Part 2 - Gangga Island Resort
Gangga Island Resort is a lovely resort with nice landscaping, a white sand beach and a beautiful, large pool. An open air restaurant/bar near the reception area, and another open air restaurant for barbecue nights. Great spa. Staff very attentive and friendly. Caters to both divers and nondivers and their families. While we were there, the resort was not full, and I guess that about 70% of the guests were divers. Mostly European guests (we were the only Americans there during our stay).
Accommodation:
Bungalow 9B. Newly renovated beautiful bungalow on the beach, with nice porch for watching sunsets over the water, and private cabana on the beach. Spacious room with a comfortable double bed and twin bed, A/C, TV and in room refrigerator stocked with drinks. Large bathroom with shower and lovely stone work. Unfortunately, the hot water in the shower dribbled out of the shower head and was lukewarm (time of day didnt seem to matter). There was plenty of cool or cold shower water. Bathroom had hair dryer, hand lotion, very nice shower gel and shampoo. Our bungalow was farther from the dive shop than many other bungalows, but distance didnt matter. We placed our dive equipment on our porch on the first morning, and the dive shop took care of it for our whole stay (rinsing, storing, and setting up on boat). This made for very lazy, easy diving just the way we like it!
Food: Breakfast was buffet-style and good with a selection of cold cereal, fruit, juice, breads, pastries and omelettes to order. Lunches and dinners were ordered from a menu. We were not there for the fish barbeque night. We thought that the quality of the food at lunch and dinner was overall mediocre to poor (not really what we would expect for a pricey, upscale resort). Drinks were on the expensive side: 1 large beer was about 6 USD, and a coke was 3 USD.
Diving:
The dive operator, Gangga Divers, was good. Dive briefings were good. Diving was from wooden boats that were well maintained, fast and comfortable, and most dive sites were about a 20 to 30 minute boat ride away. There were 2 to 3 divers per divemaster, and usually 4 to 6 divers on the boat. Since this was the beginning of our trip and we were dealing with jet lag, we just did the two morning dives and took the afternoon off each day. There were also options for an afternoon and evening/night dive, and day dive trips to Lembeh or Bunaken could be arranged (if enough divers interested). We used air as nitrox wasnt available. Water and hot tea were always available with snacks served between dives. Each diver was provided with a towel on the boat.
Most of our dives were off the mainland, with two of the dives around Bangka Island. The dive we made around Bangka at Sahuang was a very fast current ride over the most beautiful, largest, healthiest expanse of soft coral Ive ever seen simply stunning. I would have loved to dive more sites around Bangka, including the other Sahuang site and Batu Gosoh. The other dives off the mainland were over sloping coral reefs, walls and sand, with mild to no current. The mainland sites coral reef was healthy (no comparison to Sahuangs soft coral which must have been on steroids), and the dives were interesting. We didnt see big fish or large schools of fish (either on mainland or Bangka Island sites), but a surprising number of smaller critters that the dive masters were very good at finding like pygmy seahorses (hippocampus bargibanti the cute red-pinkish one with same colored bumps all over it), leaf scorpionfish, frogfish (giant and painted), ornate ghost pipefish, various nudibranchs, eels, crabs, shrimp, pygmy cuttlefish and on the muck site called Paradise (which we really enjoyed) a very nice flamboyant cuttlefish.
All dives were just over an hour. The water temps were around 82-3 F, and the visibility was good, usually around 60 feet. Topside the weather was humid, sunny and warm. My husband wore a dive skin, and I wore a dive skin and 3 mm shortie, and neither of us got cold.
Other:
If you stay at Gangga, I recommend asking for a newly renovated bungalow on the beach.
As some of the currents (like our dive at Sahuang) can be very strong, beginners without exposure to currents and/or good buoyancy control may not be comfortable with some of those dives.
I highly recommend getting a traditional massage (35 USD for one hour) at the Gangga Spa its a very good massage (by appointment) in a relaxing setting with a beautiful view of the water. It was addicting.
Transfer to Lembeh Resort:
After two morning dives and lunch, we checked out of Gangga. Gangga dropped us off by boat at the mainland pier, where a Lembeh Resort car was waiting. The drive to Lembeh Resort was about 2 ½ hours. The transfer essentially took a half day (with checking in, unpacking ). Another transfer option would be to try to arrange with Gangga to do a boat dive trip to Lembeh with drop off in Lembeh after the dives. After we checked to make sure that we had all of our dive gear, it was transferred directly to the Lembeh Dive operator who had our BCs and regulators ready for us on the boat the next day.
