Your favorite site in Lembeh?

[skyguy]

Just wondering if there is a site or two that really stands out. I am planning on staying with a Dive Op that's on the south end of the island and is farther away from the majority of the dive sites.

Do the most interesting sites tend to be in the main channel, or are they scattered all around the area?

Can anyone tell me if the major lodges (KBR, Lembeh Resort) regularly take guests to the farther sites also, or do they just tend to hang out closer to the lodge?

Thanks in advance.

 

[AlanWald]

I like Nudi Falls as it has a bit of everything. a mini-wall with soft coral and a shallow bottom. Good for night dives.

You can see a map here for Lembeh Dive Lembeh with Two Fish Divers - dive Lembeh Straits, muck diving capital of the world

The dive operators have an understanding in the Bunaken and Lembeh areas, no more than three dive boats at one site.

Most sites are just a few minutes away if you are staying in the more central area of the mainland or Lembeh Island.

Night dives are great fun in Lembeh. Do as many as you can.

Be sure to ask your dive operator about Diver to Guide ratios and whether they have any time limits on the dives. The less divers per guide, the better. Four or Three to one is typical of the better dive operations, sometimes if is just one guide to one diver.Tell your guide what you want to see and they will find it for you in most cases.

Bring a small light for using in the day time as a back up at night (if you are going to be using the dive operators primary light).

Don't forget your International Departure Tax if flying out of Manado back to Singapore. It was 75,000 Indonesian Rupiah (about US$8) in April 2007. Payable in Rupiah at a counter after you check your luggage and get boarding passes, before going up the stairs to the departure lounge. Verify the current amount when you arrive. I don't know what it is domestically and for international departures at other airports.

If flying on back to Singapore on Silk Air and then connecting to a Singapore Air flight, you will probably be getting assigned seats and boarding passes (sometimes their printer is down and you will have to get the actual pass at one of the transit counters in Singapore airport) it is worth visiting one of the transit counters anyway, and asking if you can a seat with better leg room. Certain seats are blocked and only released if not needed a few hours before the flight and may have extra leg room.

I was able to get a seat that normally are held for persons traveling with infants and the seats face a wall with special connectors for mounting the crib on the wall so there is extra leg room on the Boeing 747, plus no one pushing their seat back into your face and the video screen comes out of the seat and is on a long articulated arm that you can set just right for viewing. So remember to ask.

Also when flying a large plane like a 747, if you order a special meal you will get served first. Singapore Airlines offers a large variety of both vegetarian and non-veg meals which can be ordered online.

 

[Travelnsj]

Did you just get back from Lembeh?....I'm headed there in two weeks....if you were just there what were the water temps like?....I'm packing a shorty as 82 or better i'm OK....if 80 or so...I will get chilled.

 

[red_barbarian]

OP - Alan summed it up nicely. The op's move around, it's not crowded, and Nudi Falls was a very nice spot.
Travelnsj -
When I went this time of year, last year temps ranged from78-80

 

[AlanWald]

Exposure Suits and Water Temperatures Bunaken and Lembeh - North Sulawesi, Indonesia

In April 2007 at Lembeh I wore a half millimeter (0.5) Scubapro full length suit and was never cold. Temperatures ran between 79 F (26C) and 82 F (28 C).

In Bunaken, temps were generally warmer at about 82F (27) to 84 F (29 C), though there are brief cold currents that you sometimes run in to and in April Bunaken was a bit colder at times than Lembeh. I wore a full length polyolefin Aeroskin suit that is a very strong woven cloth with no insulating properties like neoprene, only abrasion and sun protection and was never cold even on dives that routinely exceed one hour.

But everyone is different. If you tend to get cold, bring a vest and separate hood.

In Southern California where summer temperatures are in the 60s, I wear a 7 mm Excel suit and am never cold. Some people wear 5 mm in Bunaken/Lembeh and are cold.

I recommend a full length suit because Lembeh and Bunaken dive sites are full of beautiful but poisonous critters (some lethal like the blue spotted octopus) . Best to protect the whole body and not wear a shorty. Especially at Lembeh where you will spend a lot of time near the bottom and most critters are hidden.

Do as many night dives as you can in Lembeh.

 

[Travelnsj]

I have a friend in Lembeh right now and he is saying 82....you are right I should wear a full skin....since I froze my butt off in Wakatobi in Oct....I have purchased a .05mm Bodyglove and a 1mm Henderson fullsuits....I'll take one of those with me....My 7mm has not been used since 2001...once i got my toes in 82 degree water.....spoiled ever since!

You mean I cannot pet a Blue Ringed Octopus????....LOL

 

[JenM]

To the OP - LR and KBR are very close (within 10-20 min) to the best muck sites on the island. They tend to go mainly to those sites because there's always something new to see and that's where everyone wants to go. The sites at the north and south end of the island have more coral cover. We didn't go there much because we were so in love with the muck diving that we didn't want to do coral. They asked us every day where we wanted to go and would have taken us to the farther sites if we'd requested it. If you are staying at the far south end of the island, you'll still be coming up to the muck sites, it will just take you 30+ minutes instead of 15.

Regarding exposure suits - you definitely need a full suit, not a shorty to protect yourself in case you brush against something you shouldn't. Another thing to think about is that these dives don't usually cover much ground. Many times you are hanging out for several minutes in one place, therefore you tend to get colder because you aren't swimming, so you might think about taking a vest with you in case you need more than just your suit. Also, these dives are loooong, often 75+ minutes so you need to be able to stay warm for awhile.

 

[leeaf]

The 'classic' muck dives are Police Pier and Hairball 1 and 2 however all the dives have something and in fact if you tell them what you particularly want to see they will take you to the the right place to see it.

LR and KBR take turns selecting which sites they are going to dive and the other resort then avoids those sites. Nice co-operation!

 

[Indah]

Hello, some updates/information about Lembeh Strait. At this moment there are nine dive centers situated here. So it does not help much anymore if two of them discuss were to dive that day. Actually it works out fine between all the operatorsa based here. If we see that there are too many divers already on a site we just move to another site. There is not such a thing as the best spot. For example Nudi Falls was nothing special this year. Even KBR who is only 2 minutes away from the spot only goes there when the guests really insist upon it. But many other places were great. Including at least 5 sites where nobody used to be diving before. It is a pity that the operators based in Manado do not know this yet. That is why they often go all to the same well known, which not always means best, sites when they make day trips to Lembeh. The result is an overcrowded murky place.
The rules are: not more than 15 divers at one dive site.
No anchoring!
Do not touch anything that is alive except your buddy.
By the way not all critters are concentrated in the center of the Strait. In front of our resort Divers Lodge Lembeh at the Southwest tip of Lembeh Island we find apart from hundreds of Mandarin fish also wunderpus, ghostpipefish, leafy scorpionfish, frogfish, harlequin shrimp and so on. Lembeh Strait is not that long. From the southwest tip to the utter north east it measures less than 20 kilometers. From our place to Hairball takes 25 minutes.
Watertemperature: only July, August and sometimes Septemer are cooler. Can be 26 degrees Celsius. Other months 28. Still a 5 mm is nice.
On the excellent web site starfish: dive into the coral reef (underwater photos, information about coral reef animals)- Tauche zum Korallenriff (Unterwasser Fotos, Information über Rifftiere you will find much more!
Best regards, Rob Sinke, Divers Lodge Lembeh