Pillpusher
Contributor
As promised, here is my report from my recent trip to N Sulawesi. Seeing that my previous dive experiences had all been reefs, I wasn’t sure what I would think of muck diving. So, I split my time in Indo as 5 dive days diving the Lembeh Straight (Kungkungan Bay Resort), and 4 dive days + dry day on the other side around Manado (Cocotiono’s).
Transit-
We flew Air China IAH-PEK (14 hours), Singapore Air PEK-SIN (6 hours), then Silk Air SIN-MAN (4 hours) the next morning. I was absolutely dreading 24 hours of flights, so I used miles for 1st class tickets on the Air China and Singapore Air legs both ways… If you have Star Alliance Miles, THIS is the way to spend them… The first class seats on the Air China 777-300er are outstanding. You have your own private booth with very comfortable lay flat seats, as well as a large AVOD display. As expected, most of the movies were not in English, so bring plenty of your own entertainment. Regardless, the flight flew by much faster than I ever thought it would.
As someone else noted in a previous thread, the Visa on Arrival Fee in Manado is now $35USD per person, up from $25, so be prepared for that. From there it was about a 90 minute, excitement filled drive to KBR. If you’ve never been to this part of the world, you may be better off just keeping your eyes closed. People here tend to drive like absolute maniacs. You will spend most of the time in the middle of the road or in oncoming traffic, as mopeds loaded down with three small children and full sacks of groceries whiz by you in close enough range that you could reach out the window and high five their faces. The only rule of the road appears to be that there are no rules at all. The painted on lanes and traffic medians are merely suggestions, and there are very few signs along the side of the road. The most common one, perfectly sums up the driving experience in Indonesia.
KBR-
This place is everything you’ve read, and then some… This was my first time to Lembeh, so my “critter wish list” was a rather demanding 22 items long… But, to their credit, in just five days of diving, they checked off all of them but five… Well, the last one on the list was a mermaid, so I can hardly blame them for that (other critters MIA were mimic octopus, hairy frogfish, candy crab, and hairy squat lobster).
The diving and diversity here is amazing, though. On most dive trips, I average maybe 20 “decent” photos per day… I had over 90 pics that made the first cut after just one day! Over 5 days of diving, I got in 19 dives. The water was a balmy 81F on most dives, so I only wore a 3mm vest. Aside from having to navigate the occasional field of small jellies in the shallows, it was more than enough for me (although, everyone else was in full 3mm suit protection, so I guess I’m not the norm).
The resort was unseasonably slow for July when I was there, so I had my own guide for several of the dives, which was nice. However, they all wear the same exact wetsuit and fins, so be sure to pick out subtle differences in their dive gear (dive watch color, etc) to make sure you don’t start following the wrong person. I didn’t have a single dive under 60 minutes and most were 70 or longer. So, if you don’t have a Nitrox cert, I would highly suggest it to maximize your bottom time. The dive guides do a great job finding critters and rotating you around to them with the other divers so there isn’t a queue of photographers hovering around waiting idly. However, it’s important to remember that, to my knowledge (and I may be wrong), most of them here are guides, not dive masters and not dive instructors. Of course, you are responsible for your own safety here, as knowing your own limits and what you’re comfortable with as always, but probably more-so here than other places. I went into deco a couple of times, and was toeing the line on several more dives. Hell, at one point, I told my guide that I needed to get more shallow only to be given a “just a minute” gesture because he was apparently looking for something… Which, of course, turned into ten more minutes at depth followed by a deco stop later. We only ran into much of a current on one dive, and vis ran around 30-40 feet, tops, on most dives. Seeing as how the Lembeh Straight is known for its muck dives, I was surprised at how beautiful the coral is in the shallows here, though. Unfortunately, the visibility remains about the same as it is in the muck, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
The food was very good and the menu is quite diverse offering anything from local Indo, to American, to Japanese and Italian. You could stay there a week, eat something different for each meal of the day, and never have the same thing twice.
The grounds are immaculately kept with flora and fauna all around, and there is nothing better than sitting on your patio here having your morning coffee while watching the sunrise. Speaking of which, I highly recommend paying a little extra for one of the beachfront villas. I was originally booked for a traditional house, but then I realized they don’t have a patio. We stayed in T5. Also, if you’re in a villa, you get room service. Which is very nice for when you just don’t feel like putting on clothes after a long day of diving to go to the restaurant to eat. However, if you do go with a traditional house, try to get T1. It is nicely positioned between the dive jetty and the restaurant, and also appeared to be the only one with a small balcony built onto it. Yes, there are bugs, but this is Indonesia and to be expected. Nothing too bad though. We had a praying mantis fly through into the room through door as I opened it, which was pretty funny. We tactically performed a “catch and release” with him since he was cool, though. The wifi worked well from the patio, but not so well at times from inside the room. One of the other guests I met there that stayed a few villas down said it barely reaches them. So, if that’s important to you, the closer in, the better. Also, I was surprised by the amount of channels available on the tv for when you’re winding things down for the evening, especially with the large selection in English. Very different from our next stop at Cocotiono’s which had 10 channels, and only three of which were watchable ones in English.
