Manado sits on the northern tip of Sulawesi within the Coral Triangle, the global centre of marine biodiversity. When I was a boy, the island of Sulawesi always caught my attention on the map due to its unusual shape - some sort of mix between a Chinese character and a microscope subject.
For Singapore's National Day and the end of Ramadan we took the easy three hour trip for a week of diving. The diving is mainly muck diving with very limited pelagics however between Lembeh, Bunaken, the mainland and Manado Tua the variation and number of interesting species is phenomenal.
We saw more turtles than in Sipadan and generally of incredible size, more species and numbers of lion fish than anywhere else we had been and not only did we see them above water, but had the rare luck to dive with dolphins, albeit briefly.
Even our incredible dive guides didn't know the names of dozens of species we came across however they included:
common seahorse, frogfish, blue spotted ray, leaf fish, lizard fish, flathead, fire goby, candy crab, cuttlefish, squid, common octopus, pipefish, banded pipefish, ghost pipefish, juvenile pipefish, cardinal fish, pajama cardinal fish, white tip shark, black tip shark, flying gunnard, moray, decorator crab, tigris cowry, barracuda, commensal shrimp, popcorn shrimp and then reef fish and nudibranch species beyond counting.
L-R (row by row): pygmy frog fish, soft coral crab, bobtail squid, orangutan crab, spider crab.
ambon scorpionfish, pink squat lobster, pygmy seahorse (pea-sized), mandarin fish, robust pipefish.
ribbon eel, boxer shrimp, peacock mantis, sexy shrimp, harlequin shrimp.
bubble coral shrimp, cleaner shrimp, porcelain crab, anemone shrimp, crinoid shrimp.
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