INDONESIA

Siladen Island is known as a quiet tourism island; the perfect hideaway for those who want to get away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. On this island, there is a catamaran (glass bottom), diving center, cottages, and food stalls to complete your holiday.

Photography Byron Conroy

In the heart of the Coral Triangle lies the Bunaken National Marine Park. Well known for its clear turquoise water, warm tropical climate, pristine coral reefs and vast marine biodiversity, this place is nothing short of a diver’s paradise. My partner Byron Conroy and I have wanted to experience diving in this marine park for a long time, and we are certainly not the only ones to have this destination on our bucket list.

We arrived at Manado airport in North Sulawesi after quite a few hours traveling from Iceland, where we are based. Our friendly local driver Michael from Siladen Resort and Spa greeted us with a smile. During the short drive to the jetty, we found out that Michael had been with the resort for five years, and many of his colleagues for well over ten years, thanks to the great working environment.

Next we boarded one of Siladen’s comfortable, spacious wooden boats. Just 30 minutes later we arrived at Palau Siladen, the smallest of the five islands situated within the Bunaken National Marine Park. This small island is built up by limestone and sits right between the impressive Manado Tua volcano and the picturesque North Sulawesi coast. This unique location offers not only world-class diving but ABOVE Looking for critters in a seafan TOP RIGHT Anemonefish amd their host anemone FAR RIGHT Shrimp nestled in a bubble anemone RIGHT Back on the surface after an awesome dive

The abyssal walls around the Bunaken Marine Park are one of the star attractions for divers, and the deepest water lies between Manado Tua and Montehage - some 4,400ft deep!

also some staggering views from the island and the resort itself, in particular during the evenings as the sun sets over the volcano. Luxury with a home-awayfrom-home atmosphere, Siladen Resort and Spa is an exclusive yet relaxed boutique dive resort in a lush environment surrounded by numerous fantastic dive sites. It’s built on flat land with rich vegetation providing lots of shade, making it convenient and easy to move around the resort without getting overheated by direct sunshine. Guests have the option of Deluxe bungalows featuring a private outdoor bathtub and secluded beach area, Beach bungalows or Garden bungalows, all which are spacious with high comfort and are serviced twice daily. Upon our arrival, we were greeted and shown around the grounds by resort managers Ana and Miguel, and dive managers Romina and Galen. We already got the sense that our stay here was going be a very personal and inclusive experience. It was like we were already part of the Siladen family, despite it being our first day. This welcoming and embracing atmosphere is what really makes Siladen stand out. The whole team is incredibly friendly and makes you feel at home. It goes without saying that Siladen has a high percentage of repeat guests, many who come back several times a year. John and Tia, a lovely couple we got the pleasure to meet during our stay, travel from California to Siladen three times a year, spending a total of six months each year at the resort. That’s what you call a real ‘home away from home’!

NOW WE’RE COOKING! When you aren’t diving, you need something to occupy yourself – so why not sign up for a cooking class at Siladen and learn how to prepare a variety of famous Indonesian and traditional Minahasan dishes. You’ll even take home a fantastic collection of recipes to wow your friends with!

Sorido Bay resort is for the discerning traveler. It is not just another dive resort. The resort offers a selected and personalized service and is nestled in the lush green jungle overlooking a kidney-shaped lagoon, meters away from the world’s most famous dive site ‘Cape Kri’. Here you will meet people with a passion for Raja Ampat and a passion for sharing it with the most important person of all: you, our guest.

Wonderful walls and magical muck Surrounded by over 40 world-class dive sites, you would think that evolution had divers in mind when creating this area. The islands of Bunaken provides great reef walls ideal for wideangle photography. All dive sites are easily accessible from Siladen by one of the resort’s four private boats, all locally designed and purpose built for diving. Each boat has a shaded seating area, toilet, sun deck and hot- and cold-water station. We did the first dive with our private dive guide Erin at a site called Negri, next to the Manado Tua volcano. We were lucky, there was literally zero wind, no current, the water was blue and 84 degrees F warm, and visibility exceeded 100 feet. In other words, perfect conditions. It is not often you can look up from 65ft depth and see white fluffy clouds in the sky above you. The wall itself blew our mind with the variety of colorful sponges, gorgonian fans, soft and hard corals, anemones and tunicates. An enormous school of yellow pyramid butterflyfish were swimming below us. Towards the end of the dive we spotted two giant yellow frogfish sitting at the top of the reef at 15ft – a great place for a safety stop.

In addition to the fantastic wall dives, this area offers some excellent muck diving full of fascinating macro life. We visited Bolung and Tiwaho, two dive sites just off the North Sulawesi mainland coast. The macro life here is astonishing and all a macro lover or macro photographer can ask for. I could hardly count the number of juvenile frogfish spotted during a single dive here, along with pink and yellow leafy scorpionfish, Ambon scorpionfish, ornate ghost pipefish, bobtail squid, long-armed octopus and much more. Our guide Erin was born and raised on Siladen island and amazing at spotting the tiniest critters for us, even at night time.

Guests at the resort have the option of doing up to four dives a day. Two morning dives with a surface interval on the boat and snacks, fruits and hot or cold drinks provided between the dives, an afternoon dive, and a night dive or mandarinfish dive. I highly recommend doing at least one night dive at one of the muck sites - you will see an abundance of freaks and geeks in the dark. Great subjects for macro photos, or just for the pure entertainment of watching the nocturnal critters come out to play.

TOP LEFT Frogfish MIDDLE Tiny bobtail squid LEFT Minute crab filter-feeding

Bunaken Marine Park was established back in 1991, and was among the first of Indonesia’s ever-growing system of marine parks. It is claimed that this park has more than 70 per cent of all the known fish species of the western Indo-Pacific in its waters.

