trapmonkey
Registered
Just a quick hello, best christmas and belated thanksgiving wishes to all.This is a run down of our end of season trip to Indonesia. I go every year.
Dives:
bunaken north - lekuan 1,2,3(wall drift)...sanchiko's (deep walls), fukui (slopes and mini walls), mandolin, bunaken timur, siladen, mike's point etc.
bunaken south/mainland coast - poh poh slope, poh poh reef/wall, circus critters, bulo, city extra.
in general vis was excellent 20m ++ on the walls and about 15 in the muck.
had 1 mild storm and hence one bad day of vis so walls 10m, muck 3-5m.
all the animals are still there. saw plenty including the rarer things like mandarin fish, coconut octos, rhinopias, purple leaf fish, ambon scorpion fish, hairy frogfish, seahorses, ghost pipe fish(ornate & robust), devil walker (indian walkman), fingered dragonets, pegasus sea moth, flying gunards etc etc
I played with a school (20+) of whitetips at 44.7m, danced with big dogtooth tuna at a cleaning station at about 30.5m and watched dozens of big coach whip, blue fin and giant trevally and jacks as a well. Not to mention inumerable squid (squid egg laying witnessed), cuttlefish, ordinary octos,lobster, mantis shrimp & other shrimps galore, huge groupers and the usual thousands of red toothed triggers and pyramid butterfly fish. A coupla dives we were even investigated close up by curious black tips...probably attracted by the bubbles. We also saw literally a couple of dozen different turtles, 1-2 eagle rays on occaision and even took close up pics and video with Rambo (that huge turtle that i see every year at lekuan).
Only thing missing this trip was a total absence of ordinary frogfish and oddly no big morays...
hahahahaha...
Indonesia is great for year end diving!
Stay:
Our stay was at the Excellent! Excellent! Lumba Lumba on manado. They are #1 on tripadvisor for a reason. huge breakfasts with lots fruit, pancakes and eggs in the morning. great buffet meals in the evening, pleasant company with excellent and safe dive centre(good and new rental gear if you need it), great guides and spacious boat. Even the rooms are great with superb verandahs with sea views and perfect layouts, a/c, hot water (with water pressure!) and room safes(important for locking away all the crap of modern living..wallet, passport credit cards etc). there is gsm coverage, but no room land line (who needs them) and free wi fi(a little on and off).
Diving & travel advice:
bunaken north and south are ideal sites for any level of diver, although it helps if you are an advanced diver level or are reasonably experienced. The walls can be a little deep and the occaisional down currents swift and can catch you unawares. The dive guides in general that I have met are good and speak english well, importantly they are for the most part pretty safe and used to guiding closely as well as showing you the good stuff.
Nitrox is excellent on the shallow muck stuff... enabling us shutterbugs to get long dives in. I would dive air on the walls for safety's sake though...
best flight is from singapore... via silkair(4 times a week) ... I hear coming from jakarta via garuda is less optimum due to flight timings..I don't know I live in Singapore so the silkair flight is always the one i'm on.
bring spare cards, batteries and chargers... there are great photo ops on every dive.
photos to follow in a bit. once i wrestle with the flikr account.
Hope this was useful to all you interweb divers
warmest seasons best wishes,
Trapmonkey.
Dives:
bunaken north - lekuan 1,2,3(wall drift)...sanchiko's (deep walls), fukui (slopes and mini walls), mandolin, bunaken timur, siladen, mike's point etc.
bunaken south/mainland coast - poh poh slope, poh poh reef/wall, circus critters, bulo, city extra.
in general vis was excellent 20m ++ on the walls and about 15 in the muck.
had 1 mild storm and hence one bad day of vis so walls 10m, muck 3-5m.
all the animals are still there. saw plenty including the rarer things like mandarin fish, coconut octos, rhinopias, purple leaf fish, ambon scorpion fish, hairy frogfish, seahorses, ghost pipe fish(ornate & robust), devil walker (indian walkman), fingered dragonets, pegasus sea moth, flying gunards etc etc
I played with a school (20+) of whitetips at 44.7m, danced with big dogtooth tuna at a cleaning station at about 30.5m and watched dozens of big coach whip, blue fin and giant trevally and jacks as a well. Not to mention inumerable squid (squid egg laying witnessed), cuttlefish, ordinary octos,lobster, mantis shrimp & other shrimps galore, huge groupers and the usual thousands of red toothed triggers and pyramid butterfly fish. A coupla dives we were even investigated close up by curious black tips...probably attracted by the bubbles. We also saw literally a couple of dozen different turtles, 1-2 eagle rays on occaision and even took close up pics and video with Rambo (that huge turtle that i see every year at lekuan).
Only thing missing this trip was a total absence of ordinary frogfish and oddly no big morays...
hahahahaha...
Indonesia is great for year end diving!
Stay:
Our stay was at the Excellent! Excellent! Lumba Lumba on manado. They are #1 on tripadvisor for a reason. huge breakfasts with lots fruit, pancakes and eggs in the morning. great buffet meals in the evening, pleasant company with excellent and safe dive centre(good and new rental gear if you need it), great guides and spacious boat. Even the rooms are great with superb verandahs with sea views and perfect layouts, a/c, hot water (with water pressure!) and room safes(important for locking away all the crap of modern living..wallet, passport credit cards etc). there is gsm coverage, but no room land line (who needs them) and free wi fi(a little on and off).
Diving & travel advice:
bunaken north and south are ideal sites for any level of diver, although it helps if you are an advanced diver level or are reasonably experienced. The walls can be a little deep and the occaisional down currents swift and can catch you unawares. The dive guides in general that I have met are good and speak english well, importantly they are for the most part pretty safe and used to guiding closely as well as showing you the good stuff.
Nitrox is excellent on the shallow muck stuff... enabling us shutterbugs to get long dives in. I would dive air on the walls for safety's sake though...
best flight is from singapore... via silkair(4 times a week) ... I hear coming from jakarta via garuda is less optimum due to flight timings..I don't know I live in Singapore so the silkair flight is always the one i'm on.
bring spare cards, batteries and chargers... there are great photo ops on every dive.
photos to follow in a bit. once i wrestle with the flikr account.
Hope this was useful to all you interweb divers
warmest seasons best wishes,
Trapmonkey.
