Lembeh/Sangihe Archipelago/Bunaken Liveaboard Trip: October 19 - October 30 2009
In an earlier report I talked about the land-based portion of our trip at Seabreeze Resort on Bunaken. We left there the morning of October 19, transited back to Manado, and were picked up there by the boat staff and shuttled to Bitung, the commercial harbor city at the south end of Lembeh Strait.
BOAT - The Paisabatu II is an Indonesian built wooden boat, but the appearance and layout are distinctly different than what you would expect for a local liveaboard. The owner, Jerome, purchased the hull already built and then designed and finished it from there in 2006. The two main features ... all of the cabins are on the main deck, none belowdecks in the hull, and on the upper deck, there is a huge open aft deck, fully covered by a white canvas top on a rigid metal frame. This is the living/dining/ hanging out area of the boat, and it's a really comfortable place to be.
The boat is very well maintained, clean and shipshape. The five cabins all have cross ventilation. The three forward ones each utilize the full width of the structure. The two aft cabins with bunks are not as comfortable, given what I learned from our single friend who stayed in one. No air conditioning or hot water on the boat. The cross ventilation kept the cabins very comfortable, and the water was usually almost lukewarm, not really cold. I haven't mentioned the dive deck, since it's not on the boat! More about that later.
There is a "small" camera/charging area, outside and exposed to the climate. We're fairly casual photographers, so it was fine for us. One guy with a pricey SLR setup did all of his camera work on his single bunk. If you require a big air conditioned camera station, this may not be for you.
Rashid, the crazy cook, did a great job turning out tasty Indonesian meals, and plates of fruit and snacks between dives. Not fancy or gastronomic delights, but a definite thumbs up for the food.
CREW - Jerome, the owner, was aboard for the first two or three days of the trip, then left to attend to other business. The cruise director, Alain, a Swiss guy, was then the person running the operation. Very mellow, easy-going guy. I think this is a kind of standard routine, where Jerome greets new guests and gets the trip underway, then Alain runs the show. There are 14 total staff for 10 guests. Basic Indo crew ... always smiling, friendly, helpful. One dive guide, Anto, sang all the time, and sang well. No clue about what, all Indonesian music, but very pleasant. Another dive guide, Obe, was a perpetual joker, laughing about something all the time. Dive boat crew (yup, two boats) just as helpful and nice.
DIVE OPERATION - This is an unusual setup, but it works great. You live aboard the big boat, but dive off of a 50 foot dive boat that follows along behind for the entire cruise. On long passages, it's actually towed behind. When it's dive time, the dive boat pulls alongside, you step aboard, and go to your station where your tank is re-charged and you're ready to go. You back roll off of the boat, and it picks your group up when you surface. Since the dive operation is separate, they have a big piece of deck available, so no crowding. When it's time to air up the tanks, the dive boat moves away from the big boat, so no compressor noise. If this sounds complicated, it's not. It works very smoothly in practice.
They were very helpful with individual needs. There was one woman aboard who had a knee problem, and they were very patient working with her to see that she could get in and out of the water easily. For myself, I apparently picked up a cold from the first, resort portion of the trip, and started the liveaboard with a sore throat, which became a raging ear infection, my first ever ear problem when diving. The result was some missed dives and some very slow descents. Alain splashed with me and stayed in contact until I could join my group, which in some cases was as much as fifteen minutes. The alternative on some dives would have meant being blown off the site due to currents before I could descend, and surfacing alone somewhere out in the blue.
The dive day was long ... generator cranks up at 5:30 AM, on the deck for dive briefing by 6:30 AM, diving at 7:00, back for breakfast, 2nd dive about 11:00 AM, back for lunch, 3rd dive about 3:00 PM, night dive at 6:30, dinner about 8:15. So long intervals between dives, good for reading, snacking, napping, photo review, etc.
