Bunaken/Manado and the Bunaken Marine Park
When you dive Manado and Bunaken, you actually dive in a marine park called the Bunaken Marine Park. The park is made up of the mainland along the coast of Manado, and five islands: Bunaken Island, Manado Tua, Siladen, Mantehage and Nain. Bunaken Island is about 45-60mins from Manado, and with 50% of the dive sites it is the main dive destination for the area. Read more about Bunaken Marine Park.
We are actually based on Bunaken Island, this means that most of the dive sites are within 10 minutes of us, and this makes for a really easy dive holiday!
For some of the further sites we like to arrange day-trips on our dive boat with picnic lunches, and you can spend time between dives exploring the other islands, snorkeling or just sun-bathing.
Fringing Reef
You can think of the five islands as a submerged mountain range that was flooded with the sea many eons ago. The steep walls of each island have formed a fringing reef that totally surrounds each island. The top of the reef wall starts 3-5m deep and drops to more than 800m, and its good for beginners and experienced divers as we find that most of the reef-life is between 10m and 15m.
Slopes and muck
The coastline of Manado bay and the mainland offer sandy slopes as alternatives to the walls. Some of these sandy slopes offer some great muck diving where you can see unusual creatures such as sea horses and giant frog fish. There is even a ship wreck that is being taken over by schools of fish and hard and soft coral.
Best walls in Asia
Its official, the Bunaken walls were voted the best walls in Asia by Asian Diver magazine in 2004 because they offer:
- dramatic drop-offs with a huge variety of soft and hard corals
- amazing amount of reef fish: fusiliers, butterfly fish, sweetlips, cardinal fish, damsel fish, you name it
- many critters camouflaged on the walls: scorpion fish, nudibranchs, lion fish, sea horses, etc.
- regular sightings of turtles, barracuda and reef shark
- visibility of 30m plus
Long dive times
To take advantage of the reef-life at shallow depths, we encourage our guests:
- dive to no deeper than 25m
- spend a long time at shallower depths
Obviously, we respect the experience and wishes of our guests, and have no problem in accommodating those who wish to dive deeper - we just ask that you plan this with us before-hand.
First Class Dive Service in Bunaken
-
Small groups of no more than 4 guests per dive guide
-
Expert diveguides who have done thousands of dives in the Bunhaken area. They are all rescue trained, and we have oxygen and first aid on every dive boat.
-
Organise dive groups according to air consumption and dive experience.
-
Friendly crew with the boat crew and dive guides. They speak great english, and provide a great service above and below the sea.
-
Long dives, we just ask you to surface after 75mins or on 40bar.
-
Spcecial for Photographers - when possible, we will provide you with your own guide for spotting and carrying those accessories.
Dive Courses in Bunaken Marine Park
If you are here, why not take advantage of our instructors and take a course. If you are not yet a diver, many sites are ideal for a Try-a-dive or the Open Water Diver course - an amazing experience in one of the most diverse marine environments in the world.
If you are already a diver you could consider the Advanced Open Water Course or Rescue Diver course. There are also specialty courses for all levels of divers, and especially good in this area are:
-
Peak performance bouyancy for only €20 with 2 dives - because most of the dives are on wall, you need to have good bouyancy, and this will increase your dive times by a significant amount
-
Underwater naturalist for only €68 with 2 dives - this is great to do in one of the most diverse marine environments in the world
-
Wreck diving for only €68 with 4 dives - there is a great wreck here that is about 60m long, perfect for some mapping and penetration dives
-
Night diving for only €68 with 3 dives - some critters just don't come out during the day, so this is great to see some other critters
-
Underwater digital photography for only €68 with 2 dives - the photography attractions are world famous so why not get some expert advise on how to capture that perfect image
If you are doing a combo-visit, we would be happy to spread your course over our two centers in Bunaken and Lembeh, but we can only run the Go Pro courses (DiveMaster and Assistant Instructor) from our operation in Bunaken.
Dive sites of Manado/Bunaken
With more than 30 dive sites you will not be bored!
Click here or on any part of the map to find out more about the dive sites
We now have Nitrox in Lembeh. Price is €4/fill for 1-9 tanks and €3/fill for more than 10 tanks. Coming soon to Bunaken as well!!
