🌊 Deep Dive Series: Cape Kri, Raja Ampat (Indonesia)
Exploring the richest dive sites on Earth
Welcome to the Southeast Asia Diving Deep Dive Guide Series — a collection designed for divers who love the details. In this series, we go beyond destinations to focus on the dives themselves: the currents, creatures, moods, and moments that make each site unforgettable. From the adrenaline rush of Barracuda Point at Sipadan to the swirling life of Richelieu Rock and the remote walls of Atauro Island, these guides are for divers who live for those once-in-a-lifetime descents.
And there’s no better place to begin than here — at Cape Kri, the beating heart of Raja Ampat.
🪸 The Jewel of Raja Ampat
Few names in diving carry the same weight as Cape Kri. Located at the northern tip of Kri Island in the Dampier Strait, this legendary site sits at the crossroads of powerful ocean currents that sweep through from the Pacific. Those currents bring a constant flow of nutrient-rich water, feeding one of the most biodiverse coral reefs ever recorded.
Cape Kri became famous after marine biologist Dr. Gerald Allen logged an astonishing 374 fish species in a single dive here — a world record that cemented its reputation as one of the richest reefs on Earth. Yet no statistic can truly capture what it’s like to descend into this living masterpiece.
As you roll back off the boat and descend through layers of shimmering blue, the reef comes alive immediately — a riot of colour and motion. Clouds of anthias shimmer above branching corals, trevallies flash silver in the current, and big-eye jacks hang effortlessly in the flow. In every direction, life is in motion — from pygmy seahorses clinging to gorgonians to reef sharks cruising the drop-off below.
Cape Kri isn’t just a dive; it’s a reminder of what untouched reefs are meant to look like — balanced, wild, and full of energy. It’s the kind of site that leaves you breathless, both from the current and from the sheer abundance of life unfolding all around.
🤿 The Dive Site at a Glance
Location: Northern tip of Kri Island, Dampier Strait, Raja Ampat, Indonesia
Type: Sloping reef and wall, drift dive
Depth range: 5–40 metres
Experience level: Intermediate to advanced
Access: By boat from Kri Island resorts or Raja Ampat liveaboards
Currents, Conditions, and Visibility
Cape Kri is famous for its strong, nutrient-rich currents — the same ones that make the reef so alive. The flow can vary from a gentle drift to full-on adrenaline, depending on the tide, so most dives are timed for slack or incoming current. When it’s running right, you’ll simply hang mid-water and watch the reef pulse with energy.
Visibility usually ranges between 20–30 metres, with warm tropical water averaging 27–29°C year-round. The best dives often happen on a rising tide, when the current pushes clear water from the open ocean through the Dampier Strait, lighting up the reef and drawing in pelagic fish.
The reef itself slopes down from just a few metres to more than 40, covered in hard corals, sea fans, sponges, and soft corals of every hue. The upper reef is perfect for long, colourful safety stops — an easy place to end your dive surrounded by sunlight and life.
It’s not an overly deep dive, but it demands awareness. Divers often describe Cape Kri as a “living river” — fast, vibrant, and full of surprises. With the right guide and good buoyancy, it’s one of the most exhilarating sites in the Coral Triangle.
🗺️ Topography – Where Currents Collide
Cape Kri sits right where two powerful tidal flows meet — the incoming current from the Pacific to the east and the outgoing surge from the Dampier Strait to the west. That convergence is what makes the site so extraordinary, both in terms of biodiversity and topography.
The dive begins on a gentle sloping reef, starting in just a few metres of water. This is your entry point — calm and colourful, ideal for adjusting buoyancy and taking in the vibrant corals before the current picks up. As you drift deeper along the slope, the terrain transforms into a steep wall dotted with bommies, overhangs, and massive coral heads that provide shelter for schooling fish.
At around 20–30 metres, the reef broadens into a platform where currents sweep across the coral ridge. This is the heart of the action — a natural intersection where nutrients collide, and the marine life gathers in astonishing density. On a good day, you can hang in the blue and watch a living curtain of fish streaming past: trevallies, snappers, barracuda, and surgeonfish all glinting in the light.
As the current pushes you along the edge, you’ll pass through patches of soft corals, whip corals, and giant gorgoniansfanning out toward the flow. The deeper sections often host sleeping reef sharks, while the midwater zone buzzes with movement.
Toward the end of the dive, the reef gradually shallows again, leading to a broad coral garden between 5–10 metres — a perfect place to pause for your safety stop. Here, the current slows, and the energy of the dive shifts from thrill to calm. Schools of anthias and damselfish hover above table corals, and the light turns golden as you drift toward the surface.
