Strange as it may sound but the destination of my year-end trip for 2008 was not the first, second or even third choice in my plan. Neither have I heard about it before when Zain (discover_indo@indosat.net.id), my helpful travel agent from Discover Indonesia offered it as one of the few alternatives from Manado, from which I have booked my flights into. As secluded as it sounds, there is not much information from the Internet that I could find. The only site that I gathered some information from was from Prince John Dive Resort's website (Prince John Dive Resort), the only dive resort on the island. I learnt that it is called Donggala, lies at the top of Palu Bay, in Central Sulawesi. Not knowing what to expect, I jumped on the chances to explore a new tropical paradise and booked on a 6 days dive package, followed by another 5 days diving the Lembeh Straits with Bastinos Lembeh Resort.
Joining me on part of the trip to Donggala was May Lin whom I get to know from a trip to Malapascua 4 years ago and this was to be her first dive trip for year 2008. To get to Donggala, the easiest way is to fly directly from Singapore to Balikpapan, then connecting onto Palu. But because we have our flights booked into Manado, we flew from Singapore to Manado via a 3 hours 15 minutes Silk Air flight on Saturday afternoon, promptly picked up by the driver to Grand Puri Manado Hotel for our overnight stay as the flight schedules of the local airline, Lion Air to Palu, via Makassar were incompatible. Upon arrival at the hotel, we decided to indulge on a two hours spa treat of scrub and massage for Rp200000 each. Feeling rejuvenated and hungry, we headed to a local seafood restaurant, about 20 minutes taxi ride from our hotel, recommended by my masseur. The waiting staffs at the restaurant did not speak any English and both of us do not know much Bahasa so it was chicken and duck talk until they eventually brought us their local chef, who speak Chinese to our rescue. Okay, I will try to learn Bahasa soon! After a sumptuous dinner, getting a taxi on the dimly lighted street was almost impossible. Luckily for us, the kind chef patiently waited with us and helped us to get onto a taxi back to the hotel.
Early morning on Sunday, we made our way to the domestic airport for our flights to Palu, transiting in Makassar but we checked our luggage all the way to Palu. The flight to Makassar was uneventful and landed as scheduled at 8am. We collected our connecting flight tickets scheduled to be at 12.30pm from the Lion Air table, had a light breakfast and decided to go down to the ground floor baggage claim area to make sure that our luggages do not arrive by mistake. While making our way up the stairs, May Lin tripped and fell over. Her head hitting the step hard and she has a deep cut on her forehead and almost immediately, blood was flowing. I made her sit down on the steps to rest and then frantically looked around for HELP. I ran to a souvenir shop but was helpless with the communication. Damn! I MUST learn some simple Bahasa soon!
When I got back to her, HELP has already arrived. Thankfully! A few very helpful airport staffs including two guys from Lion Air helped her to the airport clinic for a quick bandage to stop the bleeding. We were told to follow them to the office, as they will be arranging for a car to take us to the hospital. From them, we found out that our 12.30pm flight was cancelled and our tickets stated that our departure time to be 4.15pm. Why didn't the staff informed us when we collected the tickets? How strange! Well! It was probably God's will or maybe it was blessing in disguise, as that will give us sufficient time to get May Lin's injury treated.
We waited for about an hour before the Lion Air staff found a car and one of the Lion Air staff took us to a local clinic nearby. The clinic looked sparsely equipped. We were feeling rather apprehensive and asked if they could send us to a hospital for foreigners but was told that it would take 2 hours to get there. The public hospital is about 20 minutes away but always expect a huge queue. Helpless with the communication and having no other choice, May Lin eventually decided to let the friendly female doctor stitched her up. She had 3 stitches, a tetanus jab and prescribed a course of antibiotics and some painkillers. Poor girl!
Back at the airport, we had lunch and waited impatiently for our flight while people watching, seeing numerous flights landing and taking off. Time passed so slowly and our flight was further delayed for an hour. Finally at 7pm, we arrived at Palu airport, tussled with the locals to collect our bags and were picked up by the driver on another one-hour land journey before reaching the Prince John Dive Resort at the bay of Palu. We were told to have dinner, filled up some forms and escorted to our room, which is right on top of the hill.
