Bunaken and the end of cocktail diving

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A few blogs ago I explained that Paul and I are self declared cocktail divers. This means we like to do very relaxed diving in warm, clear water with no currents. So far in Indonesia all our diving could be described as cocktail diving. But all that changed on Bunaken Island.

Getting to Bunaken from the Togean Islands involved another two days of travel. You'll probably not be surprised to hear that it got off to a shaky start! Our boat trip back to Ampana was far from pleasant. We had the pleasure of sitting on the baking hot boat for an hour before it set off. We're not sure why it was delayed so much but by the time we left it was totally overloaded - with at least double the number of passengers (and their luggage) it was designed to carry. This is pretty common in SE Asia but up until now we'd had very safe boat journeys. As the boat pulled out of the harbour you could feel it struggling with the additional weight.

We set off in sunshine but after about 20 minutes we hit a storm that was so severe the driver stopped the boat. The rain was torrential and you could see nothing. It didn't help that there was a manual windscreen wiper (who knew that was even a thing!). The other westerners at the front of the boat were taking pictures but I was a bit too scared to do the same.

After a tense 15 minutes we slowly made our way out of the storm back into sunshine. Of course when we got back to shore and offloaded our bags they were soaked through, despite our rain covers. The water had managed to get underneath and soak them through from the back. Not great given we had another day and a half before we could unpack and air everything.

The rest of the journey went pretty smoothly after that. Even the dreaded car journey back to Luwuk was fine, so much so that we could both take in some of the beautiful scenery on the coastal drive.

After a night in Luwuk we flew to Manado and spent an afternoon buying supplies from the local supermarkets and on a rather fruitless hunt for vodka (yep - yet another vodka crisis!), that took us into some seriously dodgy shops. Manado was a complete shock to the system after the calm of the Togeans. Even from the tenth floor of our hotel you could hear the constant honking of horns.

Bright and early the next day we left the hotel for the harbour and the short boat journey to Bunaken Island. The beaches on Bunaken are unfortunately covered in litter that washes up from the mainland so we opted for a place away from the beach and Coral View dive resort seemed ideal; a collection of four bungalows, perched up on the hill with a beautiful infinity pool and deck that over looks the ocean.

By 10am we had checked into our bungalow and were sat down with Roberto, the Italian owner, for an overview of the resort and how the diving worked. The best news was that he could source me some vodka and although it was at a very inflated price it was still better than having to drink beer for a week.

The food at Coral View was amazing, especially after a week of eating rice and fish on the Togeans - the benefit of staying at an Italian run place. We had pancakes for breakfast, lots of grilled fish, pasta and even pizza. Meal times centred around diving. Breakfast was served at (gulp) 7am so we could be ready for the dive boat to pick us up at 8am. Gone were the lazy days of afternoon diving! After two dives we would return ready for lunch at midday. Our afternoons were spent lazing by the pool, and when the afternoon rain came in (which it did pretty much every afternoon) we would go back to the room for a nap, waking in time for an hour by the pool and then sun downer drinks.

Coral View was even more low key in the evenings than Kadidiri. For the first three nights there were five guests in total; us, a German couple who were hard core snorkellers and an American guy who was a hard core diver. Luckily we all got on really well and on the German couples last night we had a 'Bintang Festival' to celebrate Paul's 100th dive, Tim, Paul and I surviving the dive of death (all will be explained later) and their last night. This was simply an excuse to start drinking Bintang at 4pm! Even I joined in, drinking the lemon Bintang beer called Radler which is really nice and seems more appropriate than vodka for afternoon drinking!

After the Germans left it was just the three of us, which meant most afternoons we had the pool to ourselves as Tim was even more of a shade monkey than us and preferred to sit under the full cover of the restaurant roof than the flimsy parasols.

The diving we did on Bunaken was very mixed. Half of it was really good, with large schools of fish, so many turtles you genuinely started to ignore them and the most spectacular coral we have seen in Indonesia. The other half was spoilt by the awful currents we had. On the worst day we did two dives and hardly saw anything as the currents were so strong. We spent much of our time trying to retain a small amount of control, which took so much effort it really wasn't enjoyable. As well as the 'standard' currents that push you along the reef, we experienced strong down currents, which can push you down deeper than it's safe to dive and also strong up currents that push you to the surface like a cork. This definitely wasn't cocktail diving. In fact we nicknamed one of the dives where the down currents were strongest the 'dive of death'. Even Tim, who has way more experience of diving in currents that we do, said it was pretty challenging.

Based on what we read and what we were told these currents are very unusual for Bunaken, so we simply got unlucky. And whilst it was good from an experience point of view it reinforced our dislike for strong currents.

Thankfully our last day of diving was fantastic. There were still some currents, especially on the first dive, but after the 'dive of death' it was a doddle! It was nice to end on a high as it's going to be a while before we get the chance to dive again.

The waters surrounding Bunaken had one last surprise in store for us and that was the rather choppy boat ride back to the mainland. It lasted only 20 minutes but was pretty rough and I think we were all relieved to step foot back on dry land.

We were sad to leave Bunaken as it not only signals the end of our beach time, but also the end of our time in Indonesia. We have really loved Indonesia and as is always the way with trips like this the list of places to visit has increased rather than decreased. We will definitely be back, hopefully in the not to distant future.

**Please scroll down for more pictures**

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