Dim
Registered
Hi all,
After all questions and posts on Scubaboard I thought I’d post the outcome/tripreport of our trip to Indonesia.
Flights:
Living in Holland we are able to book Garuda Indonesia from Amsterdam to Jakarta and get all additional domestic flights at great discounts. But even better: standard bagage allowance of 30kg p.p. for all flights + a whopping 23kg extra allowance for dive equipment for free (!). Packing was never this easy.
Bali:
We decided to start in Bali as I had to be there on work-related matters as well. One of the spots I never did in Bali was Padangbai. We stayed at Padangbai Beach Resort. Not much of a resort, but basically a good 3 star hotel with airco, pool, decent restaurant, clean rooms. The inhouse dive operator was Absolute Scuba and we did 2 days of 3 dives with them. Overal good operator. Good guide, decent boat. They have a speedboat + local outrigger. We used the outrigger for our trips to Padangbai and Gili Tepekong and Mimpang. Apparently these normally use the speedboat for Gili Tepekong, but one that day they also had a trip to Nusa Penida and obviously the speedboat was used for that.
The diving was very good, especially Gili Tepekong and Gili Mimpang. Decent bit of current there, but manageable with lots of healthy corals and more sharks then I have seen elsewhere in Bali, including a nice surprise encounter with a 2,5 meter silvertip that took great interest in our dive guide before swimming off. Kinda scared the poor guide.
Padangbai itself was also nice but not spectaculair. A lot of damaged corals, some nice macro.
Bira:
From Bali we took the early flight to Makassar and went straight to Bira. We deciced to go to Bira after reading about it on Scubaboard. Especially the chance for some pellagic really appealled to us. I read about the hassle to get to Bira and it is certainly a 5-6 hour drive. But coming al the way from Europe a day of driving is not much of problem and you get to see a nice scenery with widespread ricepaddies, seasaltfields, small Indonesian villages, etc.
Bira itself was great fun. A nice little beach destination with whitesand beach and almost only local tourists which makes Bira pretty special compared to the more wellknown dive destinations. The hotels are pretty basic. We stayed at Anda Beach Hotel, which is one of the better hotels with airco.
We did our diving with Bira Divers. They advised us not to book in advance but just show up at the diveshop. That did not go completely smooth as they now have both the diveshop in Bira itself and the Divecamp a few kilometers away. Since the staff is mostly at the divecamp there was nobody at the diveshop when we arrived. We had to go to a restaurant, there they did not really know where the staff/owner was. But in a typical Indonesian way in the end everything worked out fine as we had a chance encounter with one of the diveguides outside the restaurant. J It’s all part of the Bira experience I guess. Just go in with an open mind, don’t get irritated, don’t mind waiting a little longer then expected and everything will be OK. :blinking:
The diving:
Bira Divers now has the new boat and it is a very nice dive boat with enough space for about 20-25 divers.
The divesites were beautiful with healthy corals, amazing visibilty, very warm water (about 29-30C). We saw quite a lot of sharks, turtles, morays, tuna, giant trevallies and eagles rays. The strangest thing happened topside, during the surface interval where our guide spotted something in the water. This turned out to be half a giant grouper (see pic). Apparently it was eaten during his own lunch as the head still had a smaller fish inside. The whole incident must have happened then and there as the grouper was still fresh, which prompted one of the crew to swim off with it to try to sell it in Bira.
We did 3 days of diving of 3 dives a day. The first day it was just 3 divers. The other days about 10. We brought our own equipment, but I also saw the rental equipment which was all brand new. The guides were decent enough but not very strict at watching the guests. Maybe because of the great viz, the would easily stay 25 meters ahead or behind. One time we even lost our guide. This is OK for more experienced divers, but just not something I am used to diving in Indonesia.
Overal the diving was very nice as I especially like the fact that there are no other diveboats in the area. Unfortunately we did not get to go to the more advanced divesites as they also had some beginning divers. Apparently those sites are best for pellagic. The one thing that lacked on the boat was freshwater for the camera’s.
We also made a stop at the dive camp. This is really nice for divers on a budget. The lodging is very basic with some simple bungalows/huts and shared bathrooms. But for 100usd a day (If I am not mistaking) you get lodging, fullboard and 3 dives a day. The best thing is the location of the camp, which is at one of the most beautiful beaches I ever saw.
Our next stop was Makassar for a day of non-diving. A bit OT here, but we had a very nice daytrip to Ramang Ramang village, a traditional farmers village just outside Makassar.
After this non-diving day we flew to Manado. Here we booked our stay at NAD Lembeh. Transfer was arranged by them and was right on time, good car.
