diving manado, bunaken or sipidan - thanks :)

In the Manado area there are several distinct dive destinations, of which Bunaken is one. As new divers, you should probably avoid Lembeh in the Manado area since you need really excellent buoyancy control to dive there (it's silty and if you don't have great control, you stir up clouds of silt and can't see anything). Bunaken is a good choice, though. There are lots of shallow areas and pretty reefs. Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan works okay for newer divers too, though I think you'll get more time on pretty reefs at Bunaken.

I recently posted about Pom Pom Island, it's off Sabah and if you book far enough in advance they can arrange for Sipadam diving. The dive sites around the island were fantastic and I ended up doing my advanced open water course with them. We did night dives and a beautiful sunset dive.

The place we stayed at was the celebes beach resort. The island only has this resort (which calls itself a dive lodge) and a 5 star resort. No shops/bars etc, but a very good atmosphere (you can buy beer at the resort!) very relaxed and friendly. We found ourselves tripping over turtles and having lots of happy memories.
I think they're updating their website right now; it's www.celebescuba.com
we just ate, dived & rested and dived some more. It was an all inclusive deal so all we needed to worry about was getting our flight to Tawau where we got picked up, taken to the island, fed & watered.

hi,

Thanks for all the info, I came across pom pom island whilst having a hunt around today before I had seen your post!! It looks lovely. However I cant access the website at the moment, so wondered if you could let me know what the sort of price was and also what accomodation was like? Also very excited at prospect of 'tripping over turtles' as you put it.

thanks :)

Thanks :)

I have now emailed to ask a couple of questions and get rates, what you said does seem cheap even per person - fingers crossed!

Sorry to keep asking questions but I would also like to know what sort of size the diving groups are? As havn't really dived very much yet so feel that this is important.

thanks again.

If you want to dive in Sipadan - the best diving destination in the ones that you have mentioned - have you considered MV Celebes Explorer liveaboard? We have places booked on in in September 2012, which is a great time to dive there. It is convenient and takes you to all the best local dive sites around Sipadan & Mabul.

And if you are flying in from Kuala Lumpur, take the direct flight to Tawau, which is closer than the usual route through Kota Kinabalu. That's what we are doing.

@mandibee--I'm aware that ScubaJunkies ask divers to request Sipadan permits ahead of time, but this isn't typical of other dive resorts at Sipadan. Pretty much every other place automatically books Sipadan permits for their customers.