ITINERARY/DIVING - On an eleven night trip, we dived our way north out of Lembeh, made a stop at Bangka, and then transited north to Mahengetang, an underwater volcano just south of Sangihe, only about 150 miles south of the Philippines. From there we slowly came back south, diving our way toward Bunaken. I am not going to detail all of our days/dives here, but we visited locations at Para, Nenung, Siau, Mahoro, Tagulandang, and Ruang before doing a transit back to Bunaken. This was a great mixed bag of diving and sightseeing ... gases percolating out of yellow sulphur-covered rocks at Mahengetang, the massive volcano of Karengetang atop the island of Siau, underwater caves (actually alcoves, not a true overhead environment) spouting hot water vents, natural hot springs (and I mean HOT!) among shoreline boulders, a walk through the town of Tagulandang, etc. Diving was a mix of slopes and walls, coral and muck. Fish populations not huge, but always interesting and varied. Our general opinions of the sites were "average to excellent." YMMV.
OK, a quick stop to dive Sachiko on Bunaken, then off to Popo south of Manado, and more muck diving. This was a great site, but we were met mid-dive with a surge of the strongest current I have ever encountered. It became a muck storm that we bailed out of. Back on the boat, we watched the surface become so turbulent you could actually "hear" the current as it produced whitecaps until the tides settled down. Dived it again the next morning, then back north, diving our way around the tip of Sulawesi toward Lembeh. One dive site here, Pulisan I, was really beautiful ... big coral "islands" scattered over a white sand bottom. Back into Lembeh Strait, and more muck diving as we headed for Bitung.
BOTTOM LINE - I would not hesitate to recommend this boat for anyone who is happy with this level of accommodation. The rate for this trip was just under $200 a day per person. I think that's hard to do in Indonesia for an operation that runs this well on a really well cared for, comfortable boat. Website is here ... Diving Indonesia with Wallacea Liveaboard : Togian Islands & Banggai - after Manado, Bunaken and Lembeh Strait. Disregard info about trips to the Togian Islands, since the unreliability of shuttle flights means Jerome has suspended those trips for now.
If you go, here's something to consider. Their clientele is almost all European. Very rarely any Americans. No, I am not saying anything negative about the Europeans, but if you're three Americans among seven other French speakers, on a boat with a French speaking owner and director, you're sort of out of the loop for a lot of conversations. Having said that, they were all very nice people who all spoke some varying levels of English, but obviously they are going to spend more time with their native language. So with three of us, we sort of held our own, but more would have been nicer. And the next trip, it was going to be four Czechs, three Brits, and three French, so there you go with a different mix. Just a thought. I'm done.
In an earlier report I talked about the land-based portion of our trip at Seabreeze Resort on Bunaken. We left there the morning of October 19, transited back to Manado, and were picked up there by the boat staff and shuttled to Bitung, the commercial harbor city at the south end of Lembeh Strait.
BOAT - The Paisabatu II is an Indonesian built wooden boat, but the appearance and layout are distinctly different than what you would expect for a local liveaboard. The owner, Jerome, purchased the hull already built and then designed and finished it from there in 2006. The two main features ... all of the cabins are on the main deck, none belowdecks in the hull, and on the upper deck, there is a huge open aft deck, fully covered by a white canvas top on a rigid metal frame. This is the living/dining/ hanging out area of the boat, and it's a really comfortable place to be.
The boat is very well maintained, clean and shipshape. The five cabins all have cross ventilation. The three forward ones each utilize the full width of the structure. The two aft cabins with bunks are not as comfortable, given what I learned from our single friend who stayed in one. No air conditioning or hot water on the boat. The cross ventilation kept the cabins very comfortable, and the water was usually almost lukewarm, not really cold. I haven't mentioned the dive deck, since it's not on the boat! More about that later.
There is a "small" camera/charging area, outside and exposed to the climate. We're fairly casual photographers, so it was fine for us. One guy with a pricey SLR setup did all of his camera work on his single bunk. If you require a big air conditioned camera station, this may not be for you.
Rashid, the crazy cook, did a great job turning out tasty Indonesian meals, and plates of fruit and snacks between dives. Not fancy or gastronomic delights, but a definite thumbs up for the food.
CREW - Jerome, the owner, was aboard for the first two or three days of the trip, then left to attend to other business. The cruise director, Alain, a Swiss guy, was then the person running the operation. Very mellow, easy-going guy. I think this is a kind of standard routine, where Jerome greets new guests and gets the trip underway, then Alain runs the show. There are 14 total staff for 10 guests. Basic Indo crew ... always smiling, friendly, helpful. One dive guide, Anto, sang all the time, and sang well. No clue about what, all Indonesian music, but very pleasant. Another dive guide, Obe, was a perpetual joker, laughing about something all the time. Dive boat crew (yup, two boats) just as helpful and nice.
