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Indonesia remains, to all intents and purposes, a bucolic paradise. Despite the country’s best efforts to despoil its natural heritage, there is simply too much of the stuff about. And the country’s mountains, jungles, beaches, villages and volcanoes are not the end of the story.

For those brave enough to venture into our oceans, there is a stunning variety of subaquatic flora and fauna to see. From corals to nudibranches to octopuses and fish of every possible rainbow hue, it is all there for intrepid Jacques-Cousteau types to see. Snorkeling is naturally great fun, but if you want to be a real bounder of adventure then you are going to have put on a full wet suit, face mask and tank and plumb the depths of Davy Jones’s locker.

Diving resorts do, however, require that one first be qualified for the job in hand. As such, most resorts in Indonesia offer the standard, internationally recognized PADI Open Water Dive course, which usually costs between $350 to $400. This may sound steep, but the price includes several dives and qualifies you to go and pay house calls on the fish for the rest of your days.

I chose to take my PADI course up in North Sulawesi.

Bunaken Island, which lies off the coast of Manado, is hugely popular with divers. But not wishing to run with the herd, I elected to head to the nearby island of Lembeh, which lies just off North Sulawesi’s deep water port of Bitung.

Lembeh is a picturesque and rugged island covered with thick, virgin forest. Several diving resorts dot the island’s shore line and I ended up at the very decent Nad Lembeh.

Not being in the ubiquitous Lonely Planet, Nad is a bit of a well-kept secret, however it offers fully air-conditioned rooms, full diving equipment and instruction, three very decent meals per day and even free Wi-Fi, all for a very reasonable $40 per night.

The view of the sun setting behind the mountains on the mainland is classically Indonesian, especially if seen from one of the resort’s kayaks. Paddling around Lembeh’s many bays and inlets is tremendous fun in fact. The diving here is the main attraction though and the Lembeh Strait offers what is known as muck diving. This means that the water can be a trifle murky and full of particulate matter. The variety and breadth of the undersea life in the strait though is truly awe-inspiring. During my stay at Nad, a couple of fellow guests from Singapore bagged some amazing pictures with their super high-tech and flashy underwater camera equipment and very graciously allowed me to pinch a few for this piece.

After a day of reading the divers’ manual and acquainting myself with the rudiments of diving, it was finally time to head down to the depths and see what was on offer. We got our equipment ready on the boat, following all of the safety procedures to the letter. A full dive kit consists of a wet suit, a mask and snorkel, flippers, an air tank, a weight belt to keep you down under, a BCD (buoyancy control device) which you can inflate to bring you back up again and two breathing regulators (main and emergency) to stick in your mouth and supply you with air.

Before we could check out the flora and fauna, however, I had to prove that I could handle myself with all of this kit on. It seemed to weigh a ton on the boat but obviously, when we slipped into the water, it all became a lot easier. My instructor put me through my paces, which included equalizing the pressure in my ears, clearing a mask that had filled with water, emergency breathing and being able to maintain one’s depth with ease. I managed to complete my first mission with only a slight bit of saltwater-spluttering sullying my otherwise unblemished report card.

The next day it was time for a real dive. My instructor and I sailed out to one of the Strait’s many top dive spots and then descended to a depth of 10 meters for a good look around. Simply being 10 meters down in the murky waters around Lembeh proved to be a bit of a surreal experience.

Looking up, I couldn’t see the water’s surface at all and a lesser man might well have panicked. Being a lean, mean diving machine, however, I stuck nobly to the task in hand as my intrepid instructor beckoned me down to the ocean floor.

Many of the sea creatures around the Lembeh area are of the type that like to hide in the sand and camouflage themselves, and it often takes a trained eye to spot them.

Down on the seabed, I was introduced to some amazing sights though: an octopus scurrying across the sand, tentacles writhing like something from a horror movie; surreal sea horses bobbing along in an underwater derby; as well as fish possessed of some quite frightening faces, despite their tiny size. After a while my instructor made the signal for us to return to the surface and we duly inflated our buoyancy aids and swam up into the bright sunlight. We had actually been underwater close to an hour, although the time had seemed to elapse in about five minutes.

Well, I had finally been diving after all these years and I could at last check the diving off in the letter “d” section of life’s great checklist, slipped in there between destroying a motorcycle and drinking one’s own urine. Further dives were followed by the back-to-school horrors of the PADI open water dive test. In the event though, the multiple choice exam proved to be a cinch and I soon found myself a qualified diver with a handy license card to my name.

Diving may not be for everyone, perhaps, but this country offers some of the most spectacular underwater sites anywhere in the world.


About Nad Lembeh
This resort and dive center is set out in a bay between two hills on Lembeh Island, North Sulawesi, a short boat ride from Bitung Harbor. It has 10 guest rooms and two private bungalows costing from  $40 to $50 a night per person. Dive packages start from 3 nights, 5 dives at $272 per person based on double occupancy in a standard room, including breakfast, lunch, dinner and all boat day dives and rental equipment. Diving is available all year round.

www.nad-lembeh.com
E-mail: info@NAD-Lembeh.com
Tel: +62 438 5520980, +62 81 244125852


Other Dive Centers and Resorts Around Lembeh:

Lembeh Resort
An upmarket diving resort
Tel: +62 438 550 3139
Or:  +62 438 550 0139
info@lembehresort.com
lembehresort@gmail.com

Divers Lodge Lembeh
An affordable option for diving
Tel: +62 812 4433 754
www.diving-on-sulawesi.com
info@diving-on-sulawesi.com

Kungkungan Bay Resort
The first resort to open in the Lembeh area
Tel: +62 438 30300
www.divekbr.com
info@divekbr.com

Two Fish Divers
An affordable resort with friendly instructors and staff
Tel: +62 81 1 432 805
www.twofishdivers.com