Singapore, Indonesia: Manado, Bunaken, Tangkoko National Park, Bangka island, Lembeh Straits
We are off to Asia again with the first stop in Singapore. As this is my first trip to Singapore we spent time going sightseeing to places like Raffles Hotel (founder of the Singapore sling), night safari (where we got to see what the animals do at night), Sentosa Island (man made beach area with lot's of activities), Chinatown and the aquarium. We also had dinnerout by the ocean where there were very little tourists with a friend of Jorunn's who lives and works in Singapore.
Off we fly to the city of Manado (a city in the far north of the Island of Sulawesi, Indonesia), a very busy city with winding roads through town to get to the harbour which is even busier with cargo ships and ferries to smaller islands. So many people, sights, sounds, and smells was amazing and so different but soon that was all behind as our boat took us to the small island of Bunaken where Froggies divers is located. As we got off we could clearly see the island of Bunaken but what we did not expect was the large extinct volcano rising out of the sea with it's beautiful green slopes which end near the blue waters.
We were met by Christiane, Tommy and the rest of the staff with warm smiles and we were soon in our room up in the trees overlooking the blue waters with Manado Tua in the background. The next day we were introduced to our dive guide Robert and boat crew, we were soon off to see what was underwater. What we found was fantastic huge walls going down to 1000 meters covered in coral with lot's of creatures at every turn, lucky for us we had Robert with us to help identify the things we saw as there were so many new things for us. There were many turtles, reef sharks, napoleanfish and schools of fish. We also saw our first mandarinfish !! We dived just about every day on fabulous dive sites like Likuan 1,2,3, Montehage, Mike's point,Tanjung Pisok and much more. We also dived the walls of Manado Tua that reach down thousands of meters to the ocean floor where rare ceatures live that have rarely been seen. Diving was very educational as at times the current was running very fast and you had to swim hard and use up air or hold on to the rocks, at times not at all, some up or down and even in different directions at different depths. We both had birthdays while we were there and we were surprised with cakes and the traditional flour in the hair (Oh joy, ha ha ha).
While staying at Bunaken we decided to go on a liveaboard to a strange place called the Lembeh straits and do something called muck diving. We departed for a four day adventure on The Clown, where there were several rooms with bunk beds, and after many hours at sea we had a dive at the mainland, and were soon off again to Tangkoko National Park where we had an evening in the jungle to visit the home of the tarsiers (world smallest monkey). It did not take long before we met monkeys but this was a family group and they were much larger. We eventually made it to the right place and were soon rewarded with three tarsiers crawling out for their evening search for food. After a time we were off and after a little while we arrived in Lembeh where we anchorded for the night with the buzz of anticipation of the diving to come.
In the past the water between the mainland of Sulawasi and the island of Lembeh was a very active volcanic area so the sand is black and when you dive this is what you will find. At first this is all we saw along with old trees, garbage and lot's of strange things. But then was it only garbage? Robert our dive showed us that things were not as they seem, by looking closely you see lots of creatures moving around, octopus in coconuts, fish in bottles, 100's of nudibranch, stonefish, wonderpus octopus, pygmy seahorses, ghostpipefish, frogfish and many more strange things. We spent four wonderful days making friends, eating good food and learning about muck diving. All good things come to an end so we slowly made our way back to Bunaken but first we stopped at Bangka for some more diving enjoying the uncrowded and rarely dive areas.
After a few more days diving it was time to head off to Singapore for some rest and relaxation before the long trip home and dreams of new adventures. Manado was an amazing place where we learned so many new things, met many new friends and saw things that we need to preserve for the future so that others can have this type of adventure too.
Pictures
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