A Twin-Centre Diving Holiday with Eco Divers

This trip was the perfect mix of underwater exploration and on-land adventure. I booked a twin-centre stay with Eco Divers, starting at the charming Lembeh Cottages for a few days of diving in the famous Lembeh Strait, followed by a stay at the Kima Bunga Villas to explore the reefs of Bunaken Island Marine Park. Both bases offered completely different experiences — from the weird and wonderful muck diving of Lembeh to the vibrant walls and coral gardens of Bunaken.

Diving in Lembeh Strait – The World of Critters

Lembeh Strait is known as the “Critter Capital of the World,” and it absolutely lived up to its reputation. The black volcanic sand provides the perfect backdrop for some of the ocean’s strangest and most elusive creatures in the ocean.

Our highlights under the water included: mimic octopus, flamboyant cuttlefish, octopus, seahorses and mantis shrimp, wunderpus, Hairy frogfish and nudibranchs in every colour imaginable. Every one of our dives felt like a treasure hunt — spotting creatures I’d only ever seen in books or on the internet, solitary in the black vlocanic sand, clinging to rocks, making a home in discarded bottles or treating a coconut shell like their new best home.

Check out the link below to find our picture gallery of some of the critters we encountered on these dives 

Diving Bunaken Marine Park – Walls of Life

After the quirky muck diving of Lembeh, Bunaken felt like stepping into a completely different ocean world. The Bunaken Marine Park is renowned for its vertical walls, rich coral gardens, and massive biodiversity with it centre pieces being the islands os Bunaken and Manado Tua, large volcanic formations surrounded by crystal clear waters.

Our underwater encounters included huge schools of reef fish, large numbers of sea snakes actively hunting in the reef, turtles gliding effortlessly along, reef sharks cruising out in the blue and pristine hard and soft corals covering the walls of this amazing marine park

Bunaken is less about hunting for the tiny critters and more about marvelling at the big picture spectacle of coral reef life.

Check out the link below to find our picture gallery of some of the sights we encountered here.

Inland in North Salawesi

Whilst we were there we also had a couple of overland adventures, these was between dives whilst transferring between resorts the first was to the Tangkoko Nature Reserve.

Our visit to was like stepping into a real-life jungle documentary. The dense rainforest was alive with the calls of hornbills and kingfishers, while black crested macaques swung through the trees ar came walking out of the forest sometimes almost too close for comfort, but the real highlight came at in late afternoon when with the help of our guide we managed to spot the tiny spectral tarsier, it was hiding in the crevice of a tree. Tarsiers being the world’s smallest primate, it was peering out with its huge, round eyes, whilst we were surrounded by giant fig trees, tangled vines, and the rich smell of the forest, it felt like discovering a hidden world far removed from the dive boats and beaches. A small taste of this corner of the world and its rich rain forest, its great fig trees, some swallowed by strangler vines and its thick green vegetation

Our second overland tour was a tour exploring the Minahasa Highlands. This was a refreshing change from the coast, with cooler air and sweeping views of fertile farmland and volcanic peaks. Our tour included visits to local farmland where chillies seemed to be the most popular crop, a visit to a local cemetery to see the magnificently carved grave stones, a visit to Lake Linow with its shifting green colours and pungent sulphur smell, dinner on a floating restaurant and even a a look around a hidden underground complex that was dug throughout the second world war as a Japanese army fortification, but the highlight was the trek up to the top of Mount Mahawu, where a short hike led us to the crater rim. From the top, we looked down into a steaming volcanic crater and out across terraced fields, lakes, and distant mountains. The volcanic soil makes the highlands rich with crops and flowers, and the whole area has a calm, timeless feel compared to the bustle of the costal resorts and towns.