Manuel Sam
Contributor
Had a great trip to Kungkungan Bay Resort (KBR) in Lembeh May 9-16 as part of a two-leg Indonesia dive trip that also included land-based diving in Raja Ampat (West Papua).
The accommodations at KBR are excellent, with AC, fridge, and private baths with plenty of water pressure, and the service by the staff is outstanding.
The food is good, plentiful and varied (even tho the meals were a bit slow coming out), and the diving was very good.
There were those in our group who lamented that critter sightings were not as automatic as in years past. Myself being a first-time Lembeh visitor, I was like a six-year old in Disneyworld, very happy to have seen nearly 75% of the critters I had on my wish list, with the most notable misses being the Weedy and Paddle Rhinopias that they sometimes see (no sightings reported during our week), the Blue Ring Octopus (one sighting reported during our week), and the Hairy Frogfish (no adults, but we did see a juvenile).
The dive guides were generally excellent, and there were some such as Johahn and Liberty who were truly unbelievable.
I generally reserve the term electric to describe dives with non-stop big animal action, but we had one dive with Johahn where he had our heads spinning with rapid-fire critter sightings everywhere. In short order, he served up a buffet of cockatoo waspfish, an orange-colored frogfish, flamboyant cuttlefish, Tozeuma shrimps, pygmy cuttlefish, a juvenile flamboyant, a juvenile Ambon Scorpionfish, a juvenile black-colored frogfish, and a fileclam.
In addition to the above, during the week, which encompassed 19 dives, we had multiple sightings of Mimic octopus, Wunderpus, Long Arm octopus, Ornate ghostpipefish, and Stargazers.
We also saw Helmut flying gurnards, Pegasus Sea Moths, Bargibanti and Pontohi pygmy seahorses, Common and Thorny seahorses, Cockatoo flounder, Ribbon eels, including a free-swimming one, Snake eels, Coconut octopus, Zebra crabs, Harlequin shrimp, three different types of Mantis shrimps, Emperor shrimps, Boxer crabs, Orangutang crabs, about every conceivable shape and size of Decorator crabs, numerous nudis that included some my favorite Flabellinas, and one sighting of the ghastly "Lorena" Bobbitt worm.
I've attahed a few selected pix.
Our best dives were at Pante Parigi and at Aer Prang 1.
All of our dives were guided boat dives with no more than 4 divers to a dive guide. I found the 8:00AM to 5:00PM dive schedule to be a bit restrictive. With dive times often exceeding one hour and when allowing for a minimum one-hour surface interval, this left very little time to try to squeeze in a shore dive on the House Reef. Twilight or night dives were extra.
For this trip, I flew Boston Hong Kong and then connected with Singapore Airlines to Singapore where I overnighted before flying Silk Air to Manado. ItÃÔ a long haul but the diving justifies it, and when combined with another week at any of the many worthy destinations within Indonesia be it Raja Ampat (as I did) or Bali, Ambon, Manado, Kalimantan or Komodo, to name a few it makes for a great diving experience.
I encountered no excess baggage charges until my second leg flying Express Air to Sorong and then returning on Lion Air to Manado. More on that in my second report.
The accommodations at KBR are excellent, with AC, fridge, and private baths with plenty of water pressure, and the service by the staff is outstanding.
The food is good, plentiful and varied (even tho the meals were a bit slow coming out), and the diving was very good.
There were those in our group who lamented that critter sightings were not as automatic as in years past. Myself being a first-time Lembeh visitor, I was like a six-year old in Disneyworld, very happy to have seen nearly 75% of the critters I had on my wish list, with the most notable misses being the Weedy and Paddle Rhinopias that they sometimes see (no sightings reported during our week), the Blue Ring Octopus (one sighting reported during our week), and the Hairy Frogfish (no adults, but we did see a juvenile).
The dive guides were generally excellent, and there were some such as Johahn and Liberty who were truly unbelievable.
I generally reserve the term electric to describe dives with non-stop big animal action, but we had one dive with Johahn where he had our heads spinning with rapid-fire critter sightings everywhere. In short order, he served up a buffet of cockatoo waspfish, an orange-colored frogfish, flamboyant cuttlefish, Tozeuma shrimps, pygmy cuttlefish, a juvenile flamboyant, a juvenile Ambon Scorpionfish, a juvenile black-colored frogfish, and a fileclam.
In addition to the above, during the week, which encompassed 19 dives, we had multiple sightings of Mimic octopus, Wunderpus, Long Arm octopus, Ornate ghostpipefish, and Stargazers.
We also saw Helmut flying gurnards, Pegasus Sea Moths, Bargibanti and Pontohi pygmy seahorses, Common and Thorny seahorses, Cockatoo flounder, Ribbon eels, including a free-swimming one, Snake eels, Coconut octopus, Zebra crabs, Harlequin shrimp, three different types of Mantis shrimps, Emperor shrimps, Boxer crabs, Orangutang crabs, about every conceivable shape and size of Decorator crabs, numerous nudis that included some my favorite Flabellinas, and one sighting of the ghastly "Lorena" Bobbitt worm.
I've attahed a few selected pix.
Our best dives were at Pante Parigi and at Aer Prang 1.
All of our dives were guided boat dives with no more than 4 divers to a dive guide. I found the 8:00AM to 5:00PM dive schedule to be a bit restrictive. With dive times often exceeding one hour and when allowing for a minimum one-hour surface interval, this left very little time to try to squeeze in a shore dive on the House Reef. Twilight or night dives were extra.
For this trip, I flew Boston Hong Kong and then connected with Singapore Airlines to Singapore where I overnighted before flying Silk Air to Manado. ItÃÔ a long haul but the diving justifies it, and when combined with another week at any of the many worthy destinations within Indonesia be it Raja Ampat (as I did) or Bali, Ambon, Manado, Kalimantan or Komodo, to name a few it makes for a great diving experience.
I encountered no excess baggage charges until my second leg flying Express Air to Sorong and then returning on Lion Air to Manado. More on that in my second report.
