Diving at Lembah Strait in NE Sulawesi

Two final fives at Thalassa and I tumbled into the van that was to take us northeast to Bastiano's for muck diving. Seeing the harbor in the Lembah Strait had me skeptical of what the diving here would be like, especially when Sally said we'd be diving under some of the large wooden fishing vessels lined up. That said a chance of being electrocuted, until I realized the boats weren't plugged in. It was definitely a working harbor, something I wasn't prepared for. Manado was a wide open area with small fishing boats. Lembah was on a strait, which meant ebbing and flowing current and tides. Typically we dove 4 times a day in Lembah and more than once we had to change sites from what had been discussed because tide and current tables aren't monitored and they don't do drift dives here. Bol and Katrin were great spotters. We saw frog fish, leaf scorpionfish, gunnards, lizardfish, crocodile fish, a stargazer, a Spanish Dance, the queen of nudibranches in size which lays rose colored eggs in the appearance of a coiled ribbon, a rare blue-ringed octopus, the colorfully painted mandarin fish and shrimp and the unusual bobbit worm which are  snake eels normally seen with their head sticking straight up out of the sand a few inches.

When not in the water we relaxed and enjoyed the resort. Sally has been coming here for years so knows many of the staff. Tom, the manager, Jonathan and Rosa took good care of us, making sure on a daily basis everything was going well. We partook of the staff Christmas, celebrated on 16 December. First was a church service in the reformed restaurant for which boats had gathered guests from around the harbor. We heard Christmas music with Indonesian and English words. Dinner, which included fish, pork and dog (no I couldn't partake of that) was followed by dancing. Tom said the music would end at midnight, and it played up until the last second with the staff dancing their way back to bed. We knew the staff partied well the next day  but they still endured four dives.

Even after 26 dives here, I wasn't ready to leave. It was nice to have a dive boat to ourselves, and a sparse attendance at mealtime, but we were leaving before the throngs of holiday divers arrived.