The resort has 16 simple but well built Indonesian wooden stilt bungalows, surrounded by beautiful tropical gardens and each with a terrace overlooking the beautiful Palu bay. Our Category 3 was quite roomy with a double bed and a single bed fitted with mosquito nets, some shelves and an Indonesian mandis without hot water shower. There was no 24 hours electricity supply and it usually ran from 6pm to 6am. The resort's private generator supplies electricity to the restaurant and the dive shop at daytime so we can charged our batteries at the dive shop.
The restaurant served simple original Indonesian food. Choices of eggs, pancakes, cereals or fried rice for breakfast, served with coffee or tea. Lunch was either fried noodles or spaghetti. In the late afternoon, cakes were served with coffee or tea. Dinner was usually fresh salads, staple rice, noodle soup, fish cooked in different styles, fried vegetables or tofu. Meat is rare except during Christmas dinner when we had two chicken dishes. Desserts were fresh organically grown tropical fruits like bananas, mangoes and pineapples.
The staffs were welcoming, hardworking, and always smiling and ready to be serving you. Most of the guests here are either local Indonesian or from Germany. Apart from that, we met a very nice Canadian couple and were privileged to be the very few Singaporeans visiting.
A German couple, Alex and Gaby, manages the dive center but they were on holidays back in Germany during our stay. Their friend, Bruno, from Switzerland helps to run the dive shop. Together with 6 local dive crew, the dive operation runs in an orderly manner and they were very obliging with my request of 4 dives a day schedule. Tanks were set-up with BCDs/regulators and taken care by the boatmen throughout our entire stay.
May Lin did not dive due to her injury. I did a total of 13 dives covering only 6 out of the 16 dive sites: House Reef, Green Wall, Anchor Reef, Natural Reef which are inner circle dives within 20 minutes from the resort and a day trip about an hour away diving South Atoll and Pasi Kawe. Water temperature was a steady 29°C throughout and visibility from 10-15 meters. Our dive masters, Igede, Nasrun and Baisr, have experience ranging from 4 years to more than 10 years and they were all excellent critter spotters and know absolutely every inch of the underwater landscape.
Diving can easily be done from the beach, and Prince John Dive Resort offers a 500 meters long reef that drops down to 40 meters deep, with House Reef on the right hand side and Green Wall on the left hand side. Here on the house reef you can spend hour upon hour throughout your stay. The corals on these sites were not in exceptional conditions and sadly there were thrash on shallower reefs (discarded by weekend picnickers and the villagers) but what amazed me was the tons of wondrous critters living here. I dived these sites 8 times and was never bored. How could I? I can never get enough!
The House reef is truly a macro haven, perfect for underwater photographers. Ghost pipe fish, scorpion fish, nudibranchs, razor fish, leaf fish and many species of shrimps on sea cucumbers, feather stars and whip corals kept me busy during the day. In the night, the house reef becomes the most colorful and vibrant show of nature's splendor you can think of. Nocturnal creatures roamed the reef- decorated and hermit crabs, bobtailed cuttlefishes, reef octopus and ghost shrimps, just to name a few. I even saw the tiniest baby reef squid, about 1cm and it was very hard to photograph but I've got a few keepers. It was almost like every time I explored a new part of the reef, there were dozens of treats waiting to be discovered.
To get to Anchor Reef and Natural Reef, which are less than 10 minutes from the resort, we took the smaller dive boat. The corals on these sites are in healthier conditions but visibility was not at it's best, about 10 meters but similarly they provide ample opportunities for photographers to click amazing snaps of marine life.
On Christmas Eve, we did a day trip to the outer circle reef diving South Atoll and Pasi Kawe using the large wooden dive boat. The diversity and conditions of the corals on these sites were outstanding but it was harder to find the macro critters. At Pasir Kawe, Nasrun found me a very inquisitive jaw fish at 18 meters depth and I was totally enthralled and engrossed on photographing it that I didn't realized that I went into deco-stop. My deco-stop was to be for 25 minutes and I gradually ascended to shallower depth. My super conservative Stinger computer drove me nuts as it stated that I will have to perform my deco-stop between 3-6 meters (nothing more) but the shallowest reef was at 6.5 meter. Eventually, I took it off and passed it to Nasrun and signaled to him that I'll continue to check out the top reefs while he helped me to complete my deco-stop. Maybe I was narced!
