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