Cape Kri’s topography is simple but perfectly designed for drama — a slope, a wall, a current, and a thousand moments waiting to happen.
Video from my trip to Raja Ampat in 2018 - from 0.40 to 1.12 features the Cape Kri dive.
🐠 What You’ll See Underwater
Cape Kri is one of those rare places where you don’t have to go looking for marine life — it comes to you. From the moment you descend, the water feels alive. Everywhere you look, something is moving: flashes of silver, clouds of colour, shapes darting in and out of the current.
On most dives, you’ll be surrounded by schools of fusiliers, trevallies, and barracuda, swirling in the current like smoke trails. Snappers, surgeonfish, and batfish cruise the mid-water, while reef sharks patrol the slope below. At times, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a dense, shifting mass of fish — a true “fish tornado” moment where visibility is reduced not by silt, but by life.
In the shallows, the reef explodes with colour. Table corals, staghorn formations, and massive sponges dominate the landscape, hosting anthias, wrasses, and butterflyfish by the thousands. Closer inspection reveals nudibranchs, pipefish, and goby–shrimp pairs, while divers with a keen eye can spot pygmy seahorses clinging to sea fans in the deeper sections. I was lucky enough to see one here due to our eagle eyed guide!
Keep an eye on the blue as well — turtles, barracuda, and even manta rays occasionally cruise past the point when the current is running strong. During the transition between tides, the water can turn into a three-dimensional ballet — the calm of coral gardens below and a constant shimmer of pelagics above.
Macro photographers will find no shortage of subjects here either. Despite Cape Kri’s fame for big fish, the small stuff is equally spectacular: tiny crustaceans hiding in sponges, juvenile reef fish taking shelter among corals, and bright nudibranchs sliding across the substrate in a rainbow of colour.
Every dive here feels different. The current changes, the fish move, the light shifts — but the abundance never fades. Whether you’re a wide-angle shooter, a macro hunter, or simply a diver in love with life, Cape Kri delivers every time.
✨ Signature Moments – The Magic of Cape Kri
Every dive at Cape Kri feels like it has its own rhythm — a sequence of small moments that build into something unforgettable. You start the dive with the hum of the current in your ears, drifting past coral heads bursting with colour. Then suddenly, it happens — the current shifts, the light filters through in shimmering bands, and the water fills with life.
One of the great thrills of Cape Kri is the “fish storm.” In the right conditions, schools of trevallies, snapper, and fusiliers converge into a moving wall that blocks out the reef entirely. You hang mid-water, neutrally buoyant, surrounded on all sides by thousands of fish flashing silver and gold. The noise of their movement — the faint rush and vibration — fills your head. For a moment, it feels like the ocean is breathing around you.
Drifting along the slope, you might catch sight of a blacktip reef shark emerging from the blue, cruising effortlessly against the current. Or perhaps a green turtle glides past, heading toward the coral garden where the light grows warmer and softer. There’s no choreography here, but everything moves in perfect harmony — the coral swaying, the anthias dancing, the current guiding you forward.
And then comes the contrast: the quiet ending. After the rush and colour of the main reef, you rise into the shallows for your safety stop. The current eases, and suddenly you’re floating in a field of light — soft coral branches glowing pink and gold beneath the surface. Small damselfish dart around you, and the reflection of the sun dances across your mask. It’s peaceful, still, and oddly grounding.
Raja Ampat, and Cape Kri in particular is a magical destinatin
It’s that balance — between chaos and calm, current and quiet — that makes Cape Kri so special. It’s a dive that gives you everything: exhilaration, serenity, and a deep, lasting sense of connection to the sea.
📸 Tips for Underwater Photographers
Cape Kri is a photographer’s dream — but it can also be one of the most technically challenging sites to shoot. The currents that make the reef so alive are the same ones that make it tricky to frame a shot. Success here is all about preparation, positioning, and timing.
Wide-Angle Magic
This is first and foremost a wide-angle site. You’ll want to bring a wide or fisheye lens to capture the scale of the reef and the dense schools of fish that fill the frame. The classic Cape Kri shot is a diver silhouetted against a wall of fish, with the coral slope falling away beneath — achievable if you hold position just off the current line.
The light can change quickly here. On strong incoming tides, the visibility often improves, and the colours pop. Try to shoot into the blue when the schools are thickest, using natural light for a softer, more realistic look. If you’re using strobes, keep them wide apart and on low power to avoid backscatter in the current.
Macro in the Mayhem
While most divers chase the big schools, macro enthusiasts shouldn’t overlook Cape Kri’s quiet corners. In the protected eddies behind coral heads, you’ll find nudibranchs, gobies, and pygmy seahorses that reward patient observation. A single strobe or snoot setup works beautifully here — especially for isolating tiny subjects in the dynamic light.
