Sulawesi Dive Sites
Dive site name: Bangka
To the north of Lembeh Strait, the island of Bangka falls away to a 2000-meter deep sea and offers a different landscape for diving. This dive site is quite exposed and often gets strong currents, which can come from all directions providing for many drift dives and pelagics hunting. Barracuda, tuna, Mackerel and jacks all hunt for smaller tropical reef fish which adorns the brilliant examples of hard and soft corals. You will find lots of colour on walls full of healthy fan corals, enormous table corals with sharks resting underneath and lots of fish typically seen on coral reefs. It is always possible to dive in the shelter of the huge rocks.
Similar topography can be found at Batu Mandi and Batu Pendeta, there is also a plane wreck of a B-21 bomber at around 28 meters, a lot of it has been covered with sand though. There are a number of dive sites and house reefs on the mainland around Pulisan that offer shallower diving around pinnacles and rocks with equally impressive marine life.
Sahaung pinnacles: The dive site consists in a few underwater pinnacles that goes until the surface. The underwater scenery is very beautiful with orange soft corals, sponges and sea fans. Fishes are everywhere: snappers, surgeon fish, fusiliers and trigger fish. Some small sharks are often present under the table corals. Pygmy sea horses in the fans; frogfishes can also be spotted.
Batu mandi: This dive site is located in a beautiful bay, with a nice sandy beach. It consists of large rocks (some of them forming drop offs) with a beautiful coverage of soft and hard corals. The dive has a very beautiful shallow section.
Paradise jetty: This muck dive site located in a bay, on the main land of Sulawesi. There is a sandy slope with a wooden jetty. You can see frogfishes, leaf scorpion fishes, shrimps, various kinds of moray eels, snake eels, and with a bit of luck some mimic octopus.
Lagoon sahaung: This is a dusk or night dive. You can see mandarin fish, harlequin ghost pipe fish, demon stingers.
Pulau Ponteng: This is a very nice dive site on the east coast towards Lembeh. Several pinnacles rise from about 31m up, all covered with orange and yellow soft corals. There are fish everywhere; you must also take a look at the reef, because there are nudibranches, flatworm and shrimps to be found.
Dive site name: Siau and Sangihe
Going north from the Bangka islands is a line of islands that separates the Mollucas sea from the Sulawesi sea, and goes North up to Philippines. Mahengetang island has an underwater volcano. In this area, encounters with whales and large schools of dolphins are not rare.
Biaro Island - The first in the island chain, recognised by a sheer 200 meter cliff on the southern side is Biaro. A large flooded caldera which is open to the sea on the western side provides a beautiful sheltered spot. Dive sites around the island include Lamango which makes a great shallow night dive, The Labyrinth where volcanic lava flows make up the stunning topography, Sweetlip City which is a 20 meter deep reef with an abundance of Sweetlips, Bomb and Zaccharias Rockswhich are submerged pinnacles to the north of the island with stunning coral cover and Kalokoki, a gently sloping reef with colourful soft corals.
Ruang and Tahulandang are 2 islands separated by a détroit. In Ruang, one can dive the ancient lava flow of the last eruption in 1939. Today, the volcanic rocks are completely covered with a large variety of corals and in sponges. In general very good visibility, particular topography formed by the blocks of volcanic rocks, abundance and diversity of corals, create a beautiful and exceptional scenery.
The island of Siau is an active volcano, and at night you can see his red summit glowing. Dives there are very rich in fish, often with strong currents. Black lava rock drops to over 60 meters and slight rumbles can often be heard from the volcano. Impressive marine life can be found here and at Batu Lehi which offers a wall dive and beach hot spring.
Mahengetang Island - this tiny island has an underwater volcano which rises from over 500 meters deep to just below the surface. A very nice reef with a very good visibility, in general of 40 metres and more. The reef is in perfect state, with many corals and huge barrel sponges.
Sangihe and Talaud Islands - Another large volcano comprises the southern end of Sangihe island. Diving here is simply awesome due to the islands remoteness and the crystal clear visibility, often over 40 meters. A huge variety of marine life awaits with chances of seeing bigger visitors such as hammerheads, rays, reef sharks and dolphins. The northwest of Sangihe has a dive site called Lost City named after a village that was submerged by an earthquake in 1963.
Dive site name: Banggai
Located at the border between Banda Sea to the south, and Molluca Sea to the north, the Banggai islands, qualified by the naturalist Alfred Wallace as the "Mother of all living coral reefs", has numerous large reefs that support a very rich marine life. The best season to dive there is October to May; Banggai Islands are well protected from the northwesterly winds that affect other areas during January and February.
Batu Gong - Two pinnacles toping at 18m, covered by gorgonians and black corals. Schols of surgeon fishes, fusiliers, giant jacks that comes from the blue like rockets to check you, huge tunas, schools of barracudas, eagle rays, huge schools of banner fishes, turtles. If the fish allow you a bit of time, you could have a look at the pigmy sea horses.
Kebun laut - A line of reefs in the inside of the Banggai islands ; the slope is covered by beautiful formation of hard corals and sponges until 15 to 18 meters and the visibility is always excellent. The top of the reef offers large areas of pristine coral formations of all shapes, endless fields of delicate branched Acropora species covered by clouds of damsel fishes, combinations of tables of Acropora. Generally divers stay underwater until 90 minutes or more such is great the fascination of the scenery.
George's wall - A vertical wall on a huge offshore reef at the south of the Banggai. The immersion takes place infront of the wall, and you go down in the blue along clumps of black corals, surrounded by Bat fishes and surgeon fishes schools. Overhangs and cavities often squatted by white tip sharks, schools of jacks fishes. After about 10-25 minutes at 30m, you slowly ascend following the wall. Dives on walls often last 70 minutes.
Rocks and wreck - Massive bottom rocks at a maximum depth of 25m, canyons, gorgonians, black corals, walls covered with bright yellow and orange daisy corals, schools of barracudas and surgeon fishes. A wreck of a small ship of about 80 feet in length, with eels, groupers, glassfishes. Pygmy sea horses, ribbon eels.
Lost anchor - This site is a pinnacle getting up to 20m above the surface, whose highlight is the density of fishes. Schools of barracudas, of surgeon fishes, fusiliers, tunas, jacks fishes. White tips and grey reef sharks. Incredible density of yellow snappers. Strong currents.
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