Transit-
We flew Air China IAH-PEK (14 hours), Singapore Air PEK-SIN (6 hours), then Silk Air SIN-MAN (4 hours) the next morning. I was absolutely dreading 24 hours of flights, so I used miles for 1st class tickets on the Air China and Singapore Air legs both ways… If you have Star Alliance Miles, THIS is the way to spend them… The first class seats on the Air China 777-300er are outstanding. You have your own private booth with very comfortable lay flat seats, as well as a large AVOD display. As expected, most of the movies were not in English, so bring plenty of your own entertainment. Regardless, the flight flew by much faster than I ever thought it would.
As someone else noted in a previous thread, the Visa on Arrival Fee in Manado is now $35USD per person, up from $25, so be prepared for that. From there it was about a 90 minute, excitement filled drive to KBR. If you’ve never been to this part of the world, you may be better off just keeping your eyes closed. People here tend to drive like absolute maniacs. You will spend most of the time in the middle of the road or in oncoming traffic, as mopeds loaded down with three small children and full sacks of groceries whiz by you in close enough range that you could reach out the window and high five their faces. The only rule of the road appears to be that there are no rules at all. The painted on lanes and traffic medians are merely suggestions, and there are very few signs along the side of the road. The most common one, perfectly sums up the driving experience in Indonesia.
KBR-
This place is everything you’ve read, and then some… This was my first time to Lembeh, so my “critter wish list” was a rather demanding 22 items long… But, to their credit, in just five days of diving, they checked off all of them but five… Well, the last one on the list was a mermaid, so I can hardly blame them for that (other critters MIA were mimic octopus, hairy frogfish, candy crab, and hairy squat lobster).
The diving and diversity here is amazing, though. On most dive trips, I average maybe 20 “decent” photos per day… I had over 90 pics that made the first cut after just one day! Over 5 days of diving, I got in 19 dives. The water was a balmy 81F on most dives, so I only wore a 3mm vest. Aside from having to navigate the occasional field of small jellies in the shallows, it was more than enough for me (although, everyone else was in full 3mm suit protection, so I guess I’m not the norm).
The resort was unseasonably slow for July when I was there, so I had my own guide for several of the dives, which was nice. However, they all wear the same exact wetsuit and fins, so be sure to pick out subtle differences in their dive gear (dive watch color, etc) to make sure you don’t start following the wrong person. I didn’t have a single dive under 60 minutes and most were 70 or longer. So, if you don’t have a Nitrox cert, I would highly suggest it to maximize your bottom time. The dive guides do a great job finding critters and rotating you around to them with the other divers so there isn’t a queue of photographers hovering around waiting idly. However, it’s important to remember that, to my knowledge (and I may be wrong), most of them here are guides, not dive masters and not dive instructors. Of course, you are responsible for your own safety here, as knowing your own limits and what you’re comfortable with as always, but probably more-so here than other places. I went into deco a couple of times, and was toeing the line on several more dives. Hell, at one point, I told my guide that I needed to get more shallow only to be given a “just a minute” gesture because he was apparently looking for something… Which, of course, turned into ten more minutes at depth followed by a deco stop later. We only ran into much of a current on one dive, and vis ran around 30-40 feet, tops, on most dives. Seeing as how the Lembeh Straight is known for its muck dives, I was surprised at how beautiful the coral is in the shallows here, though. Unfortunately, the visibility remains about the same as it is in the muck, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
The food was very good and the menu is quite diverse offering anything from local Indo, to American, to Japanese and Italian. You could stay there a week, eat something different for each meal of the day, and never have the same thing twice.
The grounds are immaculately kept with flora and fauna all around, and there is nothing better than sitting on your patio here having your morning coffee while watching the sunrise. Speaking of which, I highly recommend paying a little extra for one of the beachfront villas. I was originally booked for a traditional house, but then I realized they don’t have a patio. We stayed in T5. Also, if you’re in a villa, you get room service. Which is very nice for when you just don’t feel like putting on clothes after a long day of diving to go to the restaurant to eat. However, if you do go with a traditional house, try to get T1. It is nicely positioned between the dive jetty and the restaurant, and also appeared to be the only one with a small balcony built onto it. Yes, there are bugs, but this is Indonesia and to be expected. Nothing too bad though. We had a praying mantis fly through into the room through door as I opened it, which was pretty funny. We tactically performed a “catch and release” with him since he was cool, though. The wifi worked well from the patio, but not so well at times from inside the room. One of the other guests I met there that stayed a few villas down said it barely reaches them. So, if that’s important to you, the closer in, the better. Also, I was surprised by the amount of channels available on the tv for when you’re winding things down for the evening, especially with the large selection in English. Very different from our next stop at Cocotiono’s which had 10 channels, and only three of which were watchable ones in English.
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