Best Travel Deals

North Sulawesi, Indonesia Part Two

 

North Sulawesi, Indonesia

The Center of Life’s Diversity

Part Two

  

As you last recall, we tried to include all 50,000 miles (70,000km) of shoreline of Indonesia in one article, then we briefly mentioned three dive resorts on the northern edge of Sulawesi Island where some 390 species of coral, 90 resident species of fish, and where some 1,650 species of fish commute to work daily to and from the Bunaken National Park which is considered Grand Central in the incredibly bio-diverse Coral Triangle which stretches from the Philippines down over to Malaysia and across to the Solomon Islands.

 

 One of the most famous dives here at Bunaken Park is Lekuan 1, which is a 120ft (40m) wall dive where away from the wall you might see pelagics as big as whale sharks.On the wall you might find pink pygmy seahorses, and small orange colored orangutan crabs, colored corals, sponges, and perhaps a turtle resting on a ledge. Sachiko’s is another wall dive where you might encounter black tip sharks, schools of bumphead parrotfish, or napoleon wrasse. Ron’s Point is a site for advanced divers where two currents entwine and tunas, black tip sharks, leaf scorpions, and pontohi seahorses are spotted. In addition, at any of these sites, you may see emperor anglefish, bluestripe snapper, pinkish basslet, two-lined monocle bream, frogfish, and a plethora of small shrimps, crabs, and other invertebrates.

  

The resorts we mentioned were the Eco Divers Lembeh and Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado.  From Singapore, Bali, and Jakarta, as well as several other airports you can fly right in to Manado, the capital city of northern Sulawesi. It’s a big bustling modern city with KFC and McDonalds, innumerable blue taxi buses filling the streets, yet there are also regions where you can taste cooked to order local foods from outdoor vendors, visit street markets, and enjoy a ride on an ornate decorated horse drawn carriage.

  

We think that there is something for everyone in Manado, but if you came here to completely relax at a secluded dive resort or do some serious muck diving, its time to leave the big city.

  

Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado, is within 90 minutes of Manado. This oceanfront property with several types of accommodations and expansive beach is surrounded by a tropical rain forest. It is highly rated on TripAdvisor with modern amenities, spa services, local and international cuisine.

 

Besides the dives at Bunaken Park, the Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado  has a house reef that is ideal for divers and snorkelers. Some of the other boat dives in the area include City Extra, which is a muck dive with seahorses, ghost pipefish, and down the slope you might find frogfish, mimic octopus, and black and blue eels. At Tanjung Bulo there are some 15 different species of nudibranchs, cuttlefish, harlequin shrimp, and sea snakes. Molas Wreck is a Dutch cargo ship that 70 years later has lots of coral growth and sponges. After diving the wreck divers typically go check out a nearby reef.

  

 Here you will see tons of coral that make up the fringing reef and tons of sea life as well. Batu Goso is a boat site with several steep pinnacles (5- 35m). It’s a drift dive where you can see white tips, black tips, turtles, grouper and multi-colored corals. Across the waterway on the Sulawesi coastline is Paradise Pier. This is a muck dive site at the old paradise hotel pier. Hot springs are located at the bottom of the steps. Frogfish, seahorses, octopus, squid, and batfish apparently don’t mind the warmer water. Sabora has nudibranchs, pygmy seahorses and a great place for night dives. Sahuang has jacks, dogtooth tuna, barracuda, red-toothed triggers and colorful corals.

  

Their is also a combination two resort package that lets you stay 7 nights at Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado, then a land transfer of 2.5 hours to Eco Divers Lembeh for another 7 night stay. This gives you the opportunity to experience the best diving that Manado and Lembeh can offer. For every divers piece of mind there is a hyperbaric chamber within 90 minutes of both resorts. When you depart it is a about a one hour van ride back to Sam Ratulangi International Airport in Manado.


