NORTH-SULAWESI, INDONESIA, 2003

During February/March 2003, I spent a few weeks in North-Sulawesi, mainly to dive and de-stress. After having investigated the different options, I decided to go diving in Lembeh Strait, and at Bunaken Island.

After 1 day in Singapore, I continued to Manado, where Rob Sinke, of Divers Lodge Lembeh , was waiting for me. We had to cross to the other side of the Nort-Sulawesi, to the harbourcity (or village) of Bitung. The boat of the diveresort was waiting for us, to make the transfer to Divers Lodge. Abner, 1 of the dive guides requested already immediately which underwater critters were on my wish-list. At arrival in Lembeh Divers Lodge, I was greated by Indah (Rob's wife), Jandries (the other dive guide), and the rest of the resort team.

I was assigned a very nice, spacious, freshly built bungalow. And the whole service in the resort is superb: quite, very nice food, friendly people, ...

The diving is performed under ideal circumstances: something what every diver dreams of: 1 diveguide per buddypair. As I am only a beginner in underwater-photography, they were very helpfull. Diving in Lembeh does not only mean macro-diving (muck-diving), but you will also find walldives, corals, wrecks, ...

After almost 2 weeks, I left Lembeh to dive around Bunaken. All diveresorts at Bunaken have boats that pick you up in Manado.

I spent a week diving different dive sites around the island, that offer great diversity as well: Bunaken is mainly famous for its superb walldives, but you can also find wrecks, ... At some divesites you will encounter strong currents, but most of the dives are very relaxing.

The island Bunaken itself is also very nice to include some walks around the island. 1 warning: make sure you remember which little paths you take, as what they call the main road is in reality a very small walking path that is crossed by lots of other evenly small paths. (yes, you guessed correctly, I got lost, but refound my way by finding back the coast: it is such a small island).

Beside diving, I also spent some time with walks in the mountain area of North-Sulawesi. My "basecamp" was in a nice hotel in Tomohon. From Tomohon, you can take a microlet (small van that fits much more persons than it is originally built for) to almost everywhere around Tomohon.

I ended my trip in Sulawesi with another week of diving at Divers Lodge Lembeh.

You can find here some of my pictures of the diving and of land