March/October 2002 - Manado Sulawesi Dive trips

Bill, Eny and Chandra at Bangka Island

Group photo on the dive boat

Group photo at Bangka Island

Scorpion fish

Thila, Chandra and Eny touring Manado

In March and October 2002 Bill and several dive buddies made two separate trips to Manado Sulawesi for scuba diving. This is one of our favorite dive destinations as it's fairly easy to get to from Jakarta, the accommodations are good and reasonably priced and the diving is phenomenal. Both trips we stayed at the Santika Hotel (4 stars) which is our preferred hotel in Manado since it's one of the closest mainland resort hotels to Bunaken National Marine Park and the onsite dive center Thalassa Dive Center is one of the better operators in the area (ask for Fransman and Ramon as your dive guides if you go as they'll find the neatest critters as your guide).

Location map

The Location

Manado is located at the north-western tip of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Its people stems primarily from the Minahasans while its heritage is interjected with Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese influences.

An important spice trading port in the 17th century, tourism, especially eco-tourism, is fast becoming an important industry. Scuba diving and snorkeling are exceptional at the five islands of the Bunaken National Marine Park: Manado Bunaken, Manado Tua, Montehage, Nain, and Siladen, as well as the Lembeh Strait.

The city of Manado is situated 10 km from the airport and has many modern shopping malls and hotels. Most shopping malls, hotels and banks are situated along Jalan Sam Ratulangi, Jalan Piere Tendean and Jalan Sarapung.

Group photo at Bangka Island

Weather and Climate

Like other regions in Indonesia, North Sulawesi has a typical equatorial climate with two seasons: rainy and dry. Starting in September, cool Northwesterly winds pick up moisture while crossing the South China Sea and arrive in the Sulawesi Sea about November. The wet season lasts from about November to March, but it is usually less pronounced than in many other parts of Southeast Asia and thus not really a serious concern in North Sulawesi. Hence you can visit Manado year round! You are practically free to consider your own schedules, and perhaps avoid the holiday crowds.

Some useful Web Links

Bunaken National Park

The Bunaken National Marine Park was formally established in 1991 and is among the first of Indonesia's growing system of marine parks. The park covers a total surface area of 89,065 hectares, 97% of which is overlain by sparkling clear, warm tropical water. The remaining 3% of the park is terrestrial, including the five islands of Bunaken, Manado Tua, Mantehage, Nain and Siladen. Although each of these islands has a special character, it is the aquatic ecosystem that attracts most naturalists.

The waters of Bunaken National Marine Park are extremely deep (1566 m in Manado Bay), clear (up to 35-40 m visibility), refreshing in temperature (27-29 C) and harbor some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world. Pick any group of interest - corals, fish, echinoderms or sponges - and the number of families, genera or species is bound to be astonishingly high. For example, 7 of the 8 species of giant clams that occur in the world, occur in Bunaken. The park has around 70 genera of corals; compare this to a mere 10 in Hawaii. Although the exact number of fish species is unknown, it may be slightly higher than in the Philippines, where 2,500 species, or nearly 70% of all fish species known to the Indo-western Pacific, are found.

Oceanic currents may explain, in part, why Bunaken National Marine Park is such a treasure trove of biodiversity. Northeasterly currents generally sweep through the park but abundant counter currents and gyros related to lunar cycles are believed to be a trap for free swimming larvae. This is particularly true on the south side of the crescent-shaped Bunaken Island, lying in the heart of the park. A snorkeler or diver in the vicinity of Lekuan or Fukui may spot over 33 species of butterfly fish and numerous types of groupers, damsels, wrasses and gobies. The gobies, smallish fish with bulging eyes and modified fins that allow them to attach to hard surfaces, are the most diverse but least known group of fish in the park.

Biologists believe that the abundance of hard corals is crucial in maintaining the high levels of diversity in the park. Hard corals are the architects of the reefs, without them, numerous marine organisms would be homeless and hungry. Many species of fish are closely associated with particular types of corals (folious, branching, massives, etc.) for shelter and egg-laying. Others, like the enormous Bumphead Parrotfish, Balbometopon muricatum, are "coralivores" and depend on hard corals for their sustenance. Bony mouth parts fused into an impressive "beak" allow these gregarious fish to crunch corals like roasted peanuts.

Some 20,000 people live on the natural resources of Bunaken National Marine Park. Although there are inevitable conflicts between resource protection and use by people, the Indonesian government is taking a fairly unusual and pragmatic approach to park management. The idea is to promote wise resource use while preventing over exploitation. Local communities, government officials, dive resort operators, local nature groups, tourists and scientists have played an active role in developing exclusive zones for diving, wood collection, fishing and other forms of utilization. Bunaken Marine Park has become an important example of how Sulawesi, and the rest of Indonesia, can work to protect its natural resources.

Trip Videos

Shortly before going on these trips I switched from underwater still photography to underwater video so I don't have many still photos from these trips (see below for a link to some underwater photos from a October 2000 trip to Manado). I've compiled two videos from these trips. The first video (video to the left) is a 35 minute (approx. 40 megabytes) montage of the various types of marine life we saw over the course of the 20+ dives we did over these two trips. Noteworthy items in this video includes whitetip reef sharks, leaf scorpion fish, frogfish, orangutan crabs, humphead wrasse, bumphead parrotfish, assorted eels, assorted clown anemone fish, butterfly fish, pygmy seahorse, lion fish, schooling barracuda, banded sea snake, crocodile fish, and many turtles. I've tried to identify each species using the common name, however, I make no guarantees on the accuracy. The second video (video to the right approximately 2 minutes/1.5 megabytes) shows a large sailfish (misidentified in the video as a swordfish) caught by a local fisherman while we were having lunch at Bangka Island.

To save bandwidth the videos have been extremely compressed, as such, the video quality isn't all that great. If you'd like a copy of either video in DVD format send me an email at wdeertz@wdeertz.net and I'll gladly send you a copy (please specify if you prefer PAL or NTSC format).

Click on above picture to see a 35 minute (approx. 40megabytes) montage video of Manado underwater marine life

Click on above picture to see a 2 minute (approx. 1.5megabytes) video of large sailfish caught by local fisherman

The Dive Sites

Below is a map of the main dive sites in Manado.

Photo Slideshow

View a slideshow of photos from this trip below or look here for a photo album of photos from this trip. I didn't take too many underwater pictures during this trip but you can view some u/w photos taken during a 2000 Manado trip here.

Last Publish Date - Thursday, February 02, 2012