Dive Review of
Gangga Divers/Gangga Resort in
Indonesia/North Sulawesi

Galapagos, Caymans, Cozumel, Solomons, Fiji, Burma, Palau

Dive Conditions

Dive by computer  

See below  

Overall Rating

Getting There--Compared to the three day ordeal we had to get from
Minneapolis, the 3 hour journey from Lembeh Resort to Gangga was a piece of
cake.  The last kilometer of the road to the Gangga jetty was a bit of an
adventure.  I would hate to see what that dirt trail looks like after a
rain!

The Resort--The atmosphere of the resort was entirely different from Lembeh
Resort where we had spent the first week of our Sulawesi adventure.  It is
much larger and spread out so it can be a pretty good walk to the bungalows
in the back of the resort.  The beach and views and beautiful.  The
bungalows were roomy and had AC and a TV in the room.  (The TV had HBO and
the Discover channel on every single channel except for one channel of CNN
Asia.)  It was very much like a resort you might find in the Caribbean but
with cheaper drinks.

The clientele is definitely European and primarily Italian because of the
GM who is from Italy.  We saw one other American couple during the week. 
Unlike Lembeh Resort which is purely for divers, this was much more of a
mixed activity group which included some families and a lot of couples
where only one member dived.  This is a good place to show off your summer
resort fashion, although half of the audience wore their t-shirts and
swimming suits to eat as well.  The food was always very good and the
choices were enough to please anyone.

We did not use the spa facilities but did look at them and they looked very
nice.  The massage beds were overlooking the soft turquoise waters of the
Sulawesi sea.  It looked like a great alternative for the non-divers at the
resort.

The Dive Operation--This is a big time dive operation with a fleet of 10+
boats, several of which were capable of pretty good distance to Lembeh and
Bunaken.  The resort location was ideal for anyone wanting a good taste of
North Sulawesi diving.   The boats were quite large and all had an onboard
head.  They could reach the sites in the area within 45 minutes to an hour
in nearly all cases. Everything seemed well run and organized.  Typically
dive boats left at 8 AM and came back at lunch after two dives.  The
afternoon dive was at 3, a mandarin fish dive at 5 and a night dive at 7. 


The dive guides were a bit uneven, but generally very good.  They assigned
one guide to myself and my son and he was always looking for good
photographic subjects.  He even had his own digital camera and took some
nice shots of us while diving which made a nice addition to the fish shots
that I took. We had a couple of challenging dive sites and they got us back
in the boat  in an efficient manner.  The resort did very well to serve the
needs of divers of a wide range of skill levels.  

The facilities for underwater photography were also first rate.  They
always had some tubs of water on the boat to place our cameras in after
every dive.  We had a bench in a dive photography room for all of our gear
and plenty of plugs in of all shapes and voltage.  My son was even able to
charge his Nintendo game which required 110 amps..

The Diving--the diving was very good, although the lack of any bigger fish
was disappointing.  The walls at Bunaken were beautiful and we saw some
large Napolean wrasse and a big turtle in the distance.  The coral
throughout the area was healthy and colorful.  The island of Bangka has
several very nice sites with beautiful topography and a couple of
spectacular pinnacles.  We did learn that while August is considered high
season, it is also a windy time and it does limit visits to some of the
better sites that are not wind protected. 

The resort has a great mandarinfish dive which I found to be the best I
have seen.  It has a nice place to steady yourself for photos and the night
we were there, the fish were definitely in the mood for love, even though
it was a full moon.  There are several nice dive sites at Pulisan on the
main island of Sulawesi which are well wind protected.  Unfortunately these
can be over visited if the wind persists.  On one dive, we saw several
varieties of rare nudis, a clown frogfish, and three kinds of ghost
pipefish.

The coral reefs were generally in very good shape and provided great vistas
for wide angle photography.  It doesn’t get much better than Bangka and
Bunaken.  There were plenty of macro subjects as well, just no fish bigger
than a large angel fish.

 

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