Psychedelic fish and most unusual meats

Bunaken island & Tomohon,
Sulawesi
18th December

Landslides in central Sulawesi meant that our planned route across the lovely Togean islands was blocked – collapsed roads would have meant a two-day bus detour. So we headed back to depressing Makassar and got a Merpati flight to Manado on the north-eastern tip of Sulawesi, launching pad for the dive mecca of Bunaken island.

Manado itself is nothing to write home about, so I won't. Bunaken, though, was another chilled-out paradise island. It is odd in having a village with no less than three churches of different Christian cliques and one mosque. Religion gone mad. Er, it was already, wasn't it...













Anyway, we stayed in a simple bamboo bungalow resort with nice hosts and food included. Lorenso, the owner, is a bit of a character and has created a band out of his staff who could lay down a wicked groove on homemade instruments – bass, drums, and ukelele. Sadly the camera's mic didn't capture the huge bass sound, but the following video gives you some idea of how good they are.



The Bunaken beach is unusual in that it is mostly fronted by a wall of mangroves. These trees send up sharp pointed shoots through the sand, which makes accessing the water for swimming rather tricky. There are gaps, though, and some people had a brilliant time snorkelling there, seeing manatee (which sadly we didn't), eagle rays, turtles, shark and great coral. Conditions were a bit weird when we went out to snorkel – timing the tide was important, it seems – and strong currents made swimming tricky and ruined the visibility.















We did, though, have a great time diving. Maja and I were dive buddies for the first time as the boys either played happily with the resort staff or came out on the boat with us. It was also my first proper dive after taking my PADI course in Malaysia. I was a bit nervous beforehand, but I had the best time, even taking a night dive and clinging to the bottom in with amazingly strong currents to see mandarin fish with their psychedelic colouration.

These lovely dragonettes mostly stay hidden down in the coral rubble, but at twilight pop up a few inches to mate before hiding away again. Maja got this great pic of the orgasmic moment, though - despite the huge current and a bottom littered with venomous scorpion fish; one of which swam under my armpit as we lay in wait.














When we came up the boys were shining torches on us and calling out to us happily. They'd had a great time following our lights underwater.

Bunaken dives are mostly wall dives, that is you descend down the vertical reef edge to an agreed depth, then drift along spotting the many reef fish and other fauna. Lion fish, scorpion fish, crocodile fish (all very poisonous), as well as nudibranchs (sea slugs), turtles, and some bigger oceanic fish such as eagle rays and barracuda are a small selection of what we saw.

While in the area, we also headed up to the town of Tomohon; a place that is somewhat foolishly, to the health & safety-obsessed Western eye anyway, sited on top of a cluster of active volcanoes. The town has had to be evacuated in recent years when things hotted up, and there is always the threat of a big eruption. For the most part, though, it seems a relaxed, cool (in terms of temperature not fashion) area to live – the ideal climate making it a popular place to grow farm produce and potted plants.

Apart from climbing the nearby volcanoes (which we didn't do, having small kids), the area has hot, smelly sulphurous vents and a turquoise volcanic lake to visit.

It also has a vibrant market that sells such local delicacies as fruit bat, dog and rat – all charred to remove the fur. Yum. Maja nearly went veggie (seriously) after taking too many pictures in the meat section. Another local delicacy, according to our hotel menu is goldfish, which we didn't really fancy trying, either.



















We had a scare with Ariel here, as he got bumped into the shallow pond in our hotel garden by other kids playing a bit too enthusiastically, Luckily, the resourceful boys held his arms until we got there to keep him safe at the edge, so he just got wet trousers.

By now Christmas was fast approaching and for a special treat we booked ourselves into the Kri eco resort in Raja Ampat, Papua – one of the best dive spots in the world. But first we had to get there...