Scuba Diving in Bunaken

Diving in Bunaken

Diving in Bunaken is about dramatic walls and turtles. The reefs here ring five small islands off the tip of North Sulawesi, and once you cross the shallow coral shelf the bottom just falls away. You drop down vertical walls stacked with barrel sponges, sea fans, and soft coral, staring into blue water that regularly holds 30 m (100 ft) of visibility. Bunaken has been protected as a national marine park since 1991, one of the oldest in Indonesia, and the health of the reef shows the moment you hit the water.

The water stays warm year-round, 26 to 30 °C (79 to 86 °F), so a 3 mm shorty is all most divers need. Currents are gentle on most of the main wall sites, which makes Bunaken one of the easiest places in Indonesia to rack up dives on healthy reef. A few sites on the fringes of the park, like Tanjung Kopi and Mandolin, pick up real current and pull in pelagic action, including whitetip reef sharks, eagle rays, dogtooth tuna, and the occasional dugong or mola mola. That's the Bunaken spread: relaxed drift-and-admire walls for most dives, a couple of advanced sites that hunt pelagics.

Logistics are simple. You fly into Sam Ratulangi International Airport in Manado, then it's a 45-minute to one-hour boat ride to your resort on Bunaken, Siladen, or one of the other islands inside the park. Most diving is done as day boats from your resort, with three dives a day standard at most operators. The dry season from April through October delivers the best visibility and calmest seas. You can dive year-round, but expect choppier surface conditions and more rain from November to March.

Top dive sites in Bunaken

The best dive sites in Bunaken cluster along the walls of Bunaken, Siladen, and Manado Tua islands. Here are the five to prioritise on your trip, ranked by how often divers come back talking about them.

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Lekuan I, II & III, Bunaken

Lekuan is the signature dive of Bunaken. The wall runs for several kilometres along the southern shore of Bunaken Island, and operators split it into three adjoining sites. You drop in on the shallow reef top, glide over the edge, and the wall plunges past 100 m (330 ft) into deep blue. You'll almost certainly see green turtles here, often more than ten on a single dive, many of them old enough to be the size of a dining table. Add schooling pyramid butterflyfish, reef sharks cruising the drop-off, hawksbills picking at sponges, and the occasional eagle ray out in the blue.

The three sub-sites have different personalities. Lekuan III starts with a gentle sandy slope before the wall takes over, which makes it one of the best first-ocean-dive sites in Indonesia and a common pick for Open Water training dives. Lekuan I and II are more exposed: the drop-off is immediate, the wall is vertical from 20 m down, and tidal currents can push hard along the face, which is why most operators want 20+ logged dives for these two. Lekuan II in particular is riddled with canyons and cracks that hide moray eels, sweetlips, and reef octopus.

Depth: 5–40 m (16–130 ft), wall continues past 100 m (330 ft) | Visibility: 20–35 m (65–115 ft) | Current: Gentle at Lekuan III; moderate to strong at Lekuan I and II | Level: Open Water at Lekuan III; Advanced recommended for Lekuan I and II Key species: Green turtle, hawksbill turtle, whitetip reef shark, pyramid butterflyfish, eagle ray

Tanjung Kopi, Bunaken

Tanjung Kopi, or "Coffee Point," sits on the flank of Manado Tua, the dormant volcano that towers over the park. This is Bunaken's pelagic site. A plateau runs from 5 to 30 m (16 to 100 ft), fringed by a wall that drops past 80 m (260 ft), and currents here can rip. Plan it as a drift: drop in upstream, fly over the plateau, and hold on for schooling jacks, dogtooth tuna, giant trevally, and Napoleon wrasse.

The site rewards divers who are comfortable with water movement. When the current is up, big schools of batfish hover in the down-current shadow of the point, eagle rays cruise past in formation, and whitetip sharks patrol the slope. When the tide's slack, the plateau turns quieter and you can work the corner for macro. Visibility varies with the current direction, so check with your guide before you giant-stride in.

Depth: 5–30 m (16–100 ft), wall past 80 m (260 ft) | Visibility: 20–30 m (65–100 ft) | Current: Moderate to strong | Level: Advanced Key species: Dogtooth tuna, giant trevally, Napoleon wrasse, schooling jacks, eagle ray, whitetip reef shark

Mandolin, Bunaken

Mandolin sits in the channel between Bunaken and Manado Tua, where the seafloor drops into deep water and currents push along a dramatic wall. You drop onto a shallow reef top at around 5 m, follow the edge to where it turns vertical, and ride the current along a face broken up with overhangs, whip coral forests, and big gorgonians. This is one of the sites that reminds you Bunaken isn't just about turtles.

Big-animal encounters are the reason to do this dive. The seagrass beds on the shallow reef top occasionally pull in dugongs, and mola mola have been spotted in the deep blue off the wall. Even on a standard day, expect Napoleon wrasse, turtles, whitetip reef sharks, unicornfish, and schooling trevallies. Currents can be strong enough that operators sometimes shift the site if conditions are wrong, so this one lives and dies by the briefing.

Depth: 5–40 m (16–130 ft), wall continues much deeper | Visibility: 15–30 m (50–100 ft) | Current: Moderate to strong | Level: Advanced Key species: Dugong (rare), mola mola (rare), Napoleon wrasse, green turtle, whitetip reef shark

Sachiko's Point, Bunaken

Sachiko's Point, on the northeast corner of Bunaken Island, combines classic wall diving with some of the best macro hunting in the park. The wall is layered with barrel sponges and sea fans, and the seagrass and rubble zones above the drop-off are where your guide will slow down. Ghost pipefish, pegasus sea moths, dragonets, frogfish, mimic octopus, and several seahorse species all live here.

