Wingy
Contributor
Looking forward to feedback as I have heard the Spermondes are pretty well dynamited (recent feedback in the last month)
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OK, first upthere are whale sharks off Kapoposang – dived with four out of aschool of eleven – and they're supposedly out there for a few moredays yet: if you're in the area, get in, as the fishing fleets follow the little fish so there's local guiding there. Lots of whale sharks even close to Makassar in September,apparently, and sometimes also October and November. Yuda at MakassarDiving Centre is the man – PM me for his mobile or just swing by(it's next door to Kampoeng Popsa).
In brief:
Barranglompo– piggybacked on a marine biology research dive. Viz ****, barely even any fish, bombed to pieces and the rest's been harvested, don't bother.
Samalona – also amarine biology research dive. Promising macro – heavily dynamited,but decent amount of weird stuff even as we swung by.
Kapoposang – the beach huts are run byMakassar Diving Centre, and there's a compressor so you don't need tobring too many tanks. Nice location: white sand beach, sunrise views, shade from the trees. There are 12 dive sites here.
Didn't do Shark Point – 35 metres andheavy current felt a bit much for me, though if I'd stayed longer Iwould have done it. (Yuda is solid on safety – refusedto dive Tepokong on Bali, eg - so I felt very comfortable dropping down to the seamount to see the whale sharks, even though it was a new location and open water.)
Caves is a LOVELY wall dive –four sharks, including two BIG whitetips, loads of turtles, trevally,tuna, barracuda, some lovely coral below about 16m (some dynamitedamage higher up).
Turtle point – loads of turtles, several sharks. Not asmany as the house reef at Nunukan, but second only to that for turtlequantity IME. Lots of biggish stuff. Same wall, which is very pretty, as cuteas Menjangan in places, but a different location.
Aquarium – decent coral garden stuff(I wanted to practice my camera). There are eight more dive siteshere and I barely scratched the surface.
Lanyukan - didn't dive here as Yuda says it's been bombed out.
Kodingareng Keke –slightly cheesy underwater reef garden, with a bus that's fun to swiminside, some Greek statues, a jetski. Viz wasn't good today but isapparently often better. Nice if you like that sort of thing.
Whalesharks – nuff said.
There are also wrecks in the area. 50-metre longJapanese ship off K. Keke, 40-metre long Japanese ship off Samalona,and a Japanese fighter plane on sand near Bonebaku.
Disclosure – I dived at cost as I'm doing an island story for a mag. Don't know Bira or Selayar, so no comparison there, but Kapoposang definitely worth the weekend if you're in the area.
I am kinda of in the Wingy camp: if it is worth it why has no one ever really gone. I have lived in Jakarta for eight years and I do not know one person who has actually been to Bira. Everyone, including myself, always say the same thing... "Oh yeah. I heard it maybe was worth checking out..." But no one ever does.
That being said, if I was in Makassar for an extended period of time I would for sure give it a shot. For now, the idea of flying for 1.5 hours from Jakarta and jumping in a car with a stranger for five hours of car travel in Indonesia just sounds awful to me.