Focus on details that show life in motion: a cleaner wrasse tending to a grouper, anthias feeding in the flow, or a small shrimp clinging to a sea fan swaying with the current.
Managing the Current
Good photos start with good positioning. Stay low and use natural shelter behind bommies to stabilize yourself. Hooking in isn’t recommended here — instead, use gentle finning to maintain position without damaging coral. Be patient; often, the best shots come when you simply let the current bring the scene to you.
If you’re shooting video, balance your exposure for movement — Cape Kri’s natural light and current flow create a cinematic quality that’s best captured smoothly rather than through fast pans.
Final Tip
Plan your shots before descending. The site’s variety can be overwhelming, and it’s easy to drift past a perfect scene. Choose one or two key ideas — like a diver-in-current shot or a coral head swarming with anthias — and let the dive unfold around that.
Cape Kri rewards patience, awareness, and respect for the ocean’s rhythm. When everything aligns — the light, the current, the life — you’ll capture images that truly reflect the wild, unfiltered energy of Raja Ampat.
🧭 How to Dive Cape Kri
Cape Kri sits just off the northern tip of Kri Island, in the heart of the Dampier Strait — one of Raja Ampat’s most accessible and rewarding diving areas. Despite its remote feel, it’s surprisingly easy to reach once you’re in the region, and there are two main ways to experience it: from a resort base or aboard a liveaboard.
🏝️ From a Resort
Staying on Kri Island itself gives you the flexibility to dive Cape Kri multiple times in varying conditions. Two of the best-known bases are Sorido Bay Resort and Kri Eco Resort, both run by Papua Diving, who were among the first to explore and protect these reefs. Dives here are typically by small speedboat, with short rides to nearby sites such as Sardine Reef, Blue Magic, and Mioskon — all within a 15-minute radius.
Diving Cape Kri from a resort lets you time your dives around the tides, maximizing visibility and current flow. Many divers return for second or third dives on different tides, discovering new angles each time. The reef feels different with each change in water movement — calm and colourful on a slack tide, or teeming and electric on a rising one.
🚢 From a Liveaboard
If you want the full Raja Ampat experience, a liveaboard is the ultimate way to dive Cape Kri. Most itineraries include one or two dives here as part of a central Raja Ampat circuit, often paired with Dampier Strait favourites like Arborek Jetty, Mike’s Point, and Manta Sandy.
Liveaboards give you access to tide-optimized scheduling, allowing you to hit Cape Kri exactly when conditions are best — usually on an incoming tide. You’ll also have the advantage of early-morning or late-afternoon dives, when lighting and activity reach their peak.
🌊 Best Time to Dive
Raja Ampat can be dived year-round, but the clearest conditions typically occur between October and April, when the seas are calm and visibility is best. Water temperatures stay around 27–29°C, with currents strongest during the full and new moons.
🐟 Dive Planning Tip
Ask your guide to brief the current direction before entry — it determines which way you’ll drift and where the sweet spots are for fish activity. If the current feels too strong, stay shallower near the slope rather than pushing into the deeper plateau.
Cape Kri rewards those who dive it more than once. Each dive reveals something new — a different current, new light, a new cast of creatures. It’s one of those rare sites where returning isn’t repetition; it’s revelation.
🌱 Conservation and Respect
Cape Kri isn’t just one of the world’s richest reefs — it’s also one of the most successfully protected. The dive site lies within the Raja Ampat Marine Park, part of the wider Bird’s Head Seascape, a model for community-based marine conservation in Indonesia. Here, the balance between tourism, local livelihoods, and biodiversity has been carefully built over the past two decades.
Every diver visiting the region contributes to this protection through the Raja Ampat Marine Park tag, a small but powerful conservation fee that directly funds patrols, reef monitoring, and community programs. Local rangers from nearby villages help enforce no-fishing zones and ensure dive boats respect the reefs — a collaboration that has made Raja Ampat one of the most successful marine conservation stories in the world.
At Cape Kri, where life thrives because of nutrient-rich currents, it’s vital that divers play their part. Even small actions — good buoyancy control, keeping a respectful distance, avoiding coral contact or touching marine life — help preserve the fragile balance. The reef’s energy and diversity depend on being left wild and undisturbed.
Operators like Papua Diving and liveaboards licensed under the Raja Ampat Tourism Authority have led the way in sustainable practice: small group sizes, tide-sensitive scheduling, and strict no-touch policies. Divers are encouraged to observe quietly rather than chase — the best encounters at Cape Kri are always the ones that happen naturally.
