August : Lembeh Straits with M/V Panunee
I’ve been requested to write a more detailed description of trips so here it is:

Thai divers are truly fortunate in the way that they have so many accessible world class dive sites nearby, all within a few hours’ flight of most major Asian cities. Manado is one such site.

This trip is the 3rd one to Lembeh straits (Manado) in north Sulewesi, Indonesia this year as it happened to be one of the favourite site for Sea Trek.
This time our group of 12 divers decided to stay on board M/V Panunee during the week’s duration. We were joined by 3 other divers from Bangkok.

How We Got There:
Our journey started with a direct flight to Singapore for an overnight stay, followed by a three and a half hour morning Silk Air flight MI 253 to Manado in the North Sulawesi. From there we had a short drive to the port town of Bitung overlooking the Lembeh Straits where we boarded M/V Panunee.

The 1 hr drive from manado airport to Bitung was hairy to say the least. I thought driving in Bangkok is bad enough but wait till you try the Indonesian way!!!

The Diving:

Panunee was moored at the famous Police pier on Lembeh straits and our group wasted no time before we hit the water. The first dive started in late after noon and turned out to be a night dive at the end. So many wonderful critters welcomed us and for those who could stand the cold ended the day with a late night dive at Nudi’s falls.

The whole week was spent diving all the well known sites including Jahir, Hairball, Angel’s Window, Nudi’s Fall and Nudi’s Retreat and many others. We encountered all kinds of nudibranchs, hairy frog fishes, juvenile & giant frog fishes, pygmy sea horses, mating mandarin fishes and a mimic octopus just to name a few! Be aware though that diving off lembeh is purely muck (silty rubbish strewn bottom with poor visibility but no current but an abundance of weird critters which is a photographers’ paradise).

If you want good visibility, larger animals but strong currents then I suggest diving off Manado around Bunaken national park.

Other Activities:
The spacious accommodation, hospitality and food on Panunee was top notch but the only drawback was the cancelled trip to Banga which was due to bad weather or not enough fuel?!?! (Be honest Panunee!)
Every night after the cold night dive our group ended up on the top deck enjoying each other’s company trying to do one better over who saw the most critters while drinking wine, beer, vodka, whisky or bourbon but being responsible divers everyone knew their limits! Normally this group would go through a litre of spirits a night but somehow only 4 bottles of hard liquor and a case of Bintang beer were devoured during the trip!

The end of another wonderful trip to manado was marred by the 4 hr. delay of silk air flight back to Singapore which made us miss the last SQ flight to Bangkok.
The only flight available was a Turkish Airlines and as bad luck would have it was delayed for 4 hrs. in Singapore. Eventually we arrived back in Bangkok at 04.30 hrs!!!

How we got there:
There are 4 flights a week to manado from Singapore during the high season but for those traveling from Thailand will have to spent a night in Singapore. For most of us this is a good opportunity to do last minute mega shopping in Singapore but for those who don’t want to waste a day’s work can catch the last flight out of Bangkok then stay over night at the Airport hotel ( advanced booking is advised).
The Silk air flight leaves Singapore at 09.30 hrs. and arrives in Manado around 13.00 hrs.
After quite a lengthy immigration it’s another’s hour’s drive to the port city of Bitung.
For divers with a lot of baggage be advised that the arrival hall don’t provide any trollies and you are expected to use the porters who charge 5,000 Rp per piece of luggage.
If you are staying on a liveaboard then you probably won’t need any local currencies but you’ll need 70,000 Rp for the airport departure tax and porter’s fees.