Things you wish you had known before your first trip to N Sulawesi...

[Wingy]

Just my personal experience but the ops ive dived with in N Sulawesi have all had a library of fish ID somewhere. Hence why I only have one e book downloaded. Some places some of the books may be in different languages (Froggies for example has books in french and english) but someone will be able to translate. Id imagine the same to be true of most operators in the region.

 

[Pillpusher]

There is a digital version available. You need to download the free reader from Blio.com. You can then purchase the digital books from them. $29.95
I have it on my tablet and works great. Beats hauling around 5 pounds of paper. Now if you like to make notes in the margin of your ID books about date and location of
finds, your out of luck. I keep a separate small spiral log.

Well damn... Wish I had known that before I dropped $35 on that brick of a book. Oh well. Thanks though.

 

[Searcaigh]

+1 what Wingy says, I stayed at Lembeh Resort last year (and will be returning again at the end of July), and they have a great library of books plus a resident marine biologist (Dimpy). Most of the staff are so knowledgable about the critters too so I would advise bringing the book with you as I am sure KBR is on the same level.

 

[Pillpusher]

+1 what Wingy says, I stayed at Lembeh Resort last year (and will be returning again at the end of July), and they have a great library of books plus a resident marine biologist (Dimpy). Most of the staff are so knowledgable about the critters too so I would advise bringing the book with you as I am sure KBR is on the same level.

Just thinking it'll be something nice to thumb through on the long flight over... I'm sure I'll leave it behind at KBR or Cocotino's for others to use if they don't have one already.

 

[Pillpusher]

One month left! Another question... I've got 70pds per item of luggage allowable on my flights into Singapore. Is Silk Air (Singapore to Manado) pretty strict to 50pds on that flight?

 

[WetPup]

Silk Air from Singapore to Manado is usually 30 kg total (~66 lbs) checked baggage. However if you're flying in from the US and are working on the piece system rather than the weight system for your first flight, give your regional Singapore Airlines office a call/email to make sure. If both flights (US-Singapore and Singapore-Manado) are on the one ticket and you're just transiting (not clearing immigration) in Singapore, you should get the additional baggage allowance for your Silk Air flight.

 

[Pillpusher]

Silk Air from Singapore to Manado is usually 30 kg total (~66 lbs) checked baggage. However if you're flying in from the US and are working on the piece system rather than the weight system for your first flight, give your regional Singapore Airlines office a call/email to make sure. If both flights (US-Singapore and Singapore-Manado) are on the one ticket and you're just transiting (not clearing immigration) in Singapore, you should get the additional baggage allowance for your Silk Air flight.

Ouch... With 20-25kg's of dive gear plus a camera Pelican, how is that even possible?!? With two people, do they view it as 60kg total, or 30kg per person? We have an overnight layover in Singapore, not on the same ticket as our incoming flight, so we can't check it through from the US. Geez, and at $10 per kg over, I'm going to end up paying $500 in luggage fees round trip at that rate!

---------- Post added June 1st, 2014 at 09:16 PM ----------

Oops, I miscalculated... We'll probably still be 10kg-13kg over, but that's not too horrible. Still $200+ round trip, though.

 

[WetPup]

Ouch... With 20-25kg's of dive gear plus a camera Pelican, how is that even possible?!? With two people, do they view it as 60kg total, or 30kg per person? We have an overnight layover in Singapore, not on the same ticket as our incoming flight, so we can't check it through from the US. Geez, and at $10 per kg over, I'm going to end up paying $500 in luggage fees round trip at that rate!

---------- Post added June 1st, 2014 at 09:16 PM ----------

Oops, I miscalculated... We'll probably still be 10kg-13kg over, but that's not too horrible. Still $200+ round trip, though.

Well, this is what everyone in the rest of the world has to deal with all the time. My fully packed dive bag including enough clothes to last 2 weeks at Lembeh only weighs 19kg. Minimize the clothes and do laundry at the resort. I take all my camera gear as carry-on though.

Also, it's 30kg per person. If you suck up at check-in at Singapore, they might let you combine your allowance to give the both of you 60kg total though.

 

[Pillpusher]

Well, this is what everyone in the rest of the world has to deal with all the time. My fully packed dive bag including enough clothes to last 2 weeks at Lembeh only weighs 19kg. Minimize the clothes and do laundry at the resort. I take all my camera gear as carry-on though.

Also, it's 30kg per person. If you suck up at check-in at Singapore, they might let you combine your allowance to give the both of you 60kg total though.

Unless you rent dive gear, I don't know how you pack that light. Hell, my packed dive bag is over 20kg by itself (including my wife's snorkel gear)...lol. We're also spending several nights in Singapore on the way back, so we need to pack more than just dive resort clothes. If I bring a backpack instead of my laptop bag as my "personal carry on item", I can load up as much heavy crap as I can along with the laptop into the backpack, and my camera Pelican as my carry on. That should help some.

Can anyone else verify that the weight allowance for a couple traveling together isn't combined? After I posted the question, I read elsewhere that it is.

 

[TSandM]

Diving Bunaken taught me that, if you are diving strong currents on big walls, expect they will sometimes go down . . . or up!

You might enjoy checking out this thread: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underwater-videography/480515-mucky-secrets-marine-creatures-lembeh-strait-weekly-series.html. The videos are truly wonderful and educational.