Diving the Bunaken Marine Park, Manado

Manado scuba diving features

Turtles

Leaffish

Rhinopias

shipwrecks

DESTINATION OVERVIEW
Established in 1991 and covering 90,00 hectares, the Bunaken Marine Park is probably Indonesia's most visited diving region. Not far from North Sulawesi's capital, Manado, Bunaken and her neighbouring islands appear to be part of a submerged mountain range that was flooded by the sea.

It used to be said that scientists believe the earth's crust formed right about where the Bunaken Marine Park is. How they know that, or how precise the theory, is hard to tell, but the dramatic volcanic landscapes have created some spectacular diving.

Along with the islands just north of the park, the steep walls drop from just below the surface to unattainable depths. There's a huge variety of soft and hard corals and masses of reef fish – fusiliers, butterflies, angels, sweetlips, cardinals and damsel fish – while turtles and sharks make occasional appearances.

South of Manado, the flatter coastal landscapes host an incredible array of small and wacky critters: rhinopias, seahorses, pipefish, frogfish and stonefish are all easy to spot.

PROS AND CONS
Manado is easy to reach with direct flights from both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. When we first visited the region in the mid-90's everything felt remote and undiscovered. But that wasn't to last... now there are many dive centres and hotels and divers come from all over the world.

SCUBA DIVING
Visibility is usually very good but there can be some ripping currents. If you have never been caught in a typical Indonesian washing machine current, you will be here. However, these never last too long and dives are mostly scheduled to avoid tide changes.

OPINION
Although Bunaken gets a lot of divers, somehow it never feels really crowded. There will be other dive boats in close proximity to yours, but the are never on top of each other like they are in the Red Sea for example. We have returned here time and again and have stayed in several resorts and they are all so good! CocoTinos, Kima Bajo, Thalassa... so much choice, so little time.