What sets Sachiko's apart is the mix. You get big-fish presence on the wall (schooling batfish, occasional reef sharks, turtles grazing sponges) and then a critter hunt up on the shallow rubble between safety stops. The seagrass beds occasionally hold dugongs too, which makes it one of the few sites in the park where you might tick off a macro highlight and a megafauna encounter in the same dive.

Depth: 5–35 m (16–115 ft) | Visibility: 20–30 m (65–100 ft) | Current: Gentle to moderate | Level: All Levels Key species: Ghost pipefish, pegasus sea moth, mimic octopus, pygmy seahorse, frogfish

Bunaken Timur (East), Bunaken

Bunaken Timur runs along the east side of Bunaken Island and shows off the park's healthiest shallow reef. The reef top slopes gently to around 10 m before the wall drops to roughly 35 to 40 m, and the coral cover up top is so dense that snorkelers get almost as much out of the site as divers. Expect green turtles feeding on sponges, schooling fusiliers in the shallows, and reef fish in every direction.

Currents are usually mild on this side of the island, though tidal changes can drop visibility into the 15 to 25 m range for a dive or two. On a calm day, this is the easiest site in Bunaken to pair with a snorkel between dives, and it's a solid choice for an easy first or last dive of the trip. Keep an eye out for bumphead parrotfish working the reef top and the occasional school of eagle rays passing along the drop-off.

Depth: 5–40 m (16–130 ft) | Visibility: 20–35 m (65–115 ft), 15–25 m during tide changes | Current: Gentle | Level: All Levels Key species: Green turtle, bumphead parrotfish, fusiliers, reef octopus, eagle ray

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Best Time to Dive

The best time to dive Bunaken is from April to October, during the dry season. That's when you get flat water, sunny skies, and visibility routinely past 30 m (100 ft).

July through October is the sweet spot for big-animal sightings on the pelagic sites like Tanjung Kopi and Mandolin. You can still dive Bunaken from November to March, and water temperatures don't change much, but expect choppy surface conditions, more rain, and a dip in visibility at sites close to the mainland.

Diving Conditions

Diving conditions in Bunaken are some of the most forgiving in Indonesia. Warm water, great viz, mellow currents on most sites, and sunny skies for most of the dive season make this a great destination whether you're brand new to scuba or logging easy fun dives between macro trips in Lembeh.

Marine Life

Marine life in Bunaken is the headline reason divers come here. The park sits in the heart of the Coral Triangle, the most biodiverse patch of ocean on the planet. Bunaken National Marine Park spans 890 km² (89,065 hectares) of water and islands, including more than 8,000 hectares of coral reef alongside extensive seagrass beds and mangrove forests, and the park is home to more than 70% of all fish species in the Indo-Western Pacific. Green sea turtles are the signature encounter, but the wall life and pelagics pull their weight too.

• Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas): Year-round, especially around Lekuan and Bunaken Timur. Bunaken holds one of the largest resident populations of green sea turtles on the planet. You'll see them on almost every dive, and double-digit counts in a single dive are normal at Lekuan. Many are big animals, well over a metre across, grazing on sponges along the wall. The turtles nest on Bunaken, Siladen, and Manado Tua, and they've been protected inside the marine park since 1991.
• Dugong (Dugong dugon): Rare sightings year-round, especially around Mandolin and Sachiko's Point. Dugongs pass through the seagrass beds on the shallow reef tops at a handful of sites. Sightings are rare and special. These animals are shy and usually move off if they sense divers, so if your guide spots "sea cow paths" in the seagrass, you'll want to approach slowly.
• Mola mola (ocean sunfish): Rare sightings, especially around Fukui, Ron's Point, and the west-coast walls. Mola mola sightings at Bunaken are unpredictable but documented, most often along the deeper west-coast walls around Fukui and Ron's Point. They're not a seasonal guarantee the way they are in Nusa Penida, so any encounter is pure luck. Keep an eye on the deep blue.
• Whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus): Year-round, across most wall sites. Whitetip reef sharks are the most commonly seen shark in the park. You'll spot them resting under ledges during the day or cruising the drop-offs on current sites like Tanjung Kopi and Mandolin.
• Macro life: Year-round, especially around Sachiko's Point and Siladen. Sachiko's Point and the sites around Siladen Island hide some of the best macro in the park. Look for ghost pipefish, pegasus sea moths, mimic octopus, frogfish, pygmy seahorses, and a rainbow of chromodoris nudibranchs.

Bunaken has been protected as Bunaken National Marine Park since 1991, making it one of the first marine parks in Indonesia. The daily park fee goes toward conservation and enforcement, and the reef's health shows it.

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Practical Information

Dive Prices

• Fun dives: Around $60–$90 USD for a 2-tank boat dive at most resorts, gear included
• PADI Open Water Course: Around €400 ($430 USD) over 3–4 days
• Gear rental: About €18 ($20 USD) per day for a full set
• Park fee: IDR 150,000 (about $10 USD) for an annual waterproof tag valid through the calendar year, or IDR 50,000 for a single-day ticket. As of June 2025, tickets are purchased electronically via QR code.

Getting There

Fly into Sam Ratulangi International Airport (MDC) in Manado. From there, most divers transfer straight to a resort on Bunaken, Siladen, or another island inside the park. A public ferry runs daily (except Sundays) from Pelabuhan Kalimas Calaca in Manado (behind Hotel Celebes) at around 2 pm, costs IDR 50,000 one way (about $3 USD), and takes 45 minutes to an hour. Most mid-range and upscale resorts run private boat transfers for guests on a fixed schedule, which is the easiest way in and out.