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I've been to Bunaken a couple of times and found it distinctly average by Indonesian standards. Lembeh is great, well worth a visit, and the muck and crazy critters will be a great contrast to the corals, mantas and schooling fish of Raja Ampat.

My wife and I went to Misool Eco Resort for 10 days of honeymoon in March 2015. Having dived fairly extensively around the world I can say it was definitely the best diving we've ever done. The manta experiences were as good as, if not better, than Komodo or the Maldives, the corals were more...

Direct flight in 5 hours? I can get to Perth or the Maldives in 5 hours from Singapore - I can't believe it takes that long to get to the west coast of Sumatra?

Plenty of land based options in Raja Ampat - Kri Eco Resort, Sorido Bay, Raja4Divers, Misool Eco Resort (the only one I've actually been to - it's absolutely amazing, but not cheap and a long journey from anywhere). There are at least a couple of resorts in Komodo too I think. If you want...

I think the issue is not that this high end resort will destroy the area because loads of divers will damage the reef, it's more that once the genie is out of the bottle and non-diving tourism takes off in RA, the currently pristine environment will quickly be turned into Patong or Kuta by rapid...

I got back to Singapore from Misool on Tuesday. It's a long old journey even to/from here, but rest assured, it's absolutely worth it. Will try to post a proper trip report later.

+1 for Manta Alley - the best Manta experience I've had anywhere.

Gotta love Indo airlines. Garuda emailed me last night to tell me they've moved me onto an earlier Jakarta > Singapore flight. Great, except that flight takes off before my Makassar > Jakarta flight arrives. All the flights are on Garuda, on the same booking. Sigh...

I've used a Singapore credit card to book on the Garuda website before without any problems.

Are they still spearfishing in the marine sanctuary or has that stopped now?

Sounds like a great trip, I for one am jealous! Black Manta Komodo trip is amazing - in 18 years of diving, with over 20 liveaboards, that's the best trip I've done yet. (Though I hope it's overtaken by Misool Eco Resort a month from now :-)) As others have suggested a few more days in Bali...

Bali/Komodo diving is much much better than the peninsular Malaysian islands you mention, but it's worth pointing out Komodo can be fairly advanced diving with significant currents. Komodo is also remote and only do-able from liveaboards or dedicated dive resorts so not sure how the family would...

You'd be surprised. Let me count the ways: - like a walking stick/ice axe for pulling yourself around the reef - for moving flora/fauna into better positions for photos - to provide a constant soundtrack of excited tank banging at every juncture

Yongala is great and I agree re Ningaloo being better than the GBR. It's also significantly closer to land the GBR so less travel time. March/April is prime manta/whale shark season too so you should be more or less guaranteed to snorkel with the big guys, though you'd be lucky to see them on scuba.

I was on a Liveaboard there in August and there were day boats doing snorkel trips out to the bagans to see the whalesharks but no idea which operator. They looked pretty basic boats and according to our crew it would be a very long journey from Nabire to that area. There didn't look to be much...

Ha, I guess I have now!

Black Manta is a great boat and I'm insanely jealous of the crossing trip. Please do post a trip report as there is relatively little objective info available on that route - would love to hear what it's really like. I'm particularly sceptical about the tales of schooling hammerheads but I hope...

We stayed on board, didn't even really wake up properly. I should add that particular flight was absolutely freezing for some reason, probably the coldest plane I've ever been on.

The other obvious option is Bali - Tulamben/Amed has decent shore diving, but it's not Indochina which is the OP's destination. Maybe I've missed something but I'm not sure there's much to be said for diving in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia or Northern Thailand beyond getting wet.

And in a way that's a good thing - if Sorong had a decent airport and direct flights from major cities on proper planes, Raja Ampat would look like Benidorm. In time it might well. But for now, the remoteness saves it...