About Calico Jack
I woke to the soft slap of waves against the hull and the faint creak of teak decking. It was just after dawn, and the boat had slipped silently into Wayag Lagoon overnight. Through the open porthole, I could see the jagged limestone islands glowing pink in the early light, their bases fringed with turquoise. The air was cool from the cabin’s AC, but already I could feel the tropical heat building outside. We’d arrived in Raja Ampat the evening before, flying into Sorong and boarding Calico Jack at dusk. The crew had greeted us with cold towels and iced lemongrass drinks, but it wasn’t until that first morning that the scale of where we were truly hit me.
Calico Jack is 30 metres of polished wood and quiet luxury, but it doesn’t shout about it. There are only two cabins, so we were one of five guest couples onboard – ten people total. That intimacy shaped the whole trip. Breakfast was served on the upper deck as we motored toward Cape Kri. The chef brought out fresh papaya, scrambled eggs with herbs, and strong local coffee. By 8:30 we were in the water, mask and fins on, descending into a world of giant clams, pygmy seahorses, and reef sharks threading through the coral. The dive sites – Manta Sandy, Blue Magic, Melissa’s Garden – sounded like myths, but they were real, and we dived them twice a day.
One afternoon, we hiked up the peak at Arborek Island. The climb was short but steep, steps carved into the rock, and at the top we found a handmade wooden platform overlooking the reef. A family from the village had come up with us, the children laughing as they scrambled ahead. From that height, you could see how the atolls form a kind of submerged constellation, each one crowned with green and ringed with bone-white sand. Back on the boat, the crew had set up a sundowner station on the foredeck. Gin and tonics with lime, and a platter of grilled reef fish and spicy sambal that had been simmering since midday.
We spent our last full day in the Dampier Strait, where the currents bring in big pelagics. I wasn’t a strong swimmer, so I stuck to snorkeling at the edge of the drop-off while others did deeper dives. Even from the surface, I saw a school of bumphead parrotfish the size of dogs, moving like a single organism. The boat’s tender shuttled us in and out, always within sight. That evening, the captain anchored in a bay near Wayag again, and we swam off the back platform under a sky full of stars. No light pollution, no sound but the water and the occasional splash.
On the final morning, we packed slowly. There was no rush – we weren’t due back in Sorong until midday. We ate mango slices on the deck, flipping through the photos the dive master had compiled. Ten guests, two cabins, three days of immersion in one of the most biodiverse marine environments on Earth. It wasn’t about luxury for luxury’s sake. It was about being in the right place, with a small group, on a boat that knew exactly how to move through these waters.
