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Lembeh Straits<br />
FEATURE AND PHOtoGRAPHY GORDON T. SMITH<br />
After an absence of around 14 years, I found<br />
myself on a dive trip to Indonesia following an<br />
invitation to join a couple of friends from Oz<br />
who were traveling to Lembeh in Northern<br />
Sulawesi. The planned trip was based at<br />
Lembeh Resort, also known as Critters@<br />
Lembeh on Lembeh Island itself.<br />
Unfortunately, the short notice to arrange<br />
flights, the timing of my arrival and departure<br />
did not coincide with my friends and I ended<br />
up arriving two days before them and<br />
departing four days earlier, coupled with three<br />
days stopover in Singapore prior to flying to<br />
Manado.<br />
The Singapore stopover was a pleasant break<br />
after a nine hour flight from Dubai (via Colombo),<br />
and it also allowed me to do some dive shop<br />
shopping as well as pick up my newly serviced<br />
D300 housing that I had sent to the Sea&Sea<br />
shop for replacing the strobe connection.<br />
The flight from Singapore to Manado was<br />
delayed for 45 minutes due to a massive<br />
tropical downpour, and the flight itself took<br />
nearly 4 hours, so by the time the plane<br />
touched down I was already dismissing the<br />
thoughts of an afternoon shore dive to check<br />
out my gear.<br />
Entry visa on arrival is IDR250,000 (USD25),<br />
payable in local currency or in USD/EUR/SIN$<br />
…issue of the visa is not fast despite it involving<br />
three people. Next step is immigration and<br />
then pick up the bags. All trolleys had porters<br />
attached to them, and given that I needed one<br />
for all my dive gear which was split into two<br />
cases, it made my life easier, cost for tip was<br />
IDR2,000 (USD0.19). Too many zeros in this<br />
currency was confusing me!<br />
The people from Lembeh Resort were waiting<br />
outside with smiles that never ceased during<br />
my entire stay and I shared a minibus with two<br />
other divers who were on the same flight who<br />
had traveled from Spain directly via Dubai to<br />
Singapore. The drive to the other side of that<br />
arm of Sulawesi took almost two hours, the<br />
roads are appalling and full of potholes. Once<br />
we reached Bitung, we transferred to a small<br />
boat at the police station jetty and ten minutes<br />
later arrived at Lembeh Resort.<br />
There appeared to be dozens of staff all smiling<br />
waiting to greet us, and I was taken by a very<br />
charming young lady called Fitri to my room<br />
on the first floor of a four roomed building<br />
close to the main building. The bedrooms<br />
are spacious, plenty of storage space, plus a<br />
lockable safe and a huge bathroom/toilet at<br />
the back.<br />
All the bags were carried up to the room by<br />
other staff, and after quickly freshening up, I was<br />
taken on a tour of the resort and given a video<br />
to watch on what was expected of regarding<br />
diving. There were the usual papers to sign too<br />
for the dives, plus checking Nitrox and cert<br />
cards, and then a quick aperitif before dinner.<br />
Breakfast and lunch are both buffet style, and<br />
in the evening, the dinner is a la carte with<br />
most meals offering a choice of both local and<br />
western style cuisine, to what I would say is a<br />
reasonably high standard. I had no complaints<br />
whatsoever with the food quality during my<br />
entire stay, and the staff in that area are great.<br />
The following day, I had arranged to do a house<br />
reef dive in order to check out my gear, a good<br />
choice as it happened as I had some issues<br />
with my newly serviced housing, which took<br />
three dives to resolve. There is also a resident<br />
photographer on site, Sasa, who is very helpful<br />
and ready to help with any technical problems.<br />
Everyone is assigned a storage area for dive<br />
gear and it is labeled so that the boat crew can<br />
quickly locate it and take it on to the assigned<br />
boat. A whiteboard with all of the boats and<br />
who is on which one, along with dive locations<br />
is situated in this area. Mandarinfish dives and<br />
night dives are additional and have to be prebooked,<br />
although you could do a night dive on<br />
the house reef for free.<br />
On my first day, I hired a private guide and<br />
was assigned Agus, who proved to be pretty<br />
good at spotting critters. On the forms filled in<br />
68 DIVERS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, SEPTEMBER 2013<br />
SEPTEMBER 2013, DIVERS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT 69