Best Diving in Sulawesi | 10 Top Dive Sites

Bunaken National Park is a marine park encompassing five islands on the northern tip of Sulawesi. Bunaken itself, Manado Tua, Mantahage, Nain, and Siladen all offer spectacular diving, and it’s hard to select favorites.

That said, Mandolin Reef, on the southwestern corner of Bunaken Island, ticks the boxes of divers looking for smaller creatures as well as those who’d rather stare into the blue, hoping to see larger pelagic species. The wall drops to around 130 feet (40 m), where you find terraces sticking out of the main wall, before it drops to more than 1,000 feet (300 m).

If you love encounters with larger pelagic species, look into the blue and below for a chance to spot blacktip and whitetip reef sharks. You may also spot eagle rays flying by. Closer to the wall, look out for bumphead parrotfish and Napoleon wrasse.

Divers who enjoy looking for the smaller stuff can slow down and examine the whip corals in this area. Together with the soft corals on the wall, they play host to coral gobies, porcelain crabs, candy crabs, and plenty of other small species.

Highlights:

• Stunning wall dive
• Excellent for both large and small marine creatures

Type: Wall dive

Skill level: All levels

Access: Boat

Located in the northern part of the marine park, Mantehage is dived less often than Bunaken, Siladen, or Manado Tua. It’s a longer boat ride from the resorts on Bunaken and Siladen and therefore often offered as a day trip, with several dives around this island.

Schooling barracudas and other predatory species are the main attraction of Mantehage. Tunas and giant trevallies also come here to hunt, offering divers a great chance for memorable encounters. Because of its remoteness, Mantehage experiences less boat traffic than other parts of the park and the reef is in more pristine condition. Make sure to spend some time taking in coral and sponges here.

Highlights:

• Excellent chance of seeing schooling barracudas
• Pristine reefs away from the crowds in other parts of the marine park

Type: Wall

Skill level: All levels

Access: Boat

The name of this dive site is a major giveaway—expect to see plenty of different species of nudibranch here—but that’s not all. Unusually for Lembeh Strait, there are corals here too and, rather than a sandy slope, divers find a wall starting just below the surface and dropping to 70 feet (20 m). Some coral patches stretch as deep as 90 feet (nearly 30 m).

This site is usually only dived at low tide when there is little to no current. At high tide, the current can make it too difficult to dive Nudi Falls at all.

This is a great place to get up close to different species of Costasiella kuroshimae, also known as the Shaun the Sheep nudibranch, and plenty of other species rarely seen elsewhere. Some divers and underwater photographers even arrive with a list of creatures for their dive guides to find.

Apart from nudibranchs, this dive site is great for blue-ringed octopus, mototi octopus, and flamboyant cuttlefish.

Highlights:

• One of the few sites in Lembeh Strait featuring coral patches
• Look out for octopus and cuttlefish when not hunting for nudibranchs

Type: Reef/muck

Skill level: Intermediate

Access: Boat

Apollo is both rewarding and one of the more challenging dive sites in the Togean islands. The reef here starts at 70 feet (22 m) and continues to just past 100 feet (35 m). Divers must be qualified to dive to these depths and experienced enough to watch their bottom time and no-decompression limits carefully without becoming distracted by the stunning beauty around them.

Those who qualify are rewarded with exceptional visibility, often exceeding 100 feet (30 m). There is a chance of encountering currents, too, but reputable operators will ensure their guests are well-briefed and ready to react appropriately.

Imagine thousands of blackfin barracuda schooling around you, only interrupted by dogtooth tuna, reef sharks, and Spanish mackerel. On the seabed, divers often come face-to-face with an ancient green turtle that makes solid eye contact.

Diving Apollo is an unforgettable experience, not least because of the stunning reef creating a true aquarium-like experience. This is as close as you can get to a perfect reef dive.

Highlights:

• Deep reef wall teeming with reef fish and pelagic species
• Surround yourself with thousands of blacktip barracuda

Type: Patch reef and pinnacle

Skill level: Intermediate to advanced

Access: Boat

Roma is another spectacular pinnacle in Wakatobi National Park. Like Cornucopia, this rocky structure standing up from the seafloor attracts megafauna and pelagic creatures like a magnet. At the same time, the dense coral cover is home to smaller species that can be hard to spot at first.

If you’re diving Roma, don’t spend time only on the main pinnacle—reserve some gas for the two smaller bommies nearby. The site is best dived by descending to your maximum depth and then slowly circling the structures as you ascend, making time to look into crevasses and small recesses.

You could spend the entire dive just marveling at the schools of redtoothed triggerfish and fusiliers swirling around you. Banded sea snakes live here, too, circling the structure and mingling with the schooling fish.

The pinnacle and the two nearby bommies are covered in anemones and soft corals. Look more closely between them for a chance to spot leaf scorpionfish. You can find them in yellow, black, white, and even green at this site.

Highlights:

• Banded sea snakes and schooling fish galore
• Great for macro photographers

Type: Pinnacle

Skill level: All levels

Access: Boat

Sulawesi, one of the biggest islands in the Indonesian archipelago, offers some of the world’s most diverse diving. Thanks to its location at the very center of the Coral Triangle, the main island and the neighboring smaller islands attract unmatched numbers of megafauna, pelagic species, and some of the rarest small marine creatures.

Diving in every area of Sulawesi would take months, but there is no wrong place to start. The easiest way to choose is perhaps by deciding whether you prefer muck diving or coral reefs and deep walls teeming with life. In some cases, it’s easy to combine both in one trip, for example by visiting both Bunaken and Lembeh in North Sulawesi.

The area is well-connected by flights to and from the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, and at the time of writing both Manado and Makassar airport had some international flights.

Diving in Sulawesi is possible year-round. During the rainy season, from December to February, dive site choice may be a bit more limited than at other times of the year. Still, the water temperature remains in the high 70s to mid 80s F (26 to 29 C) throughout the year.

Most resorts and liveaboard operators are happy to help with travel arrangements and direct transfers. They can often help plan land-based itineraries, too, to round out your Sulawesi adventure.