This week in Bunaken we spent more of our underwater time looking for smaller creatures like this Bubble Coral Shrimp. While everyone loves exciting encounters with large marine life, we find that typically more experienced divers muck diving – or macro diving – and there are some great finds in Bunaken.
Most of the time, diving in Bunaken means drifting by walls, looking down for sharks, out for eagle rays and up for turtles. During monsoon season (well, imagine a few hours of rain maybe three times a week…), visibility sometimes drops below 25-30 meters, giving us a great reason to spend more time looking for smaller creatures on our walls, reefs and slopes. And the rewards are plenty – apart from a wide range of shrimps and other crustaceans, we’ve been finding a wide range of different nudibranchs, leaf scorpionfish and many species more.
However, that doesn’t mean there was no ‘big stuff’ to be seen! Malaysian guest Ngu Shien and Open Water student Clare encountered a baby whitetip reef shark on Tanjung Parigi on their Discover Scuba dive and second ever open water dive, respectively! Clare’s partner Simon and dive buddy Rob couldn’t believe their luck when they ran into more than a dozen turtles on their first diving day on one of our favourites, Bunaken’s big Lekuan wall.
Visiting us during this season has a number of benefits: as it’s generally a quieter time, fewer dive boats are out giving you a better chance to have a whole dive site to yourself. There’s a bit more space on the boat and we can really tailor the choice of dive sites to your taste (weather permitting, of course). Above all that, especially if you’re living in North America or Europe, nothing beats a bit of winter sun! Whether you are an experienced diver or a complete novice, the conditions and variety of macro diving in Bunaken offer something for everyone!