Gangga Island Resort is a lovely resort with nice landscaping, a white sand beach and a beautiful, large pool. An open air restaurant/bar near the reception area, and another open air restaurant for barbecue nights. Great spa. Staff very attentive and friendly. Caters to both divers and nondivers and their families. While we were there, the resort was not full, and I guess that about 70% of the guests were divers. Mostly European guests (we were the only Americans there during our stay).
Accommodation:
Bungalow 9B. Newly renovated beautiful bungalow on the beach, with nice porch for watching sunsets over the water, and private cabana on the beach. Spacious room with a comfortable double bed and twin bed, A/C, TV and in room refrigerator stocked with drinks. Large bathroom with shower and lovely stone work. Unfortunately, the hot water in the shower dribbled out of the shower head and was lukewarm (time of day didnt seem to matter). There was plenty of cool or cold shower water. Bathroom had hair dryer, hand lotion, very nice shower gel and shampoo. Our bungalow was farther from the dive shop than many other bungalows, but distance didnt matter. We placed our dive equipment on our porch on the first morning, and the dive shop took care of it for our whole stay (rinsing, storing, and setting up on boat). This made for very lazy, easy diving just the way we like it!
Food: Breakfast was buffet-style and good with a selection of cold cereal, fruit, juice, breads, pastries and omelettes to order. Lunches and dinners were ordered from a menu. We were not there for the fish barbeque night. We thought that the quality of the food at lunch and dinner was overall mediocre to poor (not really what we would expect for a pricey, upscale resort). Drinks were on the expensive side: 1 large beer was about 6 USD, and a coke was 3 USD.
Diving:
The dive operator, Gangga Divers, was good. Dive briefings were good. Diving was from wooden boats that were well maintained, fast and comfortable, and most dive sites were about a 20 to 30 minute boat ride away. There were 2 to 3 divers per divemaster, and usually 4 to 6 divers on the boat. Since this was the beginning of our trip and we were dealing with jet lag, we just did the two morning dives and took the afternoon off each day. There were also options for an afternoon and evening/night dive, and day dive trips to Lembeh or Bunaken could be arranged (if enough divers interested). We used air as nitrox wasnt available. Water and hot tea were always available with snacks served between dives. Each diver was provided with a towel on the boat.
Most of our dives were off the mainland, with two of the dives around Bangka Island. The dive we made around Bangka at Sahuang was a very fast current ride over the most beautiful, largest, healthiest expanse of soft coral Ive ever seen simply stunning. I would have loved to dive more sites around Bangka, including the other Sahuang site and Batu Gosoh. The other dives off the mainland were over sloping coral reefs, walls and sand, with mild to no current. The mainland sites coral reef was healthy (no comparison to Sahuangs soft coral which must have been on steroids), and the dives were interesting. We didnt see big fish or large schools of fish (either on mainland or Bangka Island sites), but a surprising number of smaller critters that the dive masters were very good at finding like pygmy seahorses (hippocampus bargibanti the cute red-pinkish one with same colored bumps all over it), leaf scorpionfish, frogfish (giant and painted), ornate ghost pipefish, various nudibranchs, eels, crabs, shrimp, pygmy cuttlefish and on the muck site called Paradise (which we really enjoyed) a very nice flamboyant cuttlefish.
All dives were just over an hour. The water temps were around 82-3 F, and the visibility was good, usually around 60 feet. Topside the weather was humid, sunny and warm. My husband wore a dive skin, and I wore a dive skin and 3 mm shortie, and neither of us got cold.
Other:
If you stay at Gangga, I recommend asking for a newly renovated bungalow on the beach.
As some of the currents (like our dive at Sahuang) can be very strong, beginners without exposure to currents and/or good buoyancy control may not be comfortable with some of those dives.
I highly recommend getting a traditional massage (35 USD for one hour) at the Gangga Spa its a very good massage (by appointment) in a relaxing setting with a beautiful view of the water. It was addicting.
Transfer to Lembeh Resort:
After two morning dives and lunch, we checked out of Gangga. Gangga dropped us off by boat at the mainland pier, where a Lembeh Resort car was waiting. The drive to Lembeh Resort was about 2 ½ hours. The transfer essentially took a half day (with checking in, unpacking ). Another transfer option would be to try to arrange with Gangga to do a boat dive trip to Lembeh with drop off in Lembeh after the dives. After we checked to make sure that we had all of our dive gear, it was transferred directly to the Lembeh Dive operator who had our BCs and regulators ready for us on the boat the next day.
