Diving in North Sulawesi

How different are Bunaken and Lembeh, two hours apart by road?

Around Manado, the northern tip of Sulawesi offers two dives that could not be more different. To the west, in Manado Bay, lies Bunaken National Park, created in 1991 over 890 km2, 97% of it sea: five islands, Bunaken, Manado Tua, Siladen, Mantehage and Nain, set on the edge of a seabed that drops to between 200 and 1,840 meters, and vertical walls covered in sponges and soft corals where green turtles number in the dozens. To the east, behind the port of Bitung, the Lembeh Strait is a narrow channel with a black volcanic sand bottom where visibility hardly matters. You come here for macro, with hairy frogfish, mimic octopus, flamboyant cuttlefish and pygmy seahorses, on more than sixty sites.

Where should you stay to dive Bunaken and Lembeh?

Manado, served by domestic flights from Jakarta or Bali, is the airport for both areas. Bunaken is 45 minutes to an hour by boat from Manado harbor, and most divers sleep on the island, at Two Fish Divers or in the Siladen resorts. Lembeh is a 60 to 90 minute drive from the airport to Bitung, then ten minutes by boat. The resorts, Lembeh Resort, NAD Lembeh, Two Fish Divers Lembeh and Divers Lodge, sit on the shores of the strait, facing their sites. Two Fish Divers links its two resorts in three hours by boat and road, so you can combine both in one trip.

When is the best time to dive North Sulawesi?

The dry season runs from March to October. In Bunaken, the water stays at 28 to 29 °C year-round and visibility at 15 to 25 meters, best from May to October. The rains, from December to February, sometimes kick up the sea without closing the park. In Lembeh, the water ranges from 28 to 29 °C from October to March and drops to 25 or 26 °C in July and August, the months when the critters move up the slopes. Visibility, 10 to 20 meters, is best from October to December. Currents are mild to moderate on both sides, and Open Water is enough almost everywhere, as long as you control your buoyancy on the walls as well as over the sand.

How much does diving in Bunaken and Lembeh cost?

At Two Fish Divers, in Bunaken as in Lembeh, a single dive costs IDR 900,000, the two morning dives IDR 1,650,000, the third afternoon dive IDR 750,000 and the night dive IDR 900,000, tank, boat and guide included. Full gear is IDR 250,000 per day, and three nights full board with four dives come to IDR 5,940,000. Divers Lodge Lembeh charges €25 for a day dive and €35 for a night dive, at rates dated May 15, 2026. Lembeh Resort, more upscale, sells boat dives at US$59 on air and US$66 on Nitrox. The Bunaken National Park ticket, electronic since June 1, 2025, costs IDR 150,000 for foreigners, plus IDR 25,000 per dive day.