By Gary Backhouse
Judy and I recently completed the excellent Alor, Komodo and Raja Ampat trip to Indonesia. The last leg of our journey was a stay in Raja Ampat at Papua Explorers Lodge, where the bungalows are built out over the water.
One night I walked out onto the deck to watch the lightning of an approaching thunderstorm, and I almost stepped on a fish! The fish out of water in question is the Ambon Rockskipper, a species of blenny that grows to about 15cm long. Like a number of blennies, this species can forage out of water, usually in the splash zone where the rocks stay wet.
These fish were climbing up the steps of our bungalow, about 15-20 cm above the water, then sitting patiently waiting for the rising tide (or the rain) to wet the steps, where they commenced feeding on the algae and diatoms growing on the wooden steps.
I have seen mudskippers (related to gobies) foraging out of water before but never terrestrial blennies! Curious indeed.
Hi Gary, thanks for sharing this entertaining post with pictures. We saw some kind of Rockskipper when we were staying at Misool Resort in southern Raja Ampat. We were also very surprised to see it out of the water on the rocks around the edge of the lagoon. Definitely a fish that falls in the curious category.
Hi! I’m looking at Papua Explorers Lodge for a snorkel trip in 2026. What did you think of the snorkeling opportunities and the resort?
Thank you!
Hi Laurie, Papua Explorers is an excellent lodge, lovely cabins over the water, great service, good food, a very nice house reef with lots of fish and other sea creatures. Plus the bonus of Palm Cockatoos and Spotted Cuscus in the trees around the lodge.
Snorkeling ranged from good to fabulous, we did several sites around Mansuar and Kri islands, which were all basically similar in coral and fish communities, then some wonderful sites including the famed Fam Wall and other sites around the Fam Islands, a mangrove/coral reef site with some great nudibranchs and unusual small fish, and the jetties and other sites on Arborek Island. We tried a manta cleaning station snorkel but had to abandon that due to the insane currents running that day.
We were on a group trip there (see link at top, great company, highly recommended), so had our own boats for dedicated snorkeling trips, three sites per day. Staying at PapEx as an independent snorkeler, you will probably be going out on the dive boats and then snorkeling sites near the dive sites, so may not get to visit some of the shallower sites our group snorkeled. But a great destination nonetheless.