DIVE OPERATION - This is an unusual setup, but it works great. You live aboard the big boat, but dive off of a 50 foot dive boat that follows along behind for the entire cruise. On long passages, it's actually towed behind. When it's dive time, the dive boat pulls alongside, you step aboard, and go to your station where your tank is re-charged and you're ready to go. You back roll off of the boat, and it picks your group up when you surface. Since the dive operation is separate, they have a big piece of deck available, so no crowding. When it's time to air up the tanks, the dive boat moves away from the big boat, so no compressor noise. If this sounds complicated, it's not. It works very smoothly in practice.
They were very helpful with individual needs. There was one woman aboard who had a knee problem, and they were very patient working with her to see that she could get in and out of the water easily. For myself, I apparently picked up a cold from the first, resort portion of the trip, and started the liveaboard with a sore throat, which became a raging ear infection, my first ever ear problem when diving. The result was some missed dives and some very slow descents. Alain splashed with me and stayed in contact until I could join my group, which in some cases was as much as fifteen minutes. The alternative on some dives would have meant being blown off the site due to currents before I could descend, and surfacing alone somewhere out in the blue.
The dive day was long ... generator cranks up at 5:30 AM, on the deck for dive briefing by 6:30 AM, diving at 7:00, back for breakfast, 2nd dive about 11:00 AM, back for lunch, 3rd dive about 3:00 PM, night dive at 6:30, dinner about 8:15. So long intervals between dives, good for reading, snacking, napping, photo review, etc.
ITINERARY/DIVING - On an eleven night trip, we dived our way north out of Lembeh, made a stop at Bangka, and then transited north to Mahengetang, an underwater volcano just south of Sangihe, only about 150 miles south of the Philippines. From there we slowly came back south, diving our way toward Bunaken. I am not going to detail all of our days/dives here, but we visited locations at Para, Nenung, Siau, Mahoro, Tagulandang, and Ruang before doing a transit back to Bunaken. This was a great mixed bag of diving and sightseeing ... gases percolating out of yellow sulphur-covered rocks at Mahengetang, the massive volcano of Karengetang atop the island of Siau, underwater caves (actually alcoves, not a true overhead environment) spouting hot water vents, natural hot springs (and I mean HOT!) among shoreline boulders, a walk through the town of Tagulandang, etc. Diving was a mix of slopes and walls, coral and muck. Fish populations not huge, but always interesting and varied. Our general opinions of the sites were "average to excellent." YMMV.
OK, a quick stop to dive Sachiko on Bunaken, then off to Popo south of Manado, and more muck diving. This was a great site, but we were met mid-dive with a surge of the strongest current I have ever encountered. It became a muck storm that we bailed out of. Back on the boat, we watched the surface become so turbulent you could actually "hear" the current as it produced whitecaps until the tides settled down. Dived it again the next morning, then back north, diving our way around the tip of Sulawesi toward Lembeh. One dive site here, Pulisan I, was really beautiful ... big coral "islands" scattered over a white sand bottom. Back into Lembeh Strait, and more muck diving as we headed for Bitung.
BOTTOM LINE - I would not hesitate to recommend this boat for anyone who is happy with this level of accommodation. The rate for this trip was just under $200 a day per person. I think that's hard to do in Indonesia for an operation that runs this well on a really well cared for, comfortable boat. Website is here ... Diving Indonesia with Wallacea Liveaboard : Togian Islands & Banggai - after Manado, Bunaken and Lembeh Strait. Disregard info about trips to the Togian Islands, since the unreliability of shuttle flights means Jerome has suspended those trips for now.
If you go, here's something to consider. Their clientele is almost all European. Very rarely any Americans. No, I am not saying anything negative about the Europeans, but if you're three Americans among seven other French speakers, on a boat with a French speaking owner and director, you're sort of out of the loop for a lot of conversations. Having said that, they were all very nice people who all spoke some varying levels of English, but obviously they are going to spend more time with their native language. So with three of us, we sort of held our own, but more would have been nicer. And the next trip, it was going to be four Czechs, three Brits, and three French, so there you go with a different mix. Just a thought. I'm done.
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