The plan looked like a perfect combination of wall diving and muck diving with perhaps something different thrown in, three days in Manado, three days in Bangka and three days, which I extended to four, in Lembeh.
This was being run by Murex, and the final destination at Lembeh Resort was a place that I had stayed at the previous two years. My daughter was also joining me again this year and we were really looking forward to the trip.
First hiccup was when Silk Air (Singapore Airlines) cancelled our Saturday flight to Manado from Singapore and re-scheduled it for the next Monday! I was not happy about but managed to get the Friday flight booked, but that meant we had to reschedule our flight from Dubai which cost a couple of hundred dollars …. bastards!
Murex Manado
On arrival at Manado, my daughter quickly rushed down to immigration (she has a Malaysian Passport), while I queued for a visa, then proceeded to immigration, by the time I got there I could not see her but assumed she was waiting for the bags. When I proceeded to the baggage area and had my hand baggage X-rayed, she came out of a room asking me for the tickets.
It appeared that the immigration official asked her for her return ticket, she did not have one and told them it was an e-Ticket on her phone, apparently this was not acceptable, or perhaps they wanted something to compensate!
Anyway I gave her all the documents related to tickets accommodation etc., and by the time I had loaded the bags onto two trollies she appeared with a stamp in her passport.
There was the usual melee of people outside of the terminal and we were approached by somebody from Two Fish asking us who we were diving with, Murex, the guy shouted out Murex and we were soon sorted out with transport. I like how all the people here in the dive industry help each other even though they are in competition.
The drive to the Murex resort though took more than 90 minutes as they had to negotiate the Manado traffic. I was hoping to do a quick afternoon shore dive but I soon realised that was not going to happen.
At the resort, we were met by one of the local guys Tommy who quickly showed us around. There were two more divers coming that night and that was it, two French guys working in Singapore who were coming over for the weekend. the following day though we were joined by a British guy Joe, who was also on the Passport to Paradise trip.
Accommodation
I was surprised that there was no camera room, and although the room was spacious with a table inside, it was poorly lit, and I spent some time preparing both housings, one for wide angle and one for macro with plans to get in the water for a shore dive the next morning.
The bathroom, which also housed the minibar (!) was very spacious, but no hot water tap for the wash hand basin! To shave I had to fill a glass with hot water from the shower then use that to shave with.
Later we met the guy who runs the diving, a Dutch guy called Pim, and he informed me that they had plans for a camera room at some stage. We were also introduced to our guide Oce, who gave us boxes for our dive gear, and I was surprised to find out that none of their tanks had valves for DIN regulators. I was loaned an adaptor during the first two parts of the trip, and in any case I know that Lembeh Resort has DIN valves on their tanks.
Dive gear lockers
Drying area
We also had to buy electrical adaptors as their sockets were European design, and most of my chargers have UK plugs, this has never been an issue anywhere I stayed in Philippines or Indonesia before, most places supply adaptors.
My daughter then decided that we should do the boat dives the next morning. My preference is to do at least a shore dive first to check out the gear as I don’t want to be out on a two tank boat dive to find out that something is not working.
Oce then arranged to have a tank and weights for me to do a shore dive first early in the morning and all was well.
First day of diving I was in the water at 6:30 and did a short 36 minute solo dive with both housings to check that all was well. Visibility was awesome, and some nudibranchs wandering around. All was good, time for breakfast.
Whilst on the subject of food, most meals were basically the same and all served buffet style. The French guys complained about the food and if staying more than a few days I would too, the variety was limited and unfortunately it was the same in Bangka!
With very few people there we were the only people on the boat, as there were only three other divers during the time we were there, in fact you could say the resort was deserted although some of Danny and Angelique’s (the owners) extended family staying there due to a family wedding.
Our guide Oce was brilliant, and he stayed with us through request during our time at Bangka, which meant we had a good relationship with him after seven days of diving, and I would recommend him as a guide.
Diving Bunaken was as good as I remember it from 20 years ago when I first dived with NDC in 1995. 20-30 M visibility, great walls and an opportunity to shoot wide angle, which back in UAE is nearly impossible where visibility rarely exceeds 5 meters.
All dives except for the first dive were done on EAN32, water temps were 28/29C, and were very comfortable in my old 3mm (3:2:2 which is closer to a 2:1:1 with a few 0’s in places).
The wall drift diving was brilliant and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately on the second day my daughter’s housing for her small point and shoot flooded, but as a back up I loaned her my Canon Power Shot D30 which is good for 23M, and she took some amazing shots with that camera using a Sola 800 light, until we reached Lembeh when she switched to using my Nikon D300 with 60mm Micro lens with a single strobe.
We also had the opportunity to do one night dive from the shore and I found a Spanish Dancer right at the end of the dive in 3M of water, highlight of that dive.
