Diving in Southeast Asia. David Espinosa
There are also good shore dives to be made. Due to the proximity of the islands, boat dives also operate daily to sites around the neighboring islands.
SANGALAKI
For divers, the major attraction around Sangalaki is the resident population of manta rays, of which there are reliable sightings year round. During the rainy season (November through March), the visibility is poor (5–8 meters), but there is plenty to see. As mantas tend to feed near the surface and in light currents, divers need only descend a few meters underwater to enjoy the show. The rays are even accustomed to human presence.
The other dives at Sangalaki are worthwhile, as the corals are healthy, the currents are mild and the visibility is stellar. There are huge groupers and bountiful reef fish at a bommie near Coral Gardens, and Stingray Patch is famous for regular sightings of blue spotted rays, eagle rays and, what else, mantas.
Green turtles live, breed and lay eggs on several of the small islands off the northeast coast of Kalimantan. Derawan and Sangalaki are the islands of choice.
Remote Derawan Island in the Sangalaki Archipelago in East Kalimantan, offers the chance to see manta rays, groupers and even the odd beach wreck.
KAKABAN ISLAND
Kakaban offers an excellent wall, which drops to 50 meters, pocked by caves and crevices and covered in an array of hard corals. The wall is thronged by surgeon-fish and snappers but sharks are often encountered. There is typically a mild to strong current here, but experienced divers should have no troubles. The Blue Light Cave is another excellent site. At low tide, guests swim over the top of the reef to a small hole that opens inside into a large cathedral. Blue Light Cave is for experienced divers only.
But Kakaban lays claim to a much more unusual fame. A lake fills much of the central part of the island, slightly above sea level, and with a salt concentration about two-thirds that of the ocean. The lake holds a variety of marine life, including thousands of stingless jellyfish.
Other marine life observed includes tunicates, small colonial bivalves, nudibranchs, pure white anemone-like animals, a variety of species of holothurian sea cucumbers, sponges of two distinct growth forms and various crabs.
The lake is ringed by thickly encrusted mangrove roots, and the slopes at the lake edge are covered in lush vegetation.
The non-stinging species of Kakaban jellyfish is endemic to an inland lake on Kakaban Island.
MARATUA
The horseshoe-shaped island of Maratua lays further to the east of Sangalaki and Derawan but boat diving options are available.
The best place to dive at Maratua is at The Channel, also known as Big Fish Country, on the eastern rim where, as the name suggests, divers hope to see pelagic fish in abundance. The channel’s mouth is where the best action occurs. On an incoming or slack tide, it is swarmed by separate schools of chevron and yellow tail barracuda, gigantic bus-sized groupers, schools of surgeons, trevally and tuna. Visibility is nearly always gin-clear.
Below the lip, a vertical wall drops to 60 plus meters, where eagle rays, grey, white tip and black tip sharks are frequent visitors. If the current is running, it’s best to sit at the edge to watch the show, then drift into the shallow lagoon.
—David Espinosa/Kal Muller/Sarah Ann Wormald
Manta rays can be viewed close up in Sangalaki.
Even though this magnificent sea anemone is closing up, the clownfish that inhabit it stay within the tentacles for protection.
Sulawesi
World-class Walls and Outstanding Fish Life
Access 5 minutes–1.5 hours by boat
Current Fair to very good, 12–25 meters
Reef type Usually gentle; at some sites to 2 knots or more
Highlights Excellent condition and variety, particularly soft corals
Visibility Steep coral walls
Coral Good numbers and excellent variety
Fish Excellent walls and muck diving; Selayar and Wakatobi—exceptional house reefs
NORTH SULAWESI
Divers have nothing but praise for the reefs surrounding the small islands in Manado Bay. These are sheer walls covered with an incredible amount and variety of hard corals and invertebrate life. Visibility is usually very good—in the 20–30 meter range, sometimes even better—though periodic plankton-rich upwellings can reduce the visibility to 10–15 meters.
In 1989, thanks to the collective efforts of Dr Hanny and Ineke Batuna, Loky Herlambang and Ricky Lasut, 75,265 hectares of area underwater around Bunaken, Manado Tua, Siladen, Montehage and Nain islands became a national marine reserve, Bunaken National Park, and the corals and reefs have remained in admirable condition.
North Sulawesi and the islands in the Bunaken group face the Sulawesi Sea, which plummets down to more than 6,000 meters. Nutrient-rich water from these depths sweeps across the reefs.
This green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) has a sucker fish attached to its carapace. The two species live in symbiosis, with the turtle being cleaned and the sucker fish being fed!
The variety of marine life here is excellent. The surfaces of the walls are crowded with hard and soft corals, whip corals, sponges and clinging filter feeders like crinoids and basket stars.
Huge schools of pyramid butterflyfish, black triggerfish and clouds of anthias swarm around the reef edge and the upper part of the wall. Scorpionfish, a vast array of nudibranchs, moray eels and sea snakes—particularly the black and grey banded colubrine sea snake—are common here and larger pelagics such as sharks and rays are well known to pass through.
The Bunaken–Manado Tua reserve features easily over 20 dives sites without counting those situated off Manado on the mainland. Most are concentrated off the south and west coasts of Bunaken, a low, crescent-shaped coral island surrounded by a steep fringing reef. Adjacent to Manado Tua (Old Manado) is a volcano, a well-shaped cone reaching 822 meters. Three other islands complete the group: tiny Siladen, a stone’s throw northeast of Bunaken; Montehage, the largest of the islands, north of Bunaken; and Nain, a tiny island north of Montehage surrounded by a large barrier reef.
A successful turtle sanctuary on Siladen Island has helped turtle numbers in the Bunaken marine reserve and now green turtles are seen on almost every dive.
The reef tops of the majority of Bunaken’s walls are mainly made up of staghorn corals that host schools of damselfish, such as those pictured here.
BUNAKEN ISLAND
Bunaken is the centerpiece of the reserve with the majority of the dive sites being situated around its southern coastline.
Most of the sites offer similar topographies in that they feature steep walls of coral with small caves buzzing with reef fish. Good coral growth usually extends down to