Bastianos Bunaken, Bunaken and Manado

Bunaken’s diving is famous for its dramatic, plunging reefs and walls, spectacularly diverse marine life and warm, clear waters. Divers can drift along sheer walls with plenty of cracks and crevices to investigate, or relax in the sunlit shallows and explore the beautiful coral gardens - all the while enjoying the prolific fish life. The deep water that surrounds the islands means that the visibility is normally good throughout the year, and can even exceed 30m+ - perfect conditions for some fabulous diving. And with over 50 dive sites around the islands and along the mainland coast, divers are spoilt for choice.

Bunaken dive sites

Many of the dive sites around the islands feature vertical coral walls and shallow reef flats, rich in both hard and soft corals. The walls are festooned with beautiful sea fans, whips, soft corals and black coral bushes that flourish in the currents. Along the top of the walls, gardens of healthy corals can be found growing in the sunlit shallows. Bigger animals such as whitetip and blacktip reef sharks, barracuda, jackfish, turtles and small tuna are common, along with dogtooth tuna, wahoo, giant trevally, eagle rays or Napoleon wrasse. Sea snakes are also common, and big schools of snapper, triggerfish, sweetlips and other reef fish are seen every day.

Manado dive sites

Sulawesi’s amazing diversity is reflected in the interesting macro life that can be found at  dive sites on the mainland coast. Pygmy seahorses, ghostpipefish, leaf scorpionfish and nudibranchs are common, and ‘muck’ critters such as frogfish, seahorses, snake eels and Rhinopias, mimic octopus and wonderpus and the elusive hairy octopus can all be found. Sites here feature everything from healthy coral reefs, white and black sand slopes, patch reefs and seagrass beds - in fact the entire coastline around Manado - has a diversity of habitats and species to rival those found in the Lembeh Strait.