Indonesia is a dive hot spot that unfortunately provides few choices.... While Bali's culture is fantastic (especially if you get away from the coast), the diving's not as spectacular as in other parts of Indonesia.... On Bali's east coast the Libertywreck at Tulamben is a favorite among fish specialists, who claim to find a new species on every visit. On the north end there's a good chance of diving with mola molas.... While they're certainly harder to get to than Bali, I think the Banda Islands have some of the best coral and fish life in the world.... Although it offers few big fish, Wakatobi, a operation in remote southern Sulawesi, offers fantastic color, amazing biodiversity, and one of the best beach dives in the world.... If bizarre and rare creatures are a lure, Ambon has a dive that surpasses even PNG's famous muck dives, as does Kungkungan Bay in northern Sulawesi.... If you're into big turtles (and lots of them), Borneo Diver's operation on Sangalaki, which once got excellent reviews, finally reopened last year, and nearby Derawan Resort dives these waters as well ....The island of Flores had great diving until it was hit by a typhoon and tidal wave that destroyed its reefs.... Although it's seldom been reached by live-aboards, the diving around Komodo, the home of the dragons, is excellent. Sea Contactsstarted trips there this year.... Choices for live-aboards in Indonesia have been slim; the Pinditocovers a lot of the same territory as the Cehilidid, but it's mainly booked by Europeans and offers only two dives a day.... Northern Sulawesi has few choices for land-based resorts, and the live-aboard Serenadeleaves from the Murex Resort near Manado.... Look for more new live-aboards and new resorts to pop up in virgin territory if the country's political situation doesn't get further out of hand.... While domestic flights have suffered cutbacks, there are some real bargains on international fares....Although the volatile political scene has put a cloud over diving Indonesia, so far it's had little effect on Bali, Manado, Wakatobi, and Sangalaki. Check with the State Department before travel, and inquire about specific destinations rather than asking about the country as a whole. Before you leave, get a copy of Kal Muller's Underwater Indonesia....

For full reviews of the following Indonesian destinations and live-aboards, see:

Sea Contacts I- Komodo and Rinca Islands, Indonesia, Undercurrent - September 1999

Wakatobi Sulawesi, Undercurrent - October 1997

Pindito,In Depth - May 1997

Gilis Islands Lombok, In Depth - March 1997

Kungkungan Bay Sulawesi, In Depth - June 1996

Derawan Resort, In Depth - June 1996

Serenade,In Depth - April 1995

Inter-Dive, July 1997, Michael Fredericks, Washington, DC. Good: Pleasant, easy, no-hassle dive. Satisfactory fish and corals, nothing exceptional. Vis: 20-30 ft. Diving restrictions: depth limits, safety stop, stay with dive guide. Small outrigger canoes required going overboard before getting into the BCD. Language a problem; I was the only nonJapanese speaker; English spoken by only a couple of people in the group. Bad: a 1.5 hour drive was required to reach the dive site at Padang Bai. All in all, as a novice, it was a good experience.

Borneo Divers, Mamutik Island Rest House, March 1998, Barry Lipman, Brookfield, CT. First class operation. Because they enforce the buddy system, I hired a divemaster to be my buddy for five dives/day. We started with a predawn dive and finished with a night dive every day. 27 dives, only 4 less than an hour, rest were 70, 80, or 90 minutes. Good macro on Manutik and the neighboring islands. Coral lacked color, not such great vis, severely limiting one's wide angle shooting. Vis: 40-60 feet, water: 78-84 degrees. Jimmy Fabian (DM) was a wonderful guide, never tiring of finding new critters. Bara, the captain was also extremely helpful. (Ph: 011-60-88-222-226, Fax: 011-60-88-221-550, e-mail: bdivers@po.jaring.my, Website: www.jaring.my/bdivers)

Kalimantan (Borneo)

Derawan Resort, August 1997, Lowell Greenberg. Water 80, vis 30-40 feet. Dove from Bancas that had no facilities for cameras. Significant dynamiting of reef in some areas. Owners of resort and their family enjoyed wonderful meals at their own tables at dinner in the same area where the guests sat and ate poor food. Bad PR decision. Diving close to Derawan is poor but outer islands (requiring one hour ride on choppy seas) good. Diving in Sangalakhi (once we got there) was quite good. Good pictures of cuttlefish and swam with mantas. No chance to sightsee while at the Derawan resort except at small local village. Jellyfish Lake near Sangalakhi. (Ph: 011-62-551-23275, Fax 011-62-551-20293,

e-mail: derawan@bpp.mega.net.id, Website: www.derawan.co.id)

Sulawesi (Northern)