Behind every spectacular dive here is a story of stewardship. The coral you drift over today thrives because local communities, NGOs, and dive operators came together to protect it. Every respectful dive helps ensure Cape Kri remains what it is now — a living reminder of how conservation and adventure can coexist.
🌅 After the Ascent
A spectacular sunset over the magical Raja Ampat
Back on the surface, it’s hard not to replay the dive in your mind. The rush of current, the swirl of fish, the stillness in the shallows — they blend together into something more than just a dive. Cape Kri has that rare ability to make you feel both small and completely alive, suspended between the immense power of the ocean and the fragile beauty of the reef below.
Drifting there, mask up, watching the green line of Kri Island in the distance, you realize how much life exists in just one small patch of sea. The colours, the movement, the endless diversity — it’s everything that makes Raja Ampat a marine wonderland distilled into a single site.
But more than the numbers, more than the species lists and records, what makes Cape Kri special is its energy. Every current carries new life; every coral head shelters another secret. It’s a place that reminds you how interconnected the ocean really is — and how much we depend on keeping it that way.
For divers, Cape Kri isn’t just a tick on the bucket list; it’s a reminder of why we dive at all. To witness, to understand, and to protect. It’s the kind of dive that follows you long after you’ve dried your gear — a living memory of motion, light, and life.
❓ Cape Kri FAQ – Everything You Need to Know
🌊 Where exactly is Cape Kri located?
Cape Kri lies at the northern tip of Kri Island in the Dampier Strait, Raja Ampat, Indonesia. It’s about a 90-minute boat ride from the town of Waisai (on Waigeo Island), which can be reached via ferry or speedboat from Sorong — the main gateway to Raja Ampat.
🐠 Why is Cape Kri so famous?
Cape Kri earned its legendary status after marine biologist Dr. Gerald Allen recorded 374 species of fish on a single divehere — a world record. That incredible biodiversity, combined with its healthy coral reefs, strong currents, and vibrant marine life, makes it one of the most celebrated dive sites on the planet.
🤿 What kind of dive is Cape Kri?
It’s a drift dive over a sloping reef and wall, with strong currents that bring in nutrient-rich water. The site offers everything from thrilling mid-water fish action to calm, colourful shallows — making it ideal for experienced divers who enjoy a bit of movement underwater.
🐋 What marine life can I expect to see?
Expect huge schools of fusiliers, trevallies, barracuda, and snappers, along with blacktip and whitetip reef sharks, turtles, and the occasional manta ray. The reef itself is packed with smaller life — pygmy seahorses, nudibranchs, gobies, and cleaner shrimp are common. Every dive is different, but the abundance is consistent.
📅 When is the best time to dive Cape Kri?
Raja Ampat is a year-round destination, but the best conditions are generally between October and April. During these months, the seas are calm, visibility is excellent, and currents are predictable. Water temperature averages 27–29°Cthroughout the year.
📸 Is Cape Kri good for underwater photography?
Absolutely. It’s one of the most photogenic sites in the Coral Triangle. Wide-angle lenses are perfect for capturing schools of fish and sweeping reef scenes, while macro photographers will find plenty of small subjects in protected areas behind coral heads. Just remember to manage your position carefully in the current and avoid touching or damaging the coral.
🧭 Can beginners dive Cape Kri?
Cape Kri is best suited for intermediate to advanced divers due to its variable current strength. However, with the right conditions and an experienced guide, confident beginners can enjoy the shallower parts of the reef. It’s important to discuss your comfort level with your dive operator beforehand so they can time the dive appropriately.
🏝️ Should I dive from a resort or a liveaboard?
Both options are excellent. Staying on Kri Island gives you the chance to dive Cape Kri multiple times and really learn its moods, while a liveaboard offers convenience, flexible scheduling, and the chance to combine it with other famous Dampier Strait sites like Blue Magic and Sardine Reef.
🌱 Do I need to pay a marine park fee?
Yes. All divers must purchase a Raja Ampat Marine Park entry tag, which helps fund reef patrols, conservation projects, and community initiatives. The tag is valid for one year and can be obtained through your dive operator or liveaboard.
🚫 Are there any restrictions or rules for diving Cape Kri?
Yes — and they’re part of what keeps it pristine. No touching or collecting marine life, no anchoring on the reef, and no spearfishing are strictly enforced. Dive operators also limit group sizes and ensure dives are conducted in line with current conditions.
💬 What makes Cape Kri special compared to other Raja Ampat sites?
It’s the perfect snapshot of Raja Ampat’s diversity — massive schools of fish, healthy coral, predators and macro life all in one place. Some sites may be more dramatic or remote, but few match Cape Kri’s consistency, accessibility, and sheer abundance. It’s a dive that captures the spirit of Raja Ampat in a single descent.