 

  

Eco Divers Lembeh uniquely offers the comfort of a land based resort and all its amenities and services with the convenience of a stationery day dive liveaboard.  A maximum of 16 divers can relax, eat and depart in smaller dive boats to over 60 dive sites in Lembeh Strait. But just to inform you, don’t expect 100 plus feet of visibility here. What you will see is a black sand and silt substrate with patches of reefs, discarded man made objects, lone anemones, a few wrecks, and even small rocks with absolutely breathtaking rare creatures of every size, color, and texture. This is Mecca for underwater photographers.  An anemone with clown fish, an old bottle with a blue ring octopus inside, or a rock with a frogfish leaning against it fill your camera frames and image cards on almost every dive. And when we say frogfish, we are talking hairy frogfish, clown frogfish, painted frogfish, or the newly discovered Lembeh frogfish to name of few. Fish moving across the sand or mimic octopus or mantis shrimp burring themselves in the sand are common sites too. Keep in mind that there are also multiple species of shrimp, octopus, pipefish, and nudibranchs often seen on the same dive. Some oddity fish you will find include: stargazers, crocodile fish, Pegasus sea moths, bobtail squids, devilfish, rhinopias, and candy crabs, but it’s not just about these fish, as the strait is also home to juvenile pelagic fish that are drawn here for safety and plentiful amounts of zooplankton.

  

Some of the other favorite dive sites include Nudi Falls (nudibranchs), Jahir (night dives), Tk 1 (everything in this village bay), Hairball (frogfish), and of course the Mawali, a Japanese cargo wreck, which sunk in 1943 and now resembles a coral reef with occasional straight edges.

 

As you can see, we’ve run out of space again, and we haven’t even mentioned land activities such as jungle tours, guided treks into rainforests, volcano trekking, white water rafting, or birding to see the endemic species of birds found no where else in the world. Also, the 6 national parks, 19 nature preserves, and 3 marine preserves of Sulawesi along with the freshwater fish, freshwater shrimp, and the highly cave adapted freshwater crabs will have to wait for another time. Sulawesi has so much to see and explore, but none of these spectacular marine creatures can truly shine unless immersed by the light from your own camera or dive light.

   

For more information on exclusive dive travel offers, competitive airfare, and how you can visit North Sulawesi, Indonesia, please contact us or CLICK HERE     

 

Best Travel Deals

North Sulawesi, Indonesia, Part One

 

North Sulawesi, Indonesia

The Center of Life’s Diversity

Part One

   

You’ve probably heard of the Coral Triangle where the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea collide and infuse each other with nutrients and where different species of fish and invertebrates intermingle with scuba divers from every culture around the world? You haven’t? Well, before we go in depth on this incredible zone of creatures, critters, and coral cornucopias, we should mention the country that hosts this unique spot in the world.

  

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, and it is also an archipelago made up of some 17,508 islands of which 6,000 are inhabited, but who’s counting? Now if you weren’t there or don’t recall, after the super continent of Gondwana began to split apart some 140 million years ago, the Pacific, Eurasian, and Australian tectonic plates with much volcanic fanfare met right where Indonesia now resides. Indonesia has 130 active volcanoes and most of the eruptions currently take place in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra just above the Eurasian plate subduction zone and when we say current, we’re talking geological time; Krakatoa last erupted in 1883, a much bigger eruption happened 70,000 years ago at Lake Tobo, Sumatra, but small earthquakes are more common in this region.

  

When seas were lower than they are today, animal life came down through Eurasia until deep waters stopped their advance. Animal life from Australia came up and over until deep waters stopped them too. The point or line made by these deep waters is called the Wallace Line and where these transitional animals mixed is called Wallacea. So now you know why Orangutans, Tigers, and Sumatran rhinoceros are found in western Indonesia, and two species of Anoa (miniature water buffalo), Babirusa (a curling tusked pig), and many other smaller placental and marsupial animals are found in Sulawesi and eastward Indonesia.

  

Now when you include birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and invertebrates, Indonesia is only second to Brazil in biodiversity with a greater percentage of endemic species than any other country except Australia. In fact it’s hard to view many of these creatures found nowhere else in the world without the voice of BBC’s David Attenborough narrating in your head. We think a local monitor lizard that hasn’t change much in 3.8 million years, and whose ancestors go back at least 100 million years ago, called the Komodo Dragon is the perfect poster child for the rare creatures found only on a few of the thousands of Indonesian islands.

