Bunaken report/photos

[scottfiji]

just got back from asia, my wife and I visited bunaken and lembeh for diving. It was awesome diving!

we visited bunaken for 5 days, and I did 20 dives there. I highly recommend the place. we had a good time staying with two-fish divers.

thanks to everyone on scubaboard who gave me advice before the trip.

we saw the following:

Napolean wrasses on almost every dive, turtles, and eagle ray, a school of bumphead parrotfish, lots of trevallys, jacks, barracuda, tunas. some whitetips. great coral, millions of fish. Dozens of huge beautiful basket stars at night. More fish than I've ever seen more. incredible amounts of invertebrate life. great diversity of reef fish.

here's some photos:

rush of fusiliers

train of sergeant majors

barracuda tornado

barracuda, close up

whirlwind of never-ending red-toothed triggerfish


you can find a more detailed report and photo commentary here:

http://www.ladiving.org/bunaken.html

 

[Rickg]

scottfiji,

Glad you had a good trip. Once you dive in SEA I find you get spoiled and its hard to get excited about going elsewhere.

Great trip report and pictures. My favorites were the sergeant majors and the close up of the chevalier barracuda. Looks like you have some great visibility also.

You should go to Sipadan when you get a chance. We went this past DEC for the 4th time and the diving was almost as good as our 1st trip in '84.

 

[highdesert]

Great shots!

We're considering that area for November, and Two Fish is on our short list. Are there any particular dive sites, or locations near any other island, where you saw the bigger stuff? I know that area isn't pelagic heaven, but we'd like to see whatever bigger animals are around.

Thanks!

 

[TSandM]

Wow, beautiful photographs! We really enjoyed diving Bunaken two years ago, but we didn't see anywhere near the number of fish you describe and picture. Ours was more macro stuff on the walls. Sounds like you had a great trip.

 

[ddavid]

Hi Scott, very nice pics indeed, beautiful colors.. a quick query mate; was it raining alot when you were there..? Am heading back to bunaken this saturday & curious to know how's the diving conditions over there.. never dived manado in feb/march period before.. but am looking forward to it. Thanks, have a good day.

 

[scottfiji]

thanks rick! I'd like to check out sipadan sometime.

highdesert - it was pelagic heaven for me! my philosophy was to look up dive site descriptions and look for the ones that say "strong currents, up/down currents, no beginners, lots of big fish", and only dive those sites! but keep in mind that my wife and I are both quite experienced.. PM me if you end up booking a trip in bunaken

ts&M - yeah, most boats that visit bunaken seem like they were going to sites with less fish life (but still with beautiful walls), probably so they don't have to deal with the currents. boats are also lazy and usually go to the closest sites. did you stay on the mainland or on bunaken?

ddavid - feb is rainy season, we lucked out with great weather topside, but there were occasional heavy rains, usually in the evening. diving conditions were very good. the week before we went there was a few days of bad weather (stormy seas).

 

[ddavid]

thanks for the info Scott.. safe diving, - ddavid

 

[AlanWald]

Pangalingan dive site off Manado Tua Isalnd (next to Bunaken) has a point where there is often strong current and a large school of barracuda and bat fish at about 20m. and sometimes sharks and trevally The top of the point is a large reef flat rising to about 5m and there is frequently huge schools of snappers and fusiliers, sometimes white-tip reef shark, and many small things such as leaf fish, ribbon eels and nudibranchs.

 

[hallboy]

i ve really enjoyed bunaken, but i felt some missing of big fishes. maybe it waas just te need of 2 or 3 dives " current oriented " ?

could you name those dive spots, or point a map?

 

[Rickg]

i ve really enjoyed bunaken, but i felt some missing of big fishes. maybe it waas just te need of 2 or 3 dives " current oriented " ?

could you name those dive spots, or point a map?

hallboy,

Here is were we saw the best "big stuff" when we were there.

Day Nine (last day of diving before returning to MUREX Resort and then home)
Dive One – Bunaken Marine Park, Nain Island, Batu Kapal, pinnacle/wall dive
Very early morning (6:00 AM) dive to a pinnacle separated from the island by a deep canyon in hopes of seeing hammerhead sharks
121 feet for 42 minutes
Visibility – great
Dropped to the top of the pinnacle for about 5 minutes; saw no hammerheads; swam back to the island and started our gradual ascent along the wall. On the way up we first saw a thresher shark (our first and it was a gorgeous sight to see) silhouetted above as it swam overhead. No sooner that it had cleared and I saw 4 great hammerheads (others counted as 7) approaching from ahead and slightly above us. They were about 10 feet in length and the closest one came to about 12-15 feet from us before they turned and swam off the way they came. This dive had to be the high point of the trip.

Note: While motoring to our next dive sight we encountered multiple pods of dolphins that swam with the boat. There more dolphins than we could even begin to count. They were everywhere.

Dive Two – Bunaken Marine Park, Montehage Island, Barakuda Point, wall dive
94 feet for 45 minutes
Visibility – great
Several Great Pacific barracuda, a school of jacks, a school of bumphead wrasse and a wahoo (a very sleek, powerful fish and another first for me not having ever seen one other than on the end of a fishing line or on my plate)

Dive Three – Bunaken Marine Park, Manado Tua Island, Tanjung Kopi, slope/wall dive
91 feet for 47 minutes
Visibility – great
4 large Napoleon wrasse, a school of chevron barracuda, a school of jacks and another wahoo