My wife and I had our first child (Jaydan) in December last year and after seven months we both were in desperate need of some bubble therapy. So I began looking for a possible dive destination. We live in Singapore and as such there are many options. In the end I decided on Bangka Island and the Blue Bay Divers (BBD) resort. This was our second trip to Bangka but first time staying at BBD. Why BBD you may ask? 1) It is only a 3 hour flight from Singapore, 2) most of the dives are 10-15min away so you come back to the resort for your surface interval which means more time with our cutee-pie, 3) a protected beach where we can go swimming with him, 4) they do not charge a singles supplement so it was cheaper for us to take our helper with so that she could look after Jaydan while we went diving.
BBD really is one of the prettiest little resorts I’ve been to. They have their own little private island, Sahung Island, just off Bangka, and the beach that the resort is on is just gorgeous. White sand, blue water, hammocks strung up below shady trees and palms, pretty much paradise. There are only 6 bungalows so it is never crowded. Each bungalow overlooks the beach and has its own hammocks and chill out spot right in front on the beach. The bungalows are comfortable, clean and kept clean during your stay.
The restaurant is big and spacious and everyone sits at a long table together to have meals. They even have their own band that sings Indonesian songs to you during dinner time. Most of the instruments are handmade and the staff are seriously talented!
Anke & Salman (the owners) are great hosts and run an amazing, intimate little dive resort. And the staff are just brilliant too, always helpful, always smiling, always singing. And everyone fell in love with little Jaydan, as he is the cutest kid ever (yes yes I’m a biased parent)! Ha ha ha
There are only three small negatives I can mention,
Onto the diving. BBD’s dive boats are big and extremely comfortable. Japs our dive guide was just incredible at spotting the small stuff. He also has been diving these reefs for nearly a decade so knows them intimately. The boat crew were great, helping you into and out of the water, offering you drinks and basically doing everything for you with, you guessed it, a smile.
Bangka has most of the little critters that Lembeh has but in clearer water AND it also has some amazing pinnacles draped in stunning soft corals and scattered with many many smaller reef fish. Viz usually was around 10-15m nearer the shore and 20m out on Sahung and the other pinnacles. Honestly Sahung is probably the best dive site in North Sulawesi, amazing soft corals, massive school of snappers and reef fish, tiny little critters, just beautiful, and it is basically BBDs house reef.
We also did a few dives across on the Sulawesi “mainland”. Paradise Jetty is a must do dive site with good muck critters and a picturesque jetty for some wide angle photo opportunities.
Bangka does lack the bigger stuff though. We didn’t see any turtles or pelagic fish and only saw 3 small white tip reef sharks. BUT the diving was still excellent. Off the top of my head here is a list of critters we saw: Pontihi Pygmy Seahorse (both the whitish one and the dark brown variation), Lembeh Sea Dragon (one of thee most difficult and frustrating things to photograph!), Hairy Octo, Boxer crab (with eggs), long arm octo, flamboyant cuttle, pygmy squid, juvenile zebra batfish (so pretty), bobbit worm (so scary), giant frogfish, warty frogfish, the rarer Bandfin frogfish, painted frogfish, numerous nudis (many of which we had never seen before even after a few trips to Lembeh), numerous shrimps and crabs, banded sea snake and all the usual reef fish etc etc.
In conclusion BBD is a stunning, intimate and rustic resort. The staff are super helpful and happy. And the diving is top notch if you like the small stuff and also great for wide angle photography. BUT if you have a 7-month old you would need to be super adventurous to go here ha ha! But we survived and now that Jaydan is sleeping through again, we have only great memories of the resort, diving and the people there.
You can check out the rest of my pics at the following link: Flickr: Please wait...
Please leave comments BUT be gentle as it was my first time diving with my new Sony RX100 setup. It is in a Nauticam housing and I have a single Inon D2000 strobe. I also have a +10 macro lens for the small stuff and the Inon UWL-H100 with the dome for the wide stuff. The camera takes amazing shots BUT man is it hard work. It really is not the most user friendly of cameras. I’ll make a few more comments on the system later in the Sony forum.
OK enough babbling thanks for reading.
BBD really is one of the prettiest little resorts I’ve been to. They have their own little private island, Sahung Island, just off Bangka, and the beach that the resort is on is just gorgeous. White sand, blue water, hammocks strung up below shady trees and palms, pretty much paradise. There are only 6 bungalows so it is never crowded. Each bungalow overlooks the beach and has its own hammocks and chill out spot right in front on the beach. The bungalows are comfortable, clean and kept clean during your stay.
