30–70% hard coral cover between 2016 and 2018; the nearest, Yuanike et al. (2019) at Station 5, 2.22 km away, read a mean of 70% in 2016.
Other notes
Dive 29-Dampier Strait night muck dive: Epic night muck dive in sandy area near the pier of a nearby town. Only one coral (P. acuta) seen on entire dive. This was a muck dive in which the benthos was covered mainly by sand with pockets of trash (e.g., Image 3).
Saw small cuttlefish, squid, frogfish, barracuda, sole/flounder, shrimp (“daddy long legs” appearance), weird species of lion fish, and a wide variety of crabs, from tiny to large (edible) (e.g., Image 1, Image 3, Image 4, Image 5).
Hermit crabs in abundance. Could have spent hours here, a truly great muck dive. Got some good squid videos. Beautiful sea anemones, too (e.g., Image 2).
Independent surveys nearby
| Agency / program | Year(s) | Stations / distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social Ecological Research Frontiers (SERF) / University of Rhode Island (URI) / Thriving Oceans | 2018 | 3 stations, 2.27–4.90 km | Records ↓ |
| Yuanike et al. (2019) | 2016 | 1 station, 2.22 km | Records ↓ |
Within 5 km, 4 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 5 records between 2016 and 2018. The most recent nearby survey is from 2018, so these values predate recent heat stress.
Collected by other programs using different methods, so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once, the cell shows either the range of its values or, as a single value, the mean of surveys made in one year. Station names are not dive-site names.
| Agency | Site / location | Date | Hard coral cover (%) | Distance | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yuanike et al. (2019) | Station 5 | 2016 | 70% (2 records) | 2.22 km | doi:10.13057/biodiv/d200436 |
| Social Ecological Research Frontiers (SERF) / University of Rhode Island (URI) / Thriving Oceans | Cape Kri | 2018 | 30% | 2.27 km | Humphries A, Amkieltiela, Tiela, Caldwell I, Caldwell I, Molfino T. 2019. SERF2_AustinHumphries_Indonesia. MERMAID |
| Social Ecological Research Frontiers (SERF) / University of Rhode Island (URI) / Thriving Oceans | Yenbuba | 2018 | 31% | 3.71 km | Humphries A, Amkieltiela, Tiela, Caldwell I, Caldwell I, Molfino T. 2019. SERF2_AustinHumphries_Indonesia. MERMAID |
| Social Ecological Research Frontiers (SERF) / University of Rhode Island (URI) / Thriving Oceans | Yenbuba 1 | 2018 | 39% | 4.90 km | Humphries A, Amkieltiela, Tiela, Caldwell I, Caldwell I, Molfino T. 2019. SERF2_AustinHumphries_Indonesia. MERMAID |
Data & links
Images 6–30: Pierre; all other images from Coral Reef Diagnostics. Data on this page are from the organizations named in the data sources above, not Coral Reef Diagnostics; Coral Reef Diagnostics has no coral cover estimate of its own at this site.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.