Dive Review of
Thalassa Dive Center/Hotel Santika in
Indonesia/North Sulawesi

Cayman Brac, Dominica, Cozumel, Roatan, Sea of Cortez, Hawaii, Australia
(GBR), Coral Sea, and PNG 

Dive Conditions

No gloves, 3 to 5 minute safety stop, responsible to
monitor own air remaining  

Great visability and lots of things to photograph.  

Overall Rating

I planned a trip for 12 of us to go diving in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. We
split our diving between 2 locations, Bunaken and Lembeh Strait. I had been
to the same two resorts in 2004 with a group of 4, so the main differences
this time were I made the trip a few days longer and there were more of us
in the group. This trip report is for the first of the 2 places we visited,
Bunaken National Park, which is north of the city of Manado.

I planned the Bunaken portion of our trip via e-mail with Simone, the
general manager of the Thalassa Dive Center. Simone was very good at
answering our questions via e-mail, and we booked a 6 night all-inclusive
package. She took care of everything, including arranging for our rooms at
the Santika Hotel, bus pickup at the Manado airport, etc.

Everything went pretty much as I had planned. The members of the group made
their own travel arrangements to get to Singapore as several of us were
using frequent flyer miles. We all met in the Singapore airport and were on
the same Silk Air flight to Manado. We cleared immigration and customs, and
were picked up by the Thalassa / Santika Hotel bus for the 45 minute ride
to the resort. We checked in to our rooms, got our SCUBA gear and headed to
the dive center for an orientation.

The Santika Hotel and the two restaurants were very good. The restaurants
had a mix of western and Asian dishes. Our only complaint was that the food
service was rather slow for the dinner meals. The massages available
through the hotel were great.

The 12 of us were assigned to our own boat, with the same boat captain and
dive guides for our 6 days of diving. The water was very smooth most boat
rides were 15-20 minutes to the dive sites. Our maximum depth at Bunaken
was 90 feet, though we spent most of our time between 45 and 60 feet. There
was a mix of walls and fields of coral. On all of our dives, there were
large schools of small and mid-sized fish everywhere. Lionfish, blue ribbon
eels, and the many varieties of anemone fish were among my favorites. Our
dive masters give good pre-dive briefings, which told us about the site and
what kinds of things we’d see. Rarely were they wrong. Usually, we saw far
more than promised. One day we did a 3-tank all-day trip to Bangka, which
was well worth the fuel surcharge. 

Would I go again? I’m already planning a trip back in 2007.
 

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