Buyat Bay Dive Report

[Dream Weaver Travel]

I was fortunate to dive Buyat Bay in April, this place is extraordinary! It is located about 2 hours south of Lembeh on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Erwin Filius. dive manager of Lembeh Divers, took 4 of my group from Lembeh to Buyat diving along the way. I was thrilled to see how pristine the corals are in this area. It is almost prehistoric in size and amount of hard coral formations. Fields of stag horn coral as far as the eye could see. Rolling hills of mountainous star coral that went on forever. Hundreds maybe thousands of monkey tail sea whips 4' to 6' tall. The visibility was spectacular and the marine life was great! Erwin took us on a dusk dive to a "muck” spot called 50/50 and at first I was somewhat disappointed comparing it to Lembeh but 10 minutes into the dive Erwin’s expert eye made this one of the best dives of my life. All the usual strange and wonderful critters you would expect on a muck dive with the highlight being a coconut octopus that had made a home in a nautilus shell.

The accommodations that are currently being used are basic at best but certainly adequate for a few nights. AC worked, water did not, (a pipe had broken) but we did have TV with HBO and Cinemax! Cold beers for $1.50 made it all more bearable. The dive boat is good, Danny Charlton, owner of Lembeh Divers, just built it for this destination and it works well. Over all this is a "must see" destination now, and when Danny and team get a proper resort built it will rival any of the best dive sites in the world!

 

[Travelnsj]

Thanks for the report. Danny has been trying to talk me into Buyat Bay for February. I'll talk to him about it when I'm there in November and probably plan a Fall 2010 trip there....perhaps by then the proper resort will be built!