Melissa’s Garden: Colorful Dive Site of Raja Ampat

According to Scuba Diver Magazine, Melissa's Garden is “a dream dive”. It boasts a variety of species, bizarre rock formations and vibrantly colored soft as well as hard corals. 

This dive site features two pinnacles rising up from the water on either side of a flat topped oval shaped reef, with a sandy bottom at 25 meters.

Like a perfectly manicured garden underwater, Melissa’s Garden simply waits for divers to discover its beauty and underwater elegance.  With good visibility and easy currents, take a calm dive as our guides lead you through the many corners of Melissa’s Garden. 

Although the dive spot is known for its intricate meadow-like features, you can be sure to have some unforgettable interactions with the creatures underwater. Find yourself surrounded by bright surgeonfish and have a go at finding pygmy seahorses in the seafan corals that make its home in the garden.

On your exploration of Melissa’s Garden in Raja Ampat, you will discover that this dive site offers different views at different depths. The shallowest point at the reef top is around 5 meters,, meaning Melissa’s Garden is also a perfect snorkeling site. Divers, however, can go down to 25 meters and enjoy a different scenery deeper underwater. 

Whether you snorkel or dive in Melissa's Garden, it is sure to astound and take your breath away. The stunning colors and marine life will impress anyone, making it the top dive spot in Raja Ampat.

Read more: Raja Ampat Diving Season Explained

Melissa’s Garden is famous for its great diversity in fish species and corals. There, you can spot large snappers, barracudas, angelfish, lionfish and clownfish among many others like schools of anthias, fusiliers and damsels. 

Other common sights include blacktip reef sharks, moray eels and cuttlefish. You could even catch a glimpse of strange creatures such as the Wobbegong Shark– rare to see elsewhere–or the crocodile fish that is so cleverly camouflaged against coral.

For macro enthusiasts and underwater photographers who visit Melissa's Garden there are different types of microlife such as nudibranchs, pygmy seahorses, shrimps, worms, crustaceans and ghost pipefish.

Read more: Our full guide on How to Get to Raja Ampat.

Did you know? Melissa’s Garden was named after the daughter of the founder of Papua Diving Resorts, Max Ammer. He was the one who pioneered diving and sustainable tourism in the area, establishing the first dive resort in Raja Ampat.

Decades ago, no one was diving in the Dampier Strait… except for Max, with the help of the local Papuans. As he fell in love with the vibrant ecosystems in the area and continued diving, he found many of the famous dive sites in Raja Ampat, including Melissa’s Garden and Mike’s Point, both named after his children. 

When Max saw Melissa’s Garden for the first time, he was so enchanted by the garden’s beauty that he decided to name it after his newborn daughter, Melissa, because it reflected the beauty that he saw in her.

Melissa’s Garden is one of the sites included in the full day excursion to the Fam Islands, where guests can snorkel or dive.

The Fam Islands are about a 1.5-hour boat ride from Kri Island. The full day excursion includes two dives, a picnic lunch, and a trip to the Piaynemo Geosite viewpoint where you can see the iconic Fam Islands from above.

Sustainable tourism is an important principle at Papua Diving Resorts. Join us on sustainable diving trips that will help save our oceans through our non-profit arm, Raja Ampat Research & Conservation Center (RARCC). 

Our projects include preventing shark and ray finning, rehabilitating leopard sharks, bringing education to local villages, and training locals to become dive guides.