Macro Diving in Bunaken

In June 2022, I had the opportunity to visit the renowned Lembeh Straits. I’ve read so much on how this place is the mecca of macro dives and now that I’ve experienced it, I fully agree.

Every dive completely took my breath away as I was introduced to a variety of strange-looking marine animals that I’ve only seen in dive magazines. 

The night dives were simply incredible – a variety of macro creatures, shrimp and crabs, different species of octopus, bobbit worms, and more emerged after dusk. There were frogfish of all colours, ghost pipefish, Bargibanti pygmy seahorses, fingered dragonets, Ambon scorpionfish, as well as strange luminous worms and so many types of nudibranchs that we lost count. On one of the night dives, we saw juvenile coconut octopus as well as a coconut octopus laying eggs! The night dives in Lembeh were so exciting they made our hearts pound – everywhere we looked, there were more creatures and marine life!

We stayed in Lembeh for 4 nights and travelled via speedboat to Siladen Resort for another 5 nights. The speedboat option offered us the chance to do 3 dives in Bangka Island which can be often overlooked by divers who are short on time as most divers will choose either Bunaken or Lembeh. We also stopped at Murex on Bangka Island for a quick lunch in between dives. The dives in Bangka were a refreshing change from the muck diving in Lembeh, as we were able to see beautiful hard and soft corals, as well as turtles, whitetip sharks, frogfish, and a variety of other fish species. We arrived at Siladen in the afternoon at around 4pm.

Siladen has always been one of my favourite resorts, with beautiful sunset views of the volcanic island (Manado Tua), wonderful food, and amazing diving. 

The dive guides and resort management were all friendly and extremely experienced, and at the end of the trip gave us a list of the dive sites we went to, along with our maximum depth and dive time for each dive.

The restaurant had indoor and outdoor tables, and it was nice to get the sea breeze while we had our meals. There were also communal tables at the restaurant for divers to mingle with one another, and it was a great opportunity to meet divers from all over the world! The husband-and-wife general managers Ana and Miguel were incredibly helpful and lovely.

Diving Siladen and Bunaken is simply amazing in June where the visibility is more than 30 metres and we were always greeted by the local turtle population. There was one dive where I counted over 30 turtles!

Bunaken will always remain one of my favourite places as my 100th dive was done there. I was given an unforgettable surprise – my dive guide hid an underwater writing slate with the words “Congratulations Isabelle for 100 dives” and placed it amongst some corals when I wasn’t looking! When I swam to it and saw the slate, I was really touched and it made my 100th dive even more special.

In terms of diving, Bunaken is an awesome place for macro diving and photographers, and we were able to see many creatures: blue-ringed octopus, pygmy seahorses, peacock mantis shrimps, pygmy cuttlefish, mandarinfish, coconut octopus, bobtail squid, mimic octopus, wonderpus, oriental flying gurnards, as well as many types of crustaceans and cephalopods. We were also able to see the mandarinfish mating during sunset mandarinfish dives. Most of the dives averaged about 60 minutes, with amazing visibility and low currents. 

Overall, the conditions were great and the amount of macro creatures there was so amazing!

Unfortunately, on our way back to Singapore, our dive luggage went missing only to be recovered a month later – all the gear was soggy and smelled like seawater. From then on, we’ve learned to put an AirTag in all our suitcases!

-Isabelle

List of dive sites (Lembeh):

1. Aer Basoz

2. Jahir 1

3. Lembeh House Reef

4. Sarena Besar

5. Makawide 2

6. Aer Bajo

7. Bianca

8. Aer Prang 1

9. Pantai Pangi

10. Nudi Falls

11. Retak Larry

12. Rojos

13. Batu Mandi

14. Sahaung 1 (Bangka)

List of dive sites (Bunaken):

1. Sachiko

2. Lekuan 1

3. Lekuan 3

4. Alung Banua

5. Pangalisang

6. Mandolin

7. Bolung 3 Mandarin

8. Darunu Point

9. Kampung Baru

10. Tanjung Parigi

11. Mike’s Point

12. Lekuan 2