All of Murex dive boats are similar and as well as having a toilet on board, there is also a container with fresh water to soak the camera gear in during the SI on two tank dives.
This was being run by Murex, and the final destination at Lembeh Resort was a place that I had stayed at the previous two years. My daughter was also joining me again this year and we were really looking forward to the trip.
First hiccup was when Silk Air (Singapore Airlines) cancelled our Saturday flight to Manado from Singapore and re-scheduled it for the next Monday! I was not happy about but managed to get the Friday flight booked, but that meant we had to reschedule our flight from Dubai which cost a couple of hundred dollars …. bastards!
Murex Manado
On arrival at Manado, my daughter quickly rushed down to immigration (she has a Malaysian Passport), while I queued for a visa, then proceeded to immigration, by the time I got there I could not see her but assumed she was waiting for the bags. When I proceeded to the baggage area and had my hand baggage X-rayed, she came out of a room asking me for the tickets.
It appeared that the immigration official asked her for her return ticket, she did not have one and told them it was an e-Ticket on her phone, apparently this was not acceptable, or perhaps they wanted something to compensate!
Anyway I gave her all the documents related to tickets accommodation etc., and by the time I had loaded the bags onto two trollies she appeared with a stamp in her passport.
There was the usual melee of people outside of the terminal and we were approached by somebody from Two Fish asking us who we were diving with, Murex, the guy shouted out Murex and we were soon sorted out with transport. I like how all the people here in the dive industry help each other even though they are in competition.
The drive to the Murex resort though took more than 90 minutes as they had to negotiate the Manado traffic. I was hoping to do a quick afternoon shore dive but I soon realised that was not going to happen.
At the resort, we were met by one of the local guys Tommy who quickly showed us around. There were two more divers coming that night and that was it, two French guys working in Singapore who were coming over for the weekend. the following day though we were joined by a British guy Joe, who was also on the Passport to Paradise trip.
Accommodation
I was surprised that there was no camera room, and although the room was spacious with a table inside, it was poorly lit, and I spent some time preparing both housings, one for wide angle and one for macro with plans to get in the water for a shore dive the next morning.
The bathroom, which also housed the minibar (!) was very spacious, but no hot water tap for the wash hand basin! To shave I had to fill a glass with hot water from the shower then use that to shave with.
Later we met the guy who runs the diving, a Dutch guy called Pim, and he informed me that they had plans for a camera room at some stage. We were also introduced to our guide Oce, who gave us boxes for our dive gear, and I was surprised to find out that none of their tanks had valves for DIN regulators. I was loaned an adaptor during the first two parts of the trip, and in any case I know that Lembeh Resort has DIN valves on their tanks.
Dive gear lockers
Drying area
We also had to buy electrical adaptors as their sockets were European design, and most of my chargers have UK plugs, this has never been an issue anywhere I stayed in Philippines or Indonesia before, most places supply adaptors.
My daughter then decided that we should do the boat dives the next morning. My preference is to do at least a shore dive first to check out the gear as I don’t want to be out on a two tank boat dive to find out that something is not working.
Oce then arranged to have a tank and weights for me to do a shore dive first early in the morning and all was well.
First day of diving I was in the water at 6:30 and did a short 36 minute solo dive with both housings to check that all was well. Visibility was awesome, and some nudibranchs wandering around. All was good, time for breakfast.
Whilst on the subject of food, most meals were basically the same and all served buffet style. The French guys complained about the food and if staying more than a few days I would too, the variety was limited and unfortunately it was the same in Bangka!
With very few people there we were the only people on the boat, as there were only three other divers during the time we were there, in fact you could say the resort was deserted although some of Danny and Angelique’s (the owners) extended family staying there due to a family wedding.
Our guide Oce was brilliant, and he stayed with us through request during our time at Bangka, which meant we had a good relationship with him after seven days of diving, and I would recommend him as a guide.
Diving Bunaken was as good as I remember it from 20 years ago when I first dived with NDC in 1995. 20-30 M visibility, great walls and an opportunity to shoot wide angle, which back in UAE is nearly impossible where visibility rarely exceeds 5 meters.
All dives except for the first dive were done on EAN32, water temps were 28/29C, and were very comfortable in my old 3mm (3:2:2 which is closer to a 2:1:1 with a few 0’s in places).
The wall drift diving was brilliant and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately on the second day my daughter’s housing for her small point and shoot flooded, but as a back up I loaned her my Canon Power Shot D30 which is good for 23M, and she took some amazing shots with that camera using a Sola 800 light, until we reached Lembeh when she switched to using my Nikon D300 with 60mm Micro lens with a single strobe.
We also had the opportunity to do one night dive from the shore and I found a Spanish Dancer right at the end of the dive in 3M of water, highlight of that dive.
All of Murex dive boats are similar and as well as having a toilet on board, there is also a container with fresh water to soak the camera gear in during the SI on two tank dives.
