Author: Chiara Ascalone
The first sensation you get upon arriving in Manado is that of truly being in another world, where the intensity of colors and scents immediately immerses the traveler in the magical atmosphere of the Orient. After the evocative local traffic, in 40 minutes you reach the Tasik Ria Resort, immersed in a botanical garden of extraordinary beauty, also ideal for families with children.
Hospitality and professionalism from the staff, cozy rooms, excellent cuisine including traditional Indonesian dishes as well as international options, and an excellent spa where you can relax after a busy day at sea. Comfortable and spacious boats, days with lunch on board while sailing around the archipelago.
About an hour's drive away, in the Minahasa region, is the Minahasa Lagoon Dive & Tours Club, a high-end facility built entirely from prized Molucca wood, set in a garden of rare beauty overlooking a lagoon. There are two restaurants: one surrounded by the lagoon; the other, called the Jungle Restaurant, because it's high up in the jungle. Here, you can enjoy traditional Minahasa cuisine in a charming setting.
From both facilities, you can set out to discover the marvelous marine world. Describing the beauty of diving in this area is difficult: the true treasure is the highest biodiversity in the world, with 70% of the Indo-Pacific's marine species present.
The most popular diving spots are located within Bunaken Marine Park. This protected area consists of a stretch of coastline and an archipelago of five islands: Bunaken, Siladen, Manadotua, Mantishage, and Nain.
Everywhere you dive, you'll find a coral reef teeming with life, with breathtaking shapes and colors, with vertiginous drops into the blue, hard and soft corals, giant sponges, soft corals and gorgonians of the most varied colors, countless bright anemones, purple, green, red, inhabited by colonies of clownfish and clouds of reef fish.
Triggerfish, surgeonfish, napoleon fish, flathead groupers, spotted groupers, white moray eels, schools of jacks, and barracudas. There's no shortage of sightings in the blue, such as tuna, eagle rays, and gray sharks. So far, everything might seem quite similar to other seabeds around the world, were it not for the fact that, under the expert eye of our guides, we discover a miniature world that exists primarily in this area.
Over 200 species of nudibranchs have been recorded. Pygmy seahorses, as big as flies. Porcelain, spider, and gorilla crabs. Harlequin shrimp, spotted and transparent. Leaf fish, ghost fish, lionfish, butterfly fish, and at sunset, mandarin fish.
A world temple of underwater photography, these places, excellent for documentary videos (see National Geographic and BBC), have been visited by all the greatest photographers, because here it is easier to spot rare marine species much more than in other places.
You need to let yourself be advised and guided by local guides, to fully enjoy the dive, where we see rocks, they see frogfish, we see gorgonians, they see 2 mm pygmy seahorses, we see algae, they see leaffish, we are fascinated by corals, they make you discover mating nudibranchs, very strange little crabs, and transparent shrimp.
From Manado, you can take diving excursions to another extraordinary place, famous throughout the world: the Lembeh Strait, a paradise for macro photographers.
A good place to stay is the Kungkungan Bay Resort, directly overlooking the strait, also built entirely of wood, extremely convenient for those who want to do more diving on the black sand and coral seabed.
Lembeh is known and envied throughout the world, thanks to the great variety of extremely rare marine species, some of which are endemic. Blurbboneel, scorpion fish, angel fish, leaf scorpion fish, yellow, pink, white and red frogfish, giantscahorses, octopus, lionfish, cuttlefish, orchid fish, black crocodile fish, colubrina snakes, blue and yellow moray eels, luminous sea urchins, electric bivalves, nudibranchs and pygmy seahorses, clown fish, crabs and shrimp of all kinds: these are just some of the guaranteed underwater encounters.
Maximum visibility 10/15 metres, water temperature 25 degrees on average.
Continuous emotions day after day, those who had planned a few moments of rest, have to think again by participating in all the possible dives: far from a relaxing holiday, so many things to write in your log-book!
For a vacation in Manado, an underwater camera is a must-have. Visibility is excellent everywhere, from a minimum of 20 meters to 40 meters and beyond. The water temperature is 26 degrees, perfect for a 3 mm wetsuit, even at great depths. Currents are often strong, especially at the edges of the plateaus to the north and south of the islands.
Days at sea can be complemented by various inland tours, visits to traditional markets, excursions to the volcano, and walks in the forest in search of monkeys.
And as in almost all Asian destinations, the people are extraordinary, poor in material things but always smiling. Thank you, Indonesia!
Heartfelt thanks to Giovanni Alban for the underwater photographic material.
For information and reservations contact:
DIVE TIME TOURS
Via Tre Settembre, 218
47891 Customs – RSM
Tel. n/a
Email: info@divetimetours.com
http://www.divetimetours.com/
Reproduction of the text and photos in this article, even partial, is strictly prohibited without the author's consent.