NAD Lembeh itself is a great little gem. I have no ties with them, but cannot recommend them highly enough. Especially for photographers they really thought of everything, with a camera wet room, dry room, more then enough powerplugs, towels for camera’s, etc. etc.
The guides are amazing and the regular staff was really well trained. Especially the latter surprised me. I work in general tourism and have not seen a 3 star hotel with a staff this good anywhere. The rooms were basic, but clean and with airco and warmwatershowers. The food was good, not spectaculair, but decent mix of Indonesian and Western food in buffetstyle.
The diving in Lembeh is fantastic. I don’t think I need to ellaborate much on this topic. It was my first time in Lembeh and I was really amazed. Not just muck diving, but nice corals as well. Usually a dive would start at 20-25 meters with true muckdiving in the sand and rubble, then slowly up to the corals at 10-5 meters which provided a nice long safetystop each time. We saw just about about every critter on our wishlist including the hairy frogfish, Ambon scorpionfish, Rhynopia, blueringed octopus, ornate ghostpipefish, mandarinfish. wonderpuss and mimic octopus.
The boats were very nice as well. Here too the boat staff would remember your name within a day, provide you with towels, they knew which camera belonged to which diver and even how you liked your coffee/tea after diving.
After another non-diving day tour around Manado our final stop was Bunaken. We stayed at Froggies Bunaken. A nice little divehotel with bungalows in Indonesian style. Great seaview. The service and the total picture was very good, but just a bit less then at NAD Lembeh. On the plus-side was the very nice diving, good staff and management, nice bungalows, good food. On the downside is the rubble and plastic in the water and on the beach. Not anything Froggies can do much about. Maybe change the divesites according to currents (?). Somehow the diving is not that nice when you see diapers floating by. J
We did had some very nice dives. It’s mostly walldives in Bunaken. The best one was Pangulingan, which started out as a walldive and ended on a plateau full of life, within 20 minutes we saw a hunting seasnake, our guide found a boxercrab (pompom-crab), there were big baracuda’s, a dogtooth tuna, grey reefshark, school of batfish and much more.
Overall an amazing trip with 4 dive locations and 35 dives in 2,5 weeks. Nice combo of macro and pelagic and well-known divespots vs. relatively unknown Bira.
Rgds,
Dimitri
After all questions and posts on Scubaboard I thought I’d post the outcome/tripreport of our trip to Indonesia.
Flights:
Living in Holland we are able to book Garuda Indonesia from Amsterdam to Jakarta and get all additional domestic flights at great discounts. But even better: standard bagage allowance of 30kg p.p. for all flights + a whopping 23kg extra allowance for dive equipment for free (!). Packing was never this easy.
Bali:
We decided to start in Bali as I had to be there on work-related matters as well. One of the spots I never did in Bali was Padangbai. We stayed at Padangbai Beach Resort. Not much of a resort, but basically a good 3 star hotel with airco, pool, decent restaurant, clean rooms. The inhouse dive operator was Absolute Scuba and we did 2 days of 3 dives with them. Overal good operator. Good guide, decent boat. They have a speedboat + local outrigger. We used the outrigger for our trips to Padangbai and Gili Tepekong and Mimpang. Apparently these normally use the speedboat for Gili Tepekong, but one that day they also had a trip to Nusa Penida and obviously the speedboat was used for that.
The diving was very good, especially Gili Tepekong and Gili Mimpang. Decent bit of current there, but manageable with lots of healthy corals and more sharks then I have seen elsewhere in Bali, including a nice surprise encounter with a 2,5 meter silvertip that took great interest in our dive guide before swimming off. Kinda scared the poor guide.
Padangbai itself was also nice but not spectaculair. A lot of damaged corals, some nice macro.
Bira:
From Bali we took the early flight to Makassar and went straight to Bira. We deciced to go to Bira after reading about it on Scubaboard. Especially the chance for some pellagic really appealled to us. I read about the hassle to get to Bira and it is certainly a 5-6 hour drive. But coming al the way from Europe a day of driving is not much of problem and you get to see a nice scenery with widespread ricepaddies, seasaltfields, small Indonesian villages, etc.
Bira itself was great fun. A nice little beach destination with whitesand beach and almost only local tourists which makes Bira pretty special compared to the more wellknown dive destinations. The hotels are pretty basic. We stayed at Anda Beach Hotel, which is one of the better hotels with airco.