The restaurant is big and spacious and everyone sits at a long table together to have meals. They even have their own band that sings Indonesian songs to you during dinner time. Most of the instruments are handmade and the staff are seriously talented!
Anke & Salman (the owners) are great hosts and run an amazing, intimate little dive resort. And the staff are just brilliant too, always helpful, always smiling, always singing. And everyone fell in love with little Jaydan, as he is the cutest kid ever (yes yes I’m a biased parent)! Ha ha ha
There are only three small negatives I can mention,
- The electricity is not 24hr, it goes off at midnight and only comes on at 6am. Now IF we did not have Jaydan with us this would have only been a minor annoyance BUT Jaydan did not take kindly to the heat after the fan died. SO we did not end up have very much sleep after midnight as he kicked and niggled for much of the night and at 5am was wide awake refusing to “sleep” any more. Yes we know it was a new place and we were not expecting him to sleep right through, like he usually does at home, but the heat was definitely the cause of him not sleeping. On most nights there was very little breeze and it really did get quite hot in the bungalows. Anke suggested opening the front and back doors to let the air in.... but I was not so keen to do that as the bugs and mozzies may come in too.
- The food for lunch and dinner is 100% local Manado-ese/ Indonesian styled cooking. Now don’t get wrong, it is extremely tasty, the chefs do an amazing job, and you certainly will not go hungry. BUT after a few days all you want is a simple pasta or something not spicy. This is purely a personal preference. And if I’d asked for it I probably would have gotten it.
- As they are on a small secluded island water is scarce, so to save water they do not have running water in the bathrooms. You use the traditional “mandi” style of washing which is using a small bucket to pour cold water over yourself. At night or on request they will bring you a bucket of hot water which is great. I personally have no problem with this but my wife tends to prefer a proper shower.
Onto the diving. BBD’s dive boats are big and extremely comfortable. Japs our dive guide was just incredible at spotting the small stuff. He also has been diving these reefs for nearly a decade so knows them intimately. The boat crew were great, helping you into and out of the water, offering you drinks and basically doing everything for you with, you guessed it, a smile.
Bangka has most of the little critters that Lembeh has but in clearer water AND it also has some amazing pinnacles draped in stunning soft corals and scattered with many many smaller reef fish. Viz usually was around 10-15m nearer the shore and 20m out on Sahung and the other pinnacles. Honestly Sahung is probably the best dive site in North Sulawesi, amazing soft corals, massive school of snappers and reef fish, tiny little critters, just beautiful, and it is basically BBDs house reef.
We also did a few dives across on the Sulawesi “mainland”. Paradise Jetty is a must do dive site with good muck critters and a picturesque jetty for some wide angle photo opportunities.
Bangka does lack the bigger stuff though. We didn’t see any turtles or pelagic fish and only saw 3 small white tip reef sharks. BUT the diving was still excellent. Off the top of my head here is a list of critters we saw: Pontihi Pygmy Seahorse (both the whitish one and the dark brown variation), Lembeh Sea Dragon (one of thee most difficult and frustrating things to photograph!), Hairy Octo, Boxer crab (with eggs), long arm octo, flamboyant cuttle, pygmy squid, juvenile zebra batfish (so pretty), bobbit worm (so scary), giant frogfish, warty frogfish, the rarer Bandfin frogfish, painted frogfish, numerous nudis (many of which we had never seen before even after a few trips to Lembeh), numerous shrimps and crabs, banded sea snake and all the usual reef fish etc etc.
In conclusion BBD is a stunning, intimate and rustic resort. The staff are super helpful and happy. And the diving is top notch if you like the small stuff and also great for wide angle photography. BUT if you have a 7-month old you would need to be super adventurous to go here ha ha! But we survived and now that Jaydan is sleeping through again, we have only great memories of the resort, diving and the people there.
You can check out the rest of my pics at the following link: Flickr: Please wait...
Please leave comments BUT be gentle as it was my first time diving with my new Sony RX100 setup. It is in a Nauticam housing and I have a single Inon D2000 strobe. I also have a +10 macro lens for the small stuff and the Inon UWL-H100 with the dome for the wide stuff. The camera takes amazing shots BUT man is it hard work. It really is not the most user friendly of cameras. I’ll make a few more comments on the system later in the Sony forum.
OK enough babbling thanks for reading.
