Sulawesi

Diving Indonesia’s Bunaken

Pygmy seahorse, Bunaken, Indonesia. Photo by Kate Clark
Pygmy seahorse, Bunaken, Indonesia. Photo by Kate Clark

We’re swimming fast. Too fast for my liking. I’m taking heaving gulps, and I know my tank won’t last very long if we don’t slow down soon. Just as I’m about to stop and risk losing my group, we hear a rapid series of bangs coming from our dive boat in the distance. Our guide, a lithe Indonesian with pistons for legs and bottomless iron lungs, points into the blue and somehow quickens his pace.

North Sulawesi: Buyat Bay & Lembeh Strait

Mandarinfish, Bianca, Lembeh Strait, Indonesia. Photo by Kate Clark
Mandarinfish, Bianca, Lembeh Strait, Indonesia. Photo by Kate Clark

There are very few places in the world that remain unknown to the dive community. Let’s face it, scuba enthusiasts are nothing if not resourceful when it comes to finding new and uncharted waters to dive in. But chances are excellent that when you read the title of this article you asked yourself, “Buyat Bay? Where the heck is that?”

Lembeh Strait: Critter Central

Giant frogfish nestled in sponge

The world’s full of triangles. There’s the Love Triangle, the Golden Triangle, the Bermuda Triangle… and then of course, most relevant of all to us divers, there’s the Macrolife Triangle, that blissful figure made up by the Malaysian islands of Lankayan and Kapalai and—at the northern tip of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi—the Strait of Lembeh.