We did our diving with Bira Divers. They advised us not to book in advance but just show up at the diveshop. That did not go completely smooth as they now have both the diveshop in Bira itself and the Divecamp a few kilometers away. Since the staff is mostly at the divecamp there was nobody at the diveshop when we arrived. We had to go to a restaurant, there they did not really know where the staff/owner was. But in a typical Indonesian way in the end everything worked out fine as we had a chance encounter with one of the diveguides outside the restaurant. J It’s all part of the Bira experience I guess. Just go in with an open mind, don’t get irritated, don’t mind waiting a little longer then expected and everything will be OK. :blinking:
The diving:
Bira Divers now has the new boat and it is a very nice dive boat with enough space for about 20-25 divers.
The divesites were beautiful with healthy corals, amazing visibilty, very warm water (about 29-30C). We saw quite a lot of sharks, turtles, morays, tuna, giant trevallies and eagles rays. The strangest thing happened topside, during the surface interval where our guide spotted something in the water. This turned out to be half a giant grouper (see pic). Apparently it was eaten during his own lunch as the head still had a smaller fish inside. The whole incident must have happened then and there as the grouper was still fresh, which prompted one of the crew to swim off with it to try to sell it in Bira.
We did 3 days of diving of 3 dives a day. The first day it was just 3 divers. The other days about 10. We brought our own equipment, but I also saw the rental equipment which was all brand new. The guides were decent enough but not very strict at watching the guests. Maybe because of the great viz, the would easily stay 25 meters ahead or behind. One time we even lost our guide. This is OK for more experienced divers, but just not something I am used to diving in Indonesia.
Overal the diving was very nice as I especially like the fact that there are no other diveboats in the area. Unfortunately we did not get to go to the more advanced divesites as they also had some beginning divers. Apparently those sites are best for pellagic. The one thing that lacked on the boat was freshwater for the camera’s.
We also made a stop at the dive camp. This is really nice for divers on a budget. The lodging is very basic with some simple bungalows/huts and shared bathrooms. But for 100usd a day (If I am not mistaking) you get lodging, fullboard and 3 dives a day. The best thing is the location of the camp, which is at one of the most beautiful beaches I ever saw.
Our next stop was Makassar for a day of non-diving. A bit OT here, but we had a very nice daytrip to Ramang Ramang village, a traditional farmers village just outside Makassar.
After this non-diving day we flew to Manado. Here we booked our stay at NAD Lembeh. Transfer was arranged by them and was right on time, good car.
NAD Lembeh itself is a great little gem. I have no ties with them, but cannot recommend them highly enough. Especially for photographers they really thought of everything, with a camera wet room, dry room, more then enough powerplugs, towels for camera’s, etc. etc.
The guides are amazing and the regular staff was really well trained. Especially the latter surprised me. I work in general tourism and have not seen a 3 star hotel with a staff this good anywhere. The rooms were basic, but clean and with airco and warmwatershowers. The food was good, not spectaculair, but decent mix of Indonesian and Western food in buffetstyle.
The diving in Lembeh is fantastic. I don’t think I need to ellaborate much on this topic. It was my first time in Lembeh and I was really amazed. Not just muck diving, but nice corals as well. Usually a dive would start at 20-25 meters with true muckdiving in the sand and rubble, then slowly up to the corals at 10-5 meters which provided a nice long safetystop each time. We saw just about about every critter on our wishlist including the hairy frogfish, Ambon scorpionfish, Rhynopia, blueringed octopus, ornate ghostpipefish, mandarinfish. wonderpuss and mimic octopus.
The boats were very nice as well. Here too the boat staff would remember your name within a day, provide you with towels, they knew which camera belonged to which diver and even how you liked your coffee/tea after diving.
After another non-diving day tour around Manado our final stop was Bunaken. We stayed at Froggies Bunaken. A nice little divehotel with bungalows in Indonesian style. Great seaview. The service and the total picture was very good, but just a bit less then at NAD Lembeh. On the plus-side was the very nice diving, good staff and management, nice bungalows, good food. On the downside is the rubble and plastic in the water and on the beach. Not anything Froggies can do much about. Maybe change the divesites according to currents (?). Somehow the diving is not that nice when you see diapers floating by. J
We did had some very nice dives. It’s mostly walldives in Bunaken. The best one was Pangulingan, which started out as a walldive and ended on a plateau full of life, within 20 minutes we saw a hunting seasnake, our guide found a boxercrab (pompom-crab), there were big baracuda’s, a dogtooth tuna, grey reefshark, school of batfish and much more.
Overall an amazing trip with 4 dive locations and 35 dives in 2,5 weeks. Nice combo of macro and pelagic and well-known divespots vs. relatively unknown Bira.
Rgds,
Dimitri
