About Mermaid I
I remember the first morning light hitting the deck – golden, quiet, just the creak of timber and the distant chatter of birds over Wayag. The air was thick with salt and something green, like moss on rock after rain. We’d anchored late the night before, and I stepped out barefoot onto the warm teak, wrapping a thin blanket around my shoulders. The boat felt solid beneath me, 28 metres of timber that had earned its place in these waters. There were only a few of us, no crowds, just a small group of divers and swimmers who’d come for Raja Ampat’s coral heart.
Mermaid I doesn’t shout luxury, but it lives it quietly. Our cabin was one of eight – simple wood finishes, a real bed with crisp linen, and a private ensuite with hot water that actually worked. No air-con, but the breeze off the Arafura Sea slipped through the ports all night. We spent days hopping between clusters: Cape Kri in the dawn light, where the reef dropped away into blue and fusiliers stacked like silver wire; then Arborek Jetty, where I floated above clownfish anemones and a tiny pygmy seahorse clung to coral no bigger than my thumb.
One afternoon, we anchored near Piaynemo. The guide pointed up – 'You can hike the viewpoint, or stay and swim with wobbegongs under the boat.' We chose the water. I hovered near the ladder, watching a brown wobbegong breathe slowly under the hull, its mouth opening and closing like a bellows. Later, we climbed the stone steps to the karst peak. From the top, the lagoon looked like a net of turquoise pools stitched between mossy limestone. It was 3pm, the sun high, and the shadows of islands fanned out below like fan corals.
Back on board, the galley filled with the smell of garlic prawns and steamed rice. Meals were served family-style on the upper deck – grilled reef fish, papaya salad, fresh pineapple. The crew, all Indonesian, moved easily between kitchen, dive platform, and wheelhouse. One of them, Pak Ade, had been sailing these routes for 14 years. He showed us how to spot the difference between a crocodile fish and a lionfish by the shape of the pectoral fins. We didn’t see crocs, but we did pass a longboat near Sawinggrai where a family waved from their thatched house on stilts.
Our last full day was in the Dampier Strait. We dived at Mioskon, a sloping reef where bumphead parrotfish cruised in schools of twenty. The current picked up mid-dive, and we drifted past giant clams and wall gardens of gorgonians. Surfacing, the boat was already waiting, crew leaning over with fins and towels. That evening, anchored in a glassy cove near Kri, we sat on deck with coffee and looked up at the Milky Way. No city lights, no hum – just stars and the occasional splash of a jumping squid.
We docked in Sorong early on day three. Not with fanfare, just a slow approach to the pier as gulls wheeled above. I stepped off feeling lighter, sun-cracked on the shoulders, ears still full of water. Raja Ampat had been everything I’d hoped – not a 'dream', not a 'paradise', but real, wild, and alive. And Mermaid I, with its eight cabins and steady crew, had been the right vessel to carry us through it.
