About Rascal
We keep Rascal’s bow into the current when anchoring at Dampier Strait – it’s the only way to stay put when the tide turns and the water starts running hard between Batanta and Waigeo. At 30 metres, she’s long enough to ride it out without swinging wildly, and her weight holds steady where smaller boats get dragged. That matters when you’re planning a 6 a.m. dive at Cape Kri and don’t want to spend the night drifting. We’ve run this boat through four wet seasons here, and she’s never failed to deliver guests dry-footed to the next site.
This isn’t a floating hotel with ten identical rooms. Rascal has one cabin – a full-beam master setup below deck, designed for a single group or family. Ten guests max. That means no queues for the bathroom, no fighting for shade on deck, and no strangers at your dinner table. The salon opens straight onto the aft deck, where we set up the long teak table for meals. We use real plates, not plastic, and the crew polishes the silver before every dinner. You’ll find cold towels waiting after every muck dive, and your dive gear is rinsed salt-free before it even touches the deck.
Our days follow the tides, not a fixed itinerary. If the current’s running strong at Manta Sandy at 8 a.m., we adjust. Maybe we hit Arborek Jetty first, let you snorkel the slope while the mantas wait for the surge. Then across to Sagewin Strait in the afternoon, where the walls are stacked with pygmy seahorses and ghost pipefish. We carry a rigid inflatable with a 40HP outboard – we use it to ferry guests to shore when the beach is too shallow, or to scout conditions ahead. The captain’s been logging dive sites in Raja Ampat since 2009; he knows which corner of Yenbuba has the blue-ringed octopus hiding under the ledge at low tide.
The boat runs on twin 420HP diesels, enough to cover 120 nautical miles in a day if we need to reposition. But we don’t rush. Most charters spend two nights in the Misool archipelago – one anchored in a closed lagoon with no other boats in sight, the other near Boo Windows where you can drift through the coral bridge at slack tide. At night, we switch to generator power for AC and lighting, but cut it at 10 p.m. unless someone’s reading. The crew stays awake. Someone’s always on watch, checking anchor drag, monitoring weather feeds from Sorong.
When you book Rascal, you’re not just hiring a boat – you’re getting our crew’s attention. The chef adjusts menus based on what’s caught that morning: wahoo for sashimi, reef fish grilled with turmeric and lime. If a guest wants to learn how to tie a rolling hitch, the first mate teaches them at the winch. This boat doesn’t do cookie-cutter. We’ve hosted researchers tracking shark migrations, photographers waiting three hours for the right light on a crocodile fish, and families celebrating birthdays with cake on a sandbank in Wayag. The boat adapts. We don’t run her any other way.
