I took a short 5 day trip over the Vesak Day long weekend and spent 5 nights at NAD Lembeh. This was my second trip to Lembeh and first time at NAD, last time I went in July 2022 and stayed at Bastianos but they were full this time and didn't offer blackwater, so I opted to try NAD. I did 16 dives over my stay, all 75min+, and of which 2 were blackwater. Risman was my guide the entire time and was great. It felt overall a bit quieter than the last time I was here in July 2022, but I think this may be the down season as the resort was quite empty as well, ~8 guests total only.
Photos here: Lembeh (May 2024)
Flying from Singapore is super easy, 4 hour direct flight on Scoot, then a quick 1 hour car ride to the port, and 10-15min boat ride to the resort. The 9am morning flight gets you there around 3pm, in time for a night dive. Then the outbound flight leaves at 2-3pm, with enough time to fit in 3 dives the day before and still get a 24hour surface interval by the time you're in the air. It's great for maximising time underwater for a short stay.
Typical dive schedule is at 7.30am for 2 tanks, back around 12pm for lunch, 3rd dive at 2pm, and either mandarin dive, night dive, or blackwater dive depending on interest (need 2 ppl to go). The dive operation is very well run, boats are super comfortable and comes with a toilet (a huge plus for me as I was diving drysuit), and the guides share subjects but it never felt too crowded underwater. Almost all the guests had cameras, as to be expected for Lembeh. Dive guide : guest ratio is guaranteed to be no more than 1:2 but most solo guests including myself got our private dive guide as the resort was not full. Some of them carried slates and wrote down the names of all the critters, including the latin names for the nudis, which was cool. Risman was great at helping me snoot, he takes photos himself when not guiding, so I didn't really have to adjust much.
I do think I made a mistake scheduling this trip only 6 weeks after my Anilao trip, it felt a bit lacklustre in general as I had already seen almost everything in Anilao. Anilao left me very satisfied and I wasn't really craving another macro trip yet by the time this one came around. I didn't have time to go to Bangka this time and found myself at times wishing I could switch to wide angle and go to Sahaung. This trip did deliver on the blue ring and wonderpus tho as well as hairy shrimp with eggs, cardinal fish with eggs in the mouth, juvenile batfish and zebra batfish, a free swimming freckled frogfish, potani pgymy, and a lot more bobtail squids.
I only did 2 blackwater dives this trip - once with some other guests, and once by myself (NAD was kind enough to take pity on me and let me go by myself without charging me double - on a night where no other guest wanted to do night dive or BW). It feels like there was a decent amount of small stuff but not much in the way of the critters that gets people excited (paper nautilus, wonderpus, blanket etc - all of which we've seen multiple times in the one week at Anilao - but that was across 14 dives so a bit unfair to compare vs the 2). It's also not very deep, on both dives I ended up at one point around 12m and being able to see the bottom. I think I will give it another chance, I'm back in Lembeh next year for Halmahera liveaboard anyways, and hopefully there will be more chances to get out and do BW next time.
NAD was ok - dive op was top notch, but I had some issues with my room (no hot water on multiple occasions, even when I told them and they "fixed" it - although other guests didn't have this issue) and the food was not great (typical Indonesian food, lots of fried food and tough/overcooked meats). Camera room was decent - lots of space, individual charging stations - but after staying at Crystal Blue the lack of AC in the camera room was noticeable. It attracts photographers for sure - even a 80+ year old lady from Australia was still doing 3 dives a day and shooting photos on every dive! That was quite inspiring to see.
I'm due to be in Komodo on liveaboard in 2 weeks and will spend a week in Tulemban after that - what are some must-see critters (beside donut nudi) that I should request in Tulemban that is not commonly found in Lembeh or Anilao?
Photos here: Lembeh (May 2024)
Flying from Singapore is super easy, 4 hour direct flight on Scoot, then a quick 1 hour car ride to the port, and 10-15min boat ride to the resort. The 9am morning flight gets you there around 3pm, in time for a night dive. Then the outbound flight leaves at 2-3pm, with enough time to fit in 3 dives the day before and still get a 24hour surface interval by the time you're in the air. It's great for maximising time underwater for a short stay.
Typical dive schedule is at 7.30am for 2 tanks, back around 12pm for lunch, 3rd dive at 2pm, and either mandarin dive, night dive, or blackwater dive depending on interest (need 2 ppl to go). The dive operation is very well run, boats are super comfortable and comes with a toilet (a huge plus for me as I was diving drysuit), and the guides share subjects but it never felt too crowded underwater. Almost all the guests had cameras, as to be expected for Lembeh. Dive guide : guest ratio is guaranteed to be no more than 1:2 but most solo guests including myself got our private dive guide as the resort was not full. Some of them carried slates and wrote down the names of all the critters, including the latin names for the nudis, which was cool. Risman was great at helping me snoot, he takes photos himself when not guiding, so I didn't really have to adjust much.
I do think I made a mistake scheduling this trip only 6 weeks after my Anilao trip, it felt a bit lacklustre in general as I had already seen almost everything in Anilao. Anilao left me very satisfied and I wasn't really craving another macro trip yet by the time this one came around. I didn't have time to go to Bangka this time and found myself at times wishing I could switch to wide angle and go to Sahaung. This trip did deliver on the blue ring and wonderpus tho as well as hairy shrimp with eggs, cardinal fish with eggs in the mouth, juvenile batfish and zebra batfish, a free swimming freckled frogfish, potani pgymy, and a lot more bobtail squids.
I only did 2 blackwater dives this trip - once with some other guests, and once by myself (NAD was kind enough to take pity on me and let me go by myself without charging me double - on a night where no other guest wanted to do night dive or BW). It feels like there was a decent amount of small stuff but not much in the way of the critters that gets people excited (paper nautilus, wonderpus, blanket etc - all of which we've seen multiple times in the one week at Anilao - but that was across 14 dives so a bit unfair to compare vs the 2). It's also not very deep, on both dives I ended up at one point around 12m and being able to see the bottom. I think I will give it another chance, I'm back in Lembeh next year for Halmahera liveaboard anyways, and hopefully there will be more chances to get out and do BW next time.
NAD was ok - dive op was top notch, but I had some issues with my room (no hot water on multiple occasions, even when I told them and they "fixed" it - although other guests didn't have this issue) and the food was not great (typical Indonesian food, lots of fried food and tough/overcooked meats). Camera room was decent - lots of space, individual charging stations - but after staying at Crystal Blue the lack of AC in the camera room was noticeable. It attracts photographers for sure - even a 80+ year old lady from Australia was still doing 3 dives a day and shooting photos on every dive! That was quite inspiring to see.
I'm due to be in Komodo on liveaboard in 2 weeks and will spend a week in Tulemban after that - what are some must-see critters (beside donut nudi) that I should request in Tulemban that is not commonly found in Lembeh or Anilao?