Joining me on part of the trip to Donggala was May Lin whom I get to know from a trip to Malapascua 4 years ago and this was to be her first dive trip for year 2008. To get to Donggala, the easiest way is to fly directly from Singapore to Balikpapan, then connecting onto Palu. But because we have our flights booked into Manado, we flew from Singapore to Manado via a 3 hours 15 minutes Silk Air flight on Saturday afternoon, promptly picked up by the driver to Grand Puri Manado Hotel for our overnight stay as the flight schedules of the local airline, Lion Air to Palu, via Makassar were incompatible. Upon arrival at the hotel, we decided to indulge on a two hours spa treat of scrub and massage for Rp200000 each. Feeling rejuvenated and hungry, we headed to a local seafood restaurant, about 20 minutes taxi ride from our hotel, recommended by my masseur. The waiting staffs at the restaurant did not speak any English and both of us do not know much Bahasa so it was chicken and duck talk until they eventually brought us their local chef, who speak Chinese to our rescue. Okay, I will try to learn Bahasa soon! After a sumptuous dinner, getting a taxi on the dimly lighted street was almost impossible. Luckily for us, the kind chef patiently waited with us and helped us to get onto a taxi back to the hotel.
Early morning on Sunday, we made our way to the domestic airport for our flights to Palu, transiting in Makassar but we checked our luggage all the way to Palu. The flight to Makassar was uneventful and landed as scheduled at 8am. We collected our connecting flight tickets scheduled to be at 12.30pm from the Lion Air table, had a light breakfast and decided to go down to the ground floor baggage claim area to make sure that our luggages do not arrive by mistake. While making our way up the stairs, May Lin tripped and fell over. Her head hitting the step hard and she has a deep cut on her forehead and almost immediately, blood was flowing. I made her sit down on the steps to rest and then frantically looked around for HELP. I ran to a souvenir shop but was helpless with the communication. Damn! I MUST learn some simple Bahasa soon!
When I got back to her, HELP has already arrived. Thankfully! A few very helpful airport staffs including two guys from Lion Air helped her to the airport clinic for a quick bandage to stop the bleeding. We were told to follow them to the office, as they will be arranging for a car to take us to the hospital. From them, we found out that our 12.30pm flight was cancelled and our tickets stated that our departure time to be 4.15pm. Why didn't the staff informed us when we collected the tickets? How strange! Well! It was probably God's will or maybe it was blessing in disguise, as that will give us sufficient time to get May Lin's injury treated.
We waited for about an hour before the Lion Air staff found a car and one of the Lion Air staff took us to a local clinic nearby. The clinic looked sparsely equipped. We were feeling rather apprehensive and asked if they could send us to a hospital for foreigners but was told that it would take 2 hours to get there. The public hospital is about 20 minutes away but always expect a huge queue. Helpless with the communication and having no other choice, May Lin eventually decided to let the friendly female doctor stitched her up. She had 3 stitches, a tetanus jab and prescribed a course of antibiotics and some painkillers. Poor girl!
Back at the airport, we had lunch and waited impatiently for our flight while people watching, seeing numerous flights landing and taking off. Time passed so slowly and our flight was further delayed for an hour. Finally at 7pm, we arrived at Palu airport, tussled with the locals to collect our bags and were picked up by the driver on another one-hour land journey before reaching the Prince John Dive Resort at the bay of Palu. We were told to have dinner, filled up some forms and escorted to our room, which is right on top of the hill.
The resort has 16 simple but well built Indonesian wooden stilt bungalows, surrounded by beautiful tropical gardens and each with a terrace overlooking the beautiful Palu bay. Our Category 3 was quite roomy with a double bed and a single bed fitted with mosquito nets, some shelves and an Indonesian mandis without hot water shower. There was no 24 hours electricity supply and it usually ran from 6pm to 6am. The resort's private generator supplies electricity to the restaurant and the dive shop at daytime so we can charged our batteries at the dive shop.
