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Home › Diving Destinations › Asia › Indonesia › North Sulawesi

Best Dive Spots in North Sulawesi

The list of dive sites in North Sulawesi is impressive and plentiful. In fact, there are at least one hundred awesome diving destinations to explore in this part of the Celebes Sea.

This section contains information about the most visited spots for scuba diving and snorkeling, such as the Lembeh Strait, Bunaken National Marine Park, and the sundrenched islands near Manado.

What are the Best Months to Dive Sulawesi

Without a doubt, this hot-spot contains some of the best scuba diving in the world if you enjoy:

• Amazing muck diving in the black lava sand of Indonesia.
• Scarce sea life creatures unique to the Greater Sunda Islands.
• Underwater ecosystems created by reef-building corals.

Plus, you may also see dolphins and pilot whales breaking the surface around the islands of Bunaken and Bangka.

So, when is the optimum time to go scuba diving in North Sulawesi?

It's fair to say that this remote diving destination is very popular with fanatics of underwater photography. As a result, the best time to scuba dive is the dry season, which runs from July through to the end of October.

Being so close to the equator means North Sulawesi only has two seasons. Hence, even though you can dive all year round, the weather conditions tend to worsen during the typical rainy season from December to the end of February.

Pro Tip: Sulawesi is a mountainous region that has eleven active volcanoes. It is one of the four Greater Sunda Islands of Indonesia (around 733 kilometres east of Borneo) and the eleventh largest island in the world.

List of Dive Sites in North Sulawesi

Far and wide, few places offer crystal clear water for scuba diving and snorkeling. But, that is exactly what divers and snorkelers experience when they visit these illustrious locations.

• Bunaken Dive Sites
• Lembeh Dive Sites
• Manado Dive Sites

Marine Animals in North Sulawesi

As most scuba divers know, the importance of coral polyps in reef ecosystems should not be underrated. To prove a point, over three thousand fish species get food and shelter from the corals and artificial reef structures found in this area.

In essence, you could also say that the Coral Triangle is a superhighway for several large migratory species. Typical examples include the Ocean sunfish (Mola Mola), tuna, and gigantic Cetacea (whale species).

By and large, the northern part of the Sulawesi peninsula is the heart of where it all happens. Apart from the usual hard and soft corals and colourful reef fishes, some of the lesser known species you can see, include:

• Ambon scorpionfish (Pteroidichthys amboinensis)
• Flamboyant cuttlefish
• Hairy frogfish (Antennarius striatus)
• Hymenocera picta (the harlequin shrimp)
• Lembeh Pygmy Sea Dragon (Kyonemichthys rumengani)
• Pacific green turtle (Chelonia mydas)
• Soft-bodied marine gastropod molluscs (Nudibranchia)
• Spanish dancer (Hexabranchus sanguineus)
• Stargazer fish (Uranoscopidae)
• Wonderpus octopus (Wunderpus photogenicus)
• Weedy scorpionfish (Rhinopias frondosa)

Pro Tip: A cursory search of the Internet for dive sites in Indonesia will bombard you with diving and snorkeling superlatives. Nonetheless, Indonesia encompasses the world's largest archipelago of more than 17,500 islands - and over 7,000 of them remain uninhabited.

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