Kungkungan Bay Resort, 1998, Herman Gross, Great Neck, NY. Macro Heaven and the chief angel is called Larry Smith. If you want to discover rare critters, there is no place like it: nudibranchs of every description (most busy mating), frogfish of every color and size, seahorses (including a dwarf, a quarter inch in size), cockatoo waspfish, dwarf lionfish, zebra crabs, filament devilfish, fingered dragonets, hinge back shrimp, black coral shrimp, blotched hawkfish, mantis shrimp, you name it. If you are like me and can't find any of the great subjects everyone chatters about after a dive, Larry swims alongside and points out the critters in the sand that no one else would ever spot. He has trained others to do the same. They carried a second camera for me and I found myself shooting two rolls of macro on my two RS cameras fitted with 50mm macro lenses on every dive (except when my dive sherpa carried a digital video as my second camera). Dives average 80 minutes and you can barely find time to reload and getback in the water. . . . News about Indonesia scared most people away and the place was almost empty. KBR is far from the Jakarta; you fly to and from Sulawesi from Singapore. The place is gorgeous and the help works very hard at being friendly and helpful. I have taken forty overseas dive trips and this rates near the top; no sharks, no pelagics, no barracuda schools. Just little bottom dwellers that you will never see anywhere else. (PO Box 16, Bitung, North Sulawesi, Indonesia 95500, Ph: 510-825-1921, Fax: 510-825-0105)

Kungkungan Bay Resort, September 1998, Charles R. Stearns, Stone Mtn., GA. Martin and Laurie Sutton of Fisheye World Tours put together outstanding trips. Met at breakfast at Ritz Carlton in Singapore; next day on to Manado on the northern tip of Sulawesi. At the Santika hotel the rooms are spacious and air conditioned. Food and service personal. Thalassa dive center set up gear the way you like it. After diving, it is removed from the boat, washed and prepared for next day. Simone runs an outstanding dive service. Groups for photographers and nonphotographers. Sixty minute dives. Guides do not interfere but point out unique marine life. . . . Went to Kungkungan Bay Resort by boat with two dives along the way. Muck diving at Kungkungon Bay is what diving is all about! Pygmy sea horses on several dives, robust ghost. pipe fish, harlequin ghost pipe fish, cockatoo wasp fish, leaf fish, frog fish in a rainbow of colors (four on one dive alone), scorpion fish of every color, devil scorpion fish that walk on modified pectoral fins; one guest tried to move one to get a better photo and got two very painful puncture wounds to her finger. Owner of the resort quickly had some water heated for her to immerse her hand. Spacious accommodations: comfortable with a bedroom, bath room with tub and shower, ocean view sitting room, ceiling tans were adequate. Excellent food. Divers were divided into small groups of photographers and nonphotographers. The dive guides especially Wilson were outstanding in their unobtrusive assistance at finding the well-hidden critters. Vis: 50-100 ft. Water: 84 degrees. Dive restrictions enforced were 130 ft, 60 minute total.

Paradise Resort, October 1997, Roger Chari, New York, NY. Getting there isn't easy, but the diving is hard to beat. Frog fish, crocodile fish, pigmy cuttlefish, three species of lionfish, nudibranchs galore and that's just off the dock. Resort an hour ride through the jungle from the Manado airport; nice, clean rooms, air conditioning, beautiful lobby and pool. Food was very good; Indonesian choices excellent. Staff Indonesian; communication was difficult, but they were friendly and tried hard. . . . Dive operation on resort time. Two boat dives a day, reluctantly allowing shore diving off the dock. Our group prearranged boat trip to Bunaken and Lembeth Straits Kuakungen Bay. Bunaken two hours away and spectacular. A freighter sunk in the 1940's, top at 50 ft bottom at 110 ft, big open holes, totally covered in coral, nudibranchs, ghost pipefish, etc. The second dive, old lava tubes, totally covered by untouched plate coral. . . . Air compressor filter ruined my regulator 1st stage.

Sulawesi (Southern)

