A pale sandbar surfacing in shallow turquoise water, with a jungle-covered island beyond

Silo 5 · About us

How We Check What We Publish

Planning a remote trip on bad information is expensive. Here is where the facts on this site come from, and what happens when one turns out to be wrong.

Report an Error The process

sourcing comes first: Primary sourcing comes first
sources for every number: Official sources for every number
when we cannot confirm it: Flagged when we cannot confirm it
corrections, not quiet edits: Public corrections, not quiet edits

The principle

Say Where It Came From, or Say You Do Not Know

Most of what is written about Raja Ampat online is recycled from other pages about Raja Ampat. That is how a figure gets repeated for years without anyone checking it, and how two contradictory numbers end up on the same website. The rule here is simple: anything with a number attached — a price, a permit fee, a depth, a season — is checked against the operator or the authority that sets it. Where it cannot be confirmed, the page says so rather than repeating it confidently.

Two guests walking a quiet white-sand beach, karst headlands and moored boats behind them

Primary sourcing: Sites we dive, boats we run, fees we pay
Official sources: Regency and marine park for permits and rules
Review: Every published figure checked before it goes live
Update cadence: Seasonal figures reviewed each season, not once
Corrections: Fixed and said, not quietly edited
Conflicts: We sell trips. Where that colours a page, it is stated

The process

Six Rules This Site Runs On

Including the uncomfortable one about our own commercial interest.

How we vet partners

A long timber jetty running out from the treeline over clear shallow water

Firsthand first

primary sourcing

Depths, currents, dive times and what is actually at a site come from diving it. Where a page describes something we have not done ourselves, it is attributed rather than asserted.

Numbers get a source

official verification

Permit fees, park rules and certification requirements are checked against the regency or the certifying body. A number without a source does not get published as fact.

Unconfirmed is stated

not smoothed over

Where something could not be verified, the page says so. That is less tidy than a confident sentence, and considerably more useful when you are booking flights around it.

Seasonal figures get revisited

update cadence

Visibility, water temperature, manta timing and permit costs are checked each season. A guide written once and left is a guide that is wrong by year three.

Corrections are public

not quiet edits

When something turns out to be wrong it gets fixed and said. Silently changing a figure hides the fact that anyone relied on the old one.

We declare the conflict

we sell trips

This site is run by a company that sells private trips, which is a reason to be sceptical of any page recommending one. Where our commercial interest could colour a judgement — resort versus liveaboard, for instance — the page says so.