The restaurant served simple original Indonesian food. Choices of eggs, pancakes, cereals or fried rice for breakfast, served with coffee or tea. Lunch was either fried noodles or spaghetti. In the late afternoon, cakes were served with coffee or tea. Dinner was usually fresh salads, staple rice, noodle soup, fish cooked in different styles, fried vegetables or tofu. Meat is rare except during Christmas dinner when we had two chicken dishes. Desserts were fresh organically grown tropical fruits like bananas, mangoes and pineapples.
The staffs were welcoming, hardworking, and always smiling and ready to be serving you. Most of the guests here are either local Indonesian or from Germany. Apart from that, we met a very nice Canadian couple and were privileged to be the very few Singaporeans visiting.
A German couple, Alex and Gaby, manages the dive center but they were on holidays back in Germany during our stay. Their friend, Bruno, from Switzerland helps to run the dive shop. Together with 6 local dive crew, the dive operation runs in an orderly manner and they were very obliging with my request of 4 dives a day schedule. Tanks were set-up with BCDs/regulators and taken care by the boatmen throughout our entire stay.
May Lin did not dive due to her injury. I did a total of 13 dives covering only 6 out of the 16 dive sites: House Reef, Green Wall, Anchor Reef, Natural Reef which are inner circle dives within 20 minutes from the resort and a day trip about an hour away diving South Atoll and Pasi Kawe. Water temperature was a steady 29°C throughout and visibility from 10-15 meters. Our dive masters, Igede, Nasrun and Baisr, have experience ranging from 4 years to more than 10 years and they were all excellent critter spotters and know absolutely every inch of the underwater landscape.
Diving can easily be done from the beach, and Prince John Dive Resort offers a 500 meters long reef that drops down to 40 meters deep, with House Reef on the right hand side and Green Wall on the left hand side. Here on the house reef you can spend hour upon hour throughout your stay. The corals on these sites were not in exceptional conditions and sadly there were thrash on shallower reefs (discarded by weekend picnickers and the villagers) but what amazed me was the tons of wondrous critters living here. I dived these sites 8 times and was never bored. How could I? I can never get enough!
The House reef is truly a macro haven, perfect for underwater photographers. Ghost pipe fish, scorpion fish, nudibranchs, razor fish, leaf fish and many species of shrimps on sea cucumbers, feather stars and whip corals kept me busy during the day. In the night, the house reef becomes the most colorful and vibrant show of nature's splendor you can think of. Nocturnal creatures roamed the reef- decorated and hermit crabs, bobtailed cuttlefishes, reef octopus and ghost shrimps, just to name a few. I even saw the tiniest baby reef squid, about 1cm and it was very hard to photograph but I've got a few keepers. It was almost like every time I explored a new part of the reef, there were dozens of treats waiting to be discovered.
To get to Anchor Reef and Natural Reef, which are less than 10 minutes from the resort, we took the smaller dive boat. The corals on these sites are in healthier conditions but visibility was not at it's best, about 10 meters but similarly they provide ample opportunities for photographers to click amazing snaps of marine life.
On Christmas Eve, we did a day trip to the outer circle reef diving South Atoll and Pasi Kawe using the large wooden dive boat. The diversity and conditions of the corals on these sites were outstanding but it was harder to find the macro critters. At Pasir Kawe, Nasrun found me a very inquisitive jaw fish at 18 meters depth and I was totally enthralled and engrossed on photographing it that I didn't realized that I went into deco-stop. My deco-stop was to be for 25 minutes and I gradually ascended to shallower depth. My super conservative Stinger computer drove me nuts as it stated that I will have to perform my deco-stop between 3-6 meters (nothing more) but the shallowest reef was at 6.5 meter. Eventually, I took it off and passed it to Nasrun and signaled to him that I'll continue to check out the top reefs while he helped me to complete my deco-stop. Maybe I was narced!
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I'll tell you the destination if you have got 8 days to spare. Clue is : Another macro haven in Indonesia ...