Wakatobi/Kungkungan Bay, Murex, 1998, Jon Bertsch and Rosemary Chengson, Oakland, CA. Overall the coral and fish life was excellent but few sharks and turtles. We saw turtle meat for sale in the markets. Wakatobi was all your report promised and then some. Excellent corals and fantastic colors, masses of fish life, lots of nudibranchs, tunicates. Outstanding diving and a wonderful resort. Condition of the reefs was superb; dived as much as we wanted too, day and night with extra boat dives up the canyon. Managers were extremely enthusiastic. Resort is well situated. The food was basic but good: mostly rice, fish, chicken and fruit. Rinse tanks for cameras need to be expanded. Getting there is worth every minute of the journey. Extremely strong currents on some dives but nothing that we couldn't deal with. As you mentioned, people who are not comfortable with strong currents should not go here, as it endangers the rest of us. One member of our group, a dive instructor, ignored an order to return to the boat due to an emergency-his excuse: "I didn't feel like swimming against the current because it was too strong." The boat's hydraulic system was damaged after the current pushed it onto the top of the reef. We had to pick him up with one person holding the engines, another controlling the throttle and a third guiding us, while we were being forced onto the reef. This diver also lay on, stood on and grabbed coral to take photographs even after orders not to (perhaps you need to do a "why divers die" pt. 10-because no one will save their sorry asses). . . . KBR has a wonderful setting and fantastic critter diving but they don't make it easy to dive a lot here; we felt like outsiders because we wanted more than the 2-3 boat dives each day. Resort area and rooms are extremely nice. Staff is very helpful, always cheerful, and their English-language skills made it easy to communicate. Meals were very good. Checked-in at l pm and were not allowed to dive until the following day. Since we had just signed a piece of paper, which said we had a "three-night, four-day diving package" this was surprising. Policy was no diving on the first and last days of a visit, which effectively meant that our visit became a three-night, two-day dive package. Greg Gapp and Larry Smith arranged a night-dive that evening. The "no diving on the final day of a package" policy is not mentioned in any brochure and we were driving across the peninsula to Manado. Variety of rare and hard to find creatures was great and guides were good at finding them, but some happened to be sitting on cigarette boxes and other garbage. Plastic bottles, bags and packages litter the area, greatly reducing the attraction of "one of the best House reefs in the World." The kitchen staff discards their organic waste off the beach and pier where guests dive. Diving in a soup of corn cobs, vegetable leaves, and decaying fish parts is not fun. Cold beer was $4, five times the price we paid elsewhere. . . . Guides manhandle any critter they find: frogfish, seahorses, nudibranchs were moved and prodded to make "better" photos-both by guides and guests. Scorpionfish and stonefish were moved for the divers so they could hang onto the reef for photographs. When crinoid shrimp was removed from its host and placed on the sand, I had to grab the dive guide and make him put it back onto a crinoid after he started to swim away. . . . Murex is a family style dive operation. Food is simple Indonesian, there's plenty of it and the people are friendly. Got in the water within one hour of arriving. Great dives at Bunaken; they make a big effort to ensure that all divers have an enjoyable visit. Boat rides to the island are 40 min; drawback: too long a break between dives. The house reef is good, muck diving as at KBR, with a lot to see and just about all the same things that we found at KBR. It's not the luxurious five-star, program diving that some might like but for us it was a wonderful place. (Ph: 011-65-235-5060/737-0001, Web Site: www.wakatobi.com)

Wakatobi, June 1998, Bob & Brooke Dougherty, Wilkes-Barre, PA. After reviewing my October 1997 Undercurrent, I knew Indonesia was in my future. While it took several days and several maps to find the exact location of Wakatobi it was worth the effort. Read the issue, get your head and heart straight then board the flights. It is a long trip but it is worth every second of travel. John Q's article is the definitive description of what you will find. Food, very good. Accommodations very nice. Diving unbelievable. Take the best you have seen and multiply it by 10. I would trade every dive (300+) in the Caribbean for a single day on Wakatobi House Reef. Thanks for finding and reporting on Wakatobi. Vis: 75-100 ft. Water: 78-83 degrees. Dive restrictions enforced: 130 ft. requested.

Wakatobi Divers, September 1998, M. Ginsburg, Tampa, FL. Most beautiful coral I've ever seen, but in comparison, fishlife was unremarkable. Pelagics were rare, you might see a small shark or two, I sighted a squad of eagle rays twice. Sea snakes and lionfish abound. Enjoy mantis shrimp, leaffish, nudibranchs, banded pipefish and juvenile cuttlefish, especially at night. Currents can be strong and changeable. Some divers wrecked table corals or went hand over hand on live coral trying to cope. The house reef is great and the seamounts are awesome. The resort is simple but comfortable, avoid rooms near the compressor-fumes all day. Watch the concrete floor and stairs, don't slip. Food is repetitive, mostly fried and rather chintzy. While guests snacked on cheap tinned cookies, the owner snuck into the kitchen for a hearty cheese sandwich. I got cold with only a minimal breakfast at 7:30, to fuel 3+ hrs. of diving before lunch at 2 or later. Photographers, bring your own rinse bucket. Onshore facilities are designed for a camera or 2 and are nonexistent on the boats. Our group had more than a dozen cameras and had to rinse them with sandy wetsuits, hardly an optimal situation. rechargers may not function at their best on the power available. Be advised that this is the only dive resort in the area and as such, is billed as remote, though 13,000 people live on the island right next door, but in primitive conditions. Bring candy and gum to share with the villagers, they're truly grateful and can really use your teeshirts, hats, shorts, children's books. Went with Ken Knesnick of Island Dreams and he really facilitated the trip and made a good travel companion.