Finally have the time to collect my thoughts and complete this.
Firstly I’d like to thank FINS for organizing the FINS Divers’ Night, in which I won a 3D2N trip to Manado, which was later extended to 5 days 4 night and 9 dives, including Lembeh. (31 May – 4 Jun 2007)
First Impressions
When our 3 hours SilkAir flight slowly landed into the runway of Manado Airport, I was quickly mesmerized by the view – patches of green paddy fields with foggy blue mountains in the background. The sky was drizzling before so the air was refreshing.
Me and my buddy was picked up by the resort bus. A twenty-four seater bus for just the two of us. The journey to Hotel Sedona took about 45mins and based on the view from the bus, the city looks charming and full of colours. Houses, shops, schools and churches are all built closely together, with cloudy hills on one side and distinctive alleyways that cut out towards the Sulawesi Sea.
Five-Star Treatment
The area that belongs to Hotel Sedona was huge. It took about 6mins to ride from entrance gate to the secluded resort where the beautiful lobby comes to view. As the resort was in its soft launch, everything was relatively ‘new and shiny’ and it was not crowded at all, making the place very peaceful and relaxed.
Food from their restaurant was quite delicious and their service is pretty good but it was a tad expensive and the resort’s location made it hard to go out to eat. During the weekend evenings, they even had piano performances at their lounge. Its bar provided a panoramic view of the sea and the colourfully-lighted swimming pool with the surrounding palm trees.
Dive Centre
After check in, we took their golf cart to bring our dive gears to Euro Divers dive centre. The dive centre was very well-built with camera room, personal gear storage, big rinsing tanks, showers and toilets facilities. Dive centre manager, Moel, was there to welcome us personally. He provided a lot of good advice on the dive arrangements (Thanks for the extra Lembeh dive, Moel!) The whole crew gives a friendly and relaxed atmosphere for anyone to do their diving. Our gears were set up, changed to new tanks and washed for us. Between dives, warm coffee and sweet tea was served. The dive guides were very dedicated to bring us to see the most interesting creatures underwater. 6 out of 10 dives, we had the two guides to ourselves.
Diving
Here are the brief details of our dives. I’ll try to keep to the highlights as there was just too many strange and bizarre creatures that we saw. Day 1 and 5 are non-diving days so they are omitted.
Day Two (Bunaken)
Dive 1 – Timor Point
Wall drop-off. Marine life aplenty. Anthias, Fusiliers, Damselfishes. Not used to taking pictures while drifting in the currents. During safety stop, we saw spotted eagle rays in a group of 4 gliding around us. Depth 28.8m. Dive time 60mins.
Dive 2 – Lekuan I
Wall drop-off. Currents. There was many reef fishes here as well. All kind of shrimps and decorator crabs; Cleaner shrimp, Commensal shrimps, Shrimps living on sea stars, Orang Utan crab, Majid crab, Porcelain crab, Spider crab. We also spotted a giant Green turtle, that is bigger than me, resting against the crooked wall. Depth 23m. Dive time 61mins.
Dive 3 – House Reef I
The house reef, situated just outside Sedona’s private lagoon, surprised us with its abundance in life. Giant morays, Whitemouth morays, Ribbon eels, Mantis shrimp, Harlequin crab, Tasseled scorpionfish, Juvenile pinnate batfish, Pipefishes and a Crinoid shrimp that looks exactly like its unique yellow-black-white feather star home. Depth 16.2m. Dive time 66mins.
Dive 4 – House Reef II
Night Dive. The Lionfishes all came out to play. Along with Razorfishes, Scorpionfishes and the usual mix of unusual shrimps and decorator & hermit crabs. Depth 13.7m. Dive time 61mins.
Day Three (Lembeh)
Dive 1 – Nudi Retreat
First-hand experience of the infamous Lembeh Straits. Now I fully understand its reputation as a world class dive destination. Nudi Retreat starts out from a small-protect cove. There was always something eye-popping around the corners if you look closer. Flying gurnard, Cockatoo waspfishes, bunch of Banggai cardinalfishes, Winged pipefishes, a pair of very peculiar Dragon sea moths walking across the sea floor and a Flame File Shell that displayed lightning flashes across its body when we shined the torchlight at it. Depth 23.7m. Dive time 61mins.
Dive 2 – Teluk Kembahu (T.K)
Gentle slopes. Practically no currents. Snake eels, Devil scorpionfish, Spiny devilfishes (Confusing names huh~), Painted frogfishes, Hairy frogfishes, Spiny waspfish, Flying gurnards, Fingered dragonet, Seahorses. Depth 17.6m. Dive time 67mins.
Dive 3 – Aer Perang
Just 10 mins into the dive, the dive guide pointed out the purple-splashed rhinopious eschmeyeri, also named Paddle-Flap Scorpionfish. It’s highly uncommon and only found in very few places in the world! Made acquaintance with a Fimbriated moray eel. Where it kind of swamed at me to avoid other divers. Depth 20.4m. Dive time 64mins.
Dive 4 – Nudi Falls
With a colourful miniwall, this site is famous for its large variety of Nudibranchs and pygmy seahorse. Depth 18m. Dive time 64mins.
Day Four (Manado Bay)
On the way to the dive site, we had a very rare sighting. We saw migrating Pilot Whales! It was quite a sight to see a group of about 25 smooth jet black pilot whales gliding at the surface not far from our dive boat.
Dive 1 – Black Rock
Sandy Slope. Madarinfishes, Yellowbarred jawfish, leaf scorpionfish, coconut octopus, yellow boxfish and juvenile barracudas. Depth 13.7m. Dive time 81mins.
Dive 2 – Manado Bay infront of Mega Mall (Their shopping mall!)
Sandy Slope. Reef stonefish, Waspfish, Diamond filefishes and Harlequin ghost pipefishes. Depth 13.9m. Dive time 76mins.
Conclusion
Having only been diving in Peninsular Malaysia before this, this was definitely the most luxurious and pampered diving I have ever done!! The dives at Lembeh are truly spectacular. Diving, to me, will never be the same again. Currently, Euro Divers are offering a 15% discount for their repeat customers. How can I not revisit this fascinating dive destination again?!
I have officially switched to Flickr for my diving photos.
See the photoset here : Manado 07
Would recommend viewing it in slideshow.
Thanks for reading!
1 Comment
10 July, 2007 at 4:17 pm
[...] 2006. She recently found time to travel to Manado, had a great trip, and posted her thoughts to her blog, the contents of which we’ve reproduced here with her [...]