Jef Fam Group of Islands ( Irian Jaya )

The Jef Fam is a picturesque group of a dozen or so limestone islands and islets, lying directly west of Batanta Island. There are many channels with shallow, aquamarine inlets, bays, lagoons, beaches, cliffs and coves. They are a perfect setting from which to explore Raja Ampat's premiere hard coral dive sites.

The three small islets lying in a triangle that make up Batu Burung, or Bird Rocks, is the best dive site in the area with regular sightings of the weird and wonderful tasselled wobbegong, as well as one huge great barracuda and occasional manta rays. The tasselled wobbegong is rarely seen outside New Guinea and Australia, so it's worth diving here to see this member of the shark family alone. With its two metre flattened body and very broad head with skin flaps along its lips, it's difficult to imagine misidentifying this creature. Look out for them curled up inside large cabbage corals or under ledges.

The south side of the site is the deepest, so it's a good idea to start your dive here. You can drop 35 metres down a short walled section covered in short pastel soft corals. Then you can head east along and up a steep banked slope. The slope is covered in sheet corals and mushroom corals, small green sea pens, spiky blue-jade tube sponges, and brown hydrozoans. Bigeye bream keep a wary eye on divers as they swim past, and blue-sided wrasse form small colonies here. This site is fantastic for angelfish as they seem to be here in all their glorious colours and forms. Bicolour angelfish (yellow and blue halves), keyhole (navy with a white 'keyhole'), Lamarck's (black and white stripes), three-spot (bright yellow with blue lips) and six-banded are all easily spotted. Purple and threadfin anthias add to the spectrum of colour as you make your way up the slope.

If you headed along the western gentle-sloping side of the site then you'd come round until you were 15 metres deep or so, then head up the reef slope. Pairs of masked rabbitfish are common here and black and white banded sea snakes hunt over the green cabbage patch corals.

On the reef flat there is large field of porites and acropora hard corals in 5-8 metres. Small table corals, staghorn patches, green and brown elkhorn and finger corals cover the substrate along with brown soft coral bushes and hydrozoans. Titan triggerfish are at home feeding on hard coral chunks, and there are masses of slender fusiliers, and green and blue damsels. One of the most interesting features here are the giant tridachna clams at six metres - some over a metre long - with intricate brown, green and purple patterns.

To the north of the dive site is a long finger ridge, running from the northernmost islet, slowly down to 22 metres. Clown triggerfish, one of the most beautiful fish in the seas, go about their work in the depths and red-breasted wrasse are nice to spot here too.

Dinding Warna Banyak is the north-south channel that runs between the two islands of Keruo. Try to dive the west side of the steep banked wall as it allows more sunlight during the daytime. The channel runs for about 300 metres to a depth of 30 metres.The shallows start with yellow and orange soft corals then brown as you make your way along. In the deeper sections gorgonians and black corals take over. Watch out for round batfish, the yellowtail coris, Jansen's wrasse, brown-banded butterflyfish and sweetlips. On the sandy bottom, take a good luck through the rubble as you may be lucky to find red octopus, mantis shrimps, or, more rarely, the rather cryptic mimic octopus.

Jef Fam Reef Basics: Hard corals and wobbegongs
Depth: 5 - >35m
Visibility: 5 - 25m
Currents: Moderate
Surface Conditions: Calm
Water Temperature: 28 - 30°C
Experience Level: Beginner - advanced
Number of dive sites: 3
Diving Season: All year round
Distance: ~110 km west of Sorong (7 hours)
Access: Raja Ampat liveaboard from Irian Jaya or West Timor

Source : www.divetheworldindonesia.com