Diving the Togian Islands

[Jpalcg]

Hi,

Two weeks ago I ended my trip in Indonesia with some diving in the Togian Islands. It´s not easy to get there (it will become easier when the Ampana airport opens up), but the whole package of paradise islands and relatively good diving made it worth it. Quite good coral around there, not so many fish (other than reef life) and the excitement (sarcasm...) of being underwater and hearing a dynamite explosion...

The dive centre wasn't the best and it only reinforced the idea that a diver really needs to be prepared to find different standards in this beautiful country. Hope you enjoy my review on diving in the Togian Islands.

Have fun
Joao

 

[pughio83]

Was there any macro opportunity ie small stuff. I would go there purely to see the wallea Pygmy seahorse as it's the only place in the world but sightings I am not sure if rare or not?

 

[Wisnu]

Thanks for nice report; it remind me our diving trip 3 years ago to Gorontalo and Togean, then continued to Ampana and Toraja for top side attraction --> http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/indonesia/377217-gorontalo-togian-toraja-march-2011-a.html

Is there any reason for skipping Gorontalo ?
I enjoyed diving in Gorontalo, in fact I just spent another 3 days diving in Gorontalo 2 weeks ago!!

---------- Post added March 18th, 2014 at 09:16 PM ----------

Was there any macro opportunity ie small stuff. I would go there purely to see the wallea Pygmy seahorse as it's the only place in the world but sightings I am not sure if rare or not?

3 years ago, We dove the black marlin house reef everyday to find the walea pigmy seahorse but no success.
Later, we visited eastern side (waleabahi) still no walea pigmy seahorse.

maybe we'll visit again Togean once the Ampana airport is ready

 

[Jpalcg]

pughio83 there was some macro but nothing extraordinary - I wouldn't do such a long trip for it at least in this time of the year, maybe other seasons are more prolific. For macro I would go to Lembeh instead.

I stayed in Kandidiri and from what I've read the Walea Pygmy seahorse is located only in the Walea island [http://www.fishbase.us/summary/64901]. As I didn't have much time and a fellow diver that had just arrived from Walea told me he was enjoying Kandidiri better, I didn't move around.

Cheers

---------- Post added March 19th, 2014 at 05:21 AM ----------

Wisnu, thank you for reminding me of the diving in Gorontalo, I had forgotten about it. Yes, it does seem that the diving in Gorontalo is OK (I only found out that Gorontalo had diving there...) and they do have the endemic Salvador Dali sponges. But to be honest the bus trip was hell, I was anxious to move on to the Togians and so I had not time left or spirit to try it. So in my post I was referring to Gorontalo as a city.

 

[superdiver18]

I have been diving in Una Una and I really recomend this place. I saw huge schools of barracuda and jackfishes, humphead wrasse, schools of bumphead parrotfish, eagle rays and black tip sharks. The coral is untouched and the sponges can reach 3m long, the sea fans as well.
Una Una - Wikitravel