Misool Eco Resort
A private-island dive resort and conservation centre in southern Raja Ampat: 20 water cottages and villas of reclaimed hardwood inside the Misool Marine Reserve.
- Neighbourhood
- Batbitim Island, southern Raja Ampat
- Status
- Open
Why we recommend it
Misool is the rare resort whose reason for existing is the sea around it. The marine reserve it helped to establish is patrolled around the clock by local rangers, and the results are measured: according to the Misool Foundation, average fish biomass at monitored sites rose by 248 per cent between 2007 and 2021, and shark numbers inside the reserve have increased by 190 per cent since 2012. Divers and snorkellers see the consequence from the steps of their own cottage.
It suits travellers who want reef, quiet and purpose rather than resort amenities, and who accept the journey: five hours by boat from Sorong. With no more than 40 guests and four staff to each of them, it is also small. Elsewhere in the archipelago, OKYTO covers Sorido Bay Resort and Papua Paradise Eco Resort.
Rooms & Suites
There are 20 rooms in two groups. On the North Lagoon, eight Water Cottages stand on stilts over the water, at least ten metres apart, each with a grass roof, a hammock on the veranda and steps down to the house reef. Four North Lagoon Villas share the setting: Villa Utara, with two bedrooms, suits a family or four friends, while Nasnoos, Wakachom and Tabisasu are for two or three, the last facing the sunrise over the Daram Islands.
Seven South Beach Villas lie over the hill, a short, steep walk or a water-taxi ride away. Among them are Waya Biru and Moro Laiyn, octagonal rooms each with a separate pod for yoga, meditation or treatments, and Kalanme, three linked villas for a larger party. Villa Rajawali stands alone on a hilltop. All rooms have open-air bathrooms in the Balinese manner, air-conditioning and handmade furniture.
Dining
The single restaurant is a round-roofed building under coconut palms on the beach of the North Lagoon, with a terrace from which young sharks can be watched hunting in the shallows. The kitchen cooks a mixture of Asian and Western food, mostly plant-based, with animal protein in smaller portions. Meals follow the diving day: a light breakfast before the first dive, a cooked one after it, lunch, afternoon tea and a plated dinner.
The sourcing is strict. Greens come from the resort’s own hydroponic garden; fruit is local and seasonal; fish is line-caught in blue water outside the reserve, and reef fish and prawns are not served. Neither is pork, out of respect for the resort’s Muslim hosts, and no palm oil is used. The kitchen crew also teaches Indonesian cooking.
Design
The resort was built of reclaimed tropical hardwoods, milled on the island with its own portable sawmill, and the rooms are set around the island’s karst rock formations. The Water Cottages have traditional grass roofs; several of the South Beach villas are octagonal, and one has a bathroom built into the rock. Furniture and fittings were made by hand. Many of the villas carry names from the language of Misool, such as Waya Biru, blue water, and Moro Laiyn, south breeze.
Wellness & Spa
Diving and snorkelling are the main occupations, beginning on the house reef a few fin-strokes from the cottages. The resort also offers wellness sessions and traditional spa treatments, which in some villas can be taken in a private pod.
The conservation work is part of the stay. The Misool Marine Reserve covers about 300,000 acres and contains two no-take zones leased from local villages, joined by a corridor where fishing gear is restricted. Eighteen salaried local rangers work from three stations with five patrol boats.
Location
Batbitim lies in the remote south of Raja Ampat, the Indonesian archipelago covered on OKYTO’s destination page, just south of the equator. Guests fly to Sorong, usually by way of Jakarta, arriving the evening before the stay begins; the resort’s own speedboat leaves the next morning and takes about five hours, depending on the sea.
- Website
- Official website