Heron Island — Raja Ampat

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Hotels, dive operators, gear, and how to get here are on the Raja Ampat location page.

Overview

Heron Island, a coral cay on the Great Barrier Reef, offers extensive reef diving directly from its shores. Known for abundant hard and soft corals, the surrounding waters are home to a diverse array of marine life including reef sharks, turtles, manta rays, and a multitude of colorful reef fish. Shallow fringing reefs give way to deeper bommies and coral gardens, suitable for divers of all experience levels.

Briefing note

Heron Island is a protected national park. Divers must adhere to responsible diving practices.

What you'll see

6 species curated

Green Sea Turtle
year-round
Loggerhead Sea Turtle
year-round
White-tip Reef Shark
year-round
Black-tip Reef Shark
year-round
Manta Ray
seasonal
Peak: May · Jun · Jul · Aug
Barracuda
year-round

Sightings evidence

1 record on file

Green Sea Turtle
high confidence
Last confirmed
May 2026
Recent records
130 within 10 km

Sources & methodology

How we summarise this

We aggregate confirmed occurrence records from GBIF and OBIS within a fixed radius of each dive site. Occurrence records confirm presence and reveal seasonality clustering, but they DO NOT measure per-dive probability — there is no eligible-effort denominator. We deliberately do not publish a numeric '% chance of sighting' from this data.

Sources

Global Biodiversity Information Facility — GBIF Secretariat
Ocean Biodiversity Information System — IOC-UNESCO
iNaturalist — California Academy of Sciences & National Geographic Society
OBIS-SEAMAP — Duke University Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab / OBIS
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature
WoRMS — World Register of Marine Species — Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)
FishBase — FishBase Consortium
Atlas of Living Australia — CSIRO / GBIF Australia
REEF Volunteer Fish Survey — Reef Environmental Education Foundation

Conditions

Month	Water	Visibility	Current
Jan	26–29 °C	15–25 m	mild
Feb	26–29 °C	15–25 m	mild
Mar	25–28 °C	15–25 m	mild
Apr	24–27 °C	15–25 m	mild
May	23–26 °C	15–25 m	mild
Jun	22–25 °C	15–25 m	mild
Jul	22–25 °C	15–25 m	mild
Aug	23–26 °C	15–25 m	mild
Sep	24–27 °C	15–25 m	mild
Oct	25–28 °C	15–25 m	mild
Nov	26–29 °C	15–25 m	mild
Dec	26–29 °C	15–25 m	mild

Season calendar

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Peak season highlighted · current month outlined

Next step

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