FUN FACT! The name Sulawesi probably origins from ‘sula’, which means island, and ‘besi’, which means iron (there are rich sources of iron near Danau Matano).

Food on the beach I think all divers can agree that doing up to four dives a day makes you feel hungry like nothing else, and the food at Siladen is worth a section of its own. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks are included for all guests staying at the resort. Meals are served buffet-style, with a selection of food exceeding our expectations. With an Italian and a local Indonesian chef running the kitchen, you will have a selection of both Western and local dishes to choose from.

The dinners have different themes each night over a 14-day period. Every other Saturday, it’s pizza night, a favourite for many of the return guests (the perks of having an Italian chef). Other themes during our stay was BBQ night, sushi and sashimi, pasta night and local cuisine. The selection of tropical fresh fruits with every meal was phenomenal. Mangosteen, passionfruit, mango, dragonfruit, kiwi and watermelon, just to mention a few. Food is served on the beach just feet from the sea, a really nice setting.

Another dimension of relaxation A few days and many dives into our stay, I was more than ready for a visit to the Siladen Spa. As I arrived at the spa, I got to smell samples of massage oils and chose the delightful mango and passionfruit oil. The local therapist trained in Bali delivered one of the best massages I have ever experienced. The spa itself was beautiful and the air-conditioned treatment rooms were tastefully designed with peace and relaxation in mind.

The joy of giving The island of Palau Siladen has a population of just over 300 people, of which 70 are employed by the resort. The resort takes great pride in working together with the local community through educational, clean up and recycling projects. For example, school books and educational material are provided for the local kids, and every month a beach clean-up is organised. All electricity on the island is provided by the Siladen resort’s four generators, which each day is LEFT Giant frogfish

ABOVE Aerial shot of Siladen Dive Resort

BELOW Bunaken Marine Park is famed for its walls connected to the local village. What a way to bright up everyone’s evening! It is clear that the locals have a true passion about conserving their unique environment, although they were still happy to share it with us. Refreshingly, the dive guides are not afraid of taking action if divers are seen being disrespectful to the reef or the marine animals. The resort is, each year, providing free dive training from Open Water to Rescue Diver for a number of people from the island. Some ambitious and motivated individuals have been provided with Divemaster and Instructor courses as well and are now working at the resort.

We don’t say goodbye, but see you later During our stay at Siladen, we had the pleasure of experiencing the very best of what Bunaken National Marine Park had to offer, both from a wide angle and macro perspective. I would highly recommend this destination for any diver thanks to the fantastic biodiversity. In just a few days of diving, we saw

ON A LARGE SCALE... The reefs and walls around Bunaken Marine Park are rightly world famous, and they can take your breath away.

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FLORIDA ROADTRIP EMBARK ON A DRIVE ‘N’ DIVE TO FLORIDA’S EAST COAST HOTSPOTS UW PHOTOGRAPHY HINTS AND ADVICE ON TRAVELING WITH CAMERA EQUIPMENT WRECK HEAVEN SATE YOUR LUST FOR RUST IN GRENADA AND TRUK LAGOON

BOUNTIFUL BONAIRE WHY THIS IS THE SHOREDIVING CAPITAL OF THE WORLD KIT MAINTENANCE WHAT SHOULD YOU BE DOING TO YOUR CAMERA PRE- AND POST-DIVE? CRITTER CRAZY! DISCOVER WHAT WEIRD THINGS ROAM AROUND BLUE HERON BRIDGE

GEAR TEST EXTRA FABULOUS FIJI SHOOTING IN MONOCHROME PARADISE Passport to LAND-BASED AND LIVEABOARD ADVENTURES IN INDONESIA, THE MALDIVES AND THE PHILIPPINES BYRON CONROY BRAVES THE COLD TO EXPLORE THESE FLOATING LEVIATHONS ICEBERGS Greenland’s

INDONESIA THE PHILIPPINES

PALAU SCUBAPRO HUD

ABOVE Highly territorial anemonefish guarding their host anemone

everything from juvenile frogfish, ornate ghost pipefish and seahorse, to reef sharks and probably close to 100 turtles. Worth noting is that some dives might turn into drift dives as the currents can pick up. Therefore, it helps if you are comfortable with drift diving, or have some previous experience in diving with currents.

We came to Siladen for diving, but actually got so much more. We made several new friends thanks to the genuine and friendly atmosphere. The food and the spa treatments added another dimension to the whole experience. When leaving Siladen, we didn’t say ‘goodbye’, but ‘see you later’. A big thank you to the whole team, and a special thanks to Ana and Miguel, who made us feel at home in their paradise. We will be back. n

Siladen Island North Sulawesi WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

GETTING THERE There are direct flights from Singapore to Manado International airport four times per week (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat) with Silk Air, the regional carrier of Singapore Airlines. There are also several daily non-stop flights from Jakarta and a daily direct flight from Bali. A member of staff from Siladen meets guests at the airport and provides a private transfer to the resort.

WHEN TO GO Located a few degrees above the equator, the area enjoys constant temperatures all year round. The dry season lasts from April to November, while occasional rains characterize the remaining period.

CURRENCY Indonesia’s currency is the Rupiah, but resorts accept payment by credit card.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS Visitors from North America can get a 30-day travel visa on arrival, you just need to have a valid passport with at least six month remaining, and a return air ticket.

ELECTRICITY The resort is equipped with European two-pin sockets and the voltage is 220, so North American visitors will need to bring adaptors.

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