  

The first tourists attracted to all this diverse wildlife was Homo erectus “Java Man” (1.8 million years ago to 35,000 years ago), but apparently Java man followed the Boy Scout slogan of “Leave no trace behind”, so little is known of them. The second wave of tourists were modern Homo sapiens and on their way to Australia they left trails thousands of miles wide with items like the 40,000 year old hand stencils in Pettekere Cave in Maros, Sulawesi. It is the oldest art work known to date in the entire world. Someone later drew a pig on the wall 5,000 years later near the hand. Speaking of art, we should mention that the entire island of Sulawesi (formerly called Celebes) looks like a stencil of an elephant standing on two legs with its mouth wide open. Not to be out done by others, one group of artists left some 400 stone carved megaliths between 3,000 BC and 1,300 AD on Sulawesi Island. In general, each group that found its way to Indonesia brought its unique language and culture so that by today there are 300 ethnic groups with 742 languages and dialects spoken in Indonesia with the official language being Bahasa Indonesia.

 

Most of the islands were Islamic by the time the Dutch became nuts about nutmeg, cloves, and cubeb pepper and therefore claimed this area their own as The Netherlands East Indies and later The Dutch East Indies. Imperial Japan took control from 1942-1945 and divided Indonesia into three regions. During the three years of Imperial Japanese occupation some estimated four million or more Indonesians died of forced labor, forced prostitution, or famine. Sultans, intellectuals, as well as 30,000 Europeans were either murdered or sentenced to death and anything of value was shipped back to Japan or to other locations in the ever-expanding Japanese Empire. After the war ended, Indonesia gained independence, but there was later a protracted battle with the Communist Party (PKI) during which time 500,000 people were killed during the anti-communist purge. A political settlement was reached in 2005 and things have been comparatively peaceful in recent times for this diverse yet united tropical island nation. It’s interesting to note, that now the top five visitors of Indonesia are from Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, China, and Japan.

  

So now you might be thinking, sure Indonesia’s enchanted and a one of a kind paradise with a very interesting history, but what about the 500 plus dive sites that we’ve heard about? And for this reason we are going to focus on the northern tip of the island of Sulawesi. Here on the Eastside we have Eco Divers Lembeh with access to over 50 dive sites in the Lembeh Straight, which separates Lembeh Island from the Sulawesi mainland. This area is considered the “muck diving” capital of the world.  Here with a backdrop of black lava, a macro world of pygmy seahorses, pipefish, frogfish, and several unique and bizarre species of octopus, and other invertebrates steal the show on every dive.

  

On the west side of North Sulawesi is the capital city of Manado and nearby  the oceanfront Minahasa Lagoon Resort and Eco Divers Manado. From the resort you are close to Bunaken National Park which is comprised of five islands: Bunaken, Manado Tua, Nain, Mantehage, and Siladen. Were not sure if this marine preserve is more famous for its wall dives where you can see giant clams, black tip sharks, white tip sharks, sea turtles, and eagle rays, or its famous because of the local species of brown coelacanth fish they found living just beyond the reef walls in deeper water.

  

Lobed fin coelacanths have been around here for over 485 million years and they were thought extinct for 65 million years until they were seen as the catch of the day in a local market in Manado Tua in 1997, and just like the Indonesian dugong, and 200 million year old chambered nautilus, coelacanths have become ambassadors of Indonesia’s marine life.

 

We will mention more about these resorts and some of the top dive sites in “Part Two” of our North Sulawesi expedition. Suffice it to say, it won’t be easy, as a country with black sand beaches, white sand beaches, sand dunes, mangroves, estuaries, coral reefs, sea grass beds, coastal mudflats, algae beds, thousands of small islands, and a few large islands where even elephants run freely is hard to cover with just one pair of fins and booties.

For information on exclusive dive travel offers, competitive airfare, and how you can visit North Sulawesi, Indonesia, please contact us or CLICK HERE

Maduro Memberships and Accreditations