Our 2024 Snorkeling Adventure in Indonesia

By Tom

My wife and I spent six weeks on a roll-your-own snorkeling adventure in Indonesia from October to December 2024. We had many great days in the water, often snorkeling three or more times a day. The weather was always in the 90’s, with humidity to match. There was a bit of rain here and there, but in general great weather and very calm seas. The water was 90°F, clear and blue. Overall the coral health and sea life were spectacular, the best we’ve experienced.

We started our trip snorkeling on the small islands of Bunaken and Lembeh off the north coast of Sulawesi. From there we explored the central highlands area of Rantepao. We spent the last section of our trip in Raja Ampat, staying at two homestays in Batanta and finishing up with a wonderful 10 days of snorkeling throughout Misool on a small, locally owned, liveaboard boat.

Snorkeling Bunaken and Siladen Islands

Bunaken is a small island off the coast of North Sulawesi. It’s a popular dive and snorkel location and it does get some day trippers from Manado. It’s a low-key place with very enjoyable snorkeling. On the island there probably a dozen simple dive resorts, some homestay options, a few small restaurants and shops. 

The main “road” is a bricked path that goes from Bunaken Village in the southeast corner up through the center of the island past the other villages. There are no cars. People get around on foot, motorbikes or by boat. There is no taxi service, but you may be able to rent a motorbike.

We decided to stay at one of the east coast places because there was easy shore access to the reef and it was walking distance to Bunaken Village.

Most of the reefs in Bunaken have a shallow reef shelf that at some point will drop vertically into the deep blue. At all but the lowest tide you can snorkel over the reef shelf. Depending on location and where we were in the tide cycle we did have some mild currents to deal with, but mostly little to no current. Each day we either snorkeled on our own, from shore, on the east side reef or took the resort’s long boat to various reefs in the area.

Our favorite spots were Lekuan 1-3, around the corner to the west of Bunaken Village. In general, the shallow reef was in good shape, with both hard and soft corals. The drop-off wall was always nice with bigger fish and schools to be seen. Many, many large turtles in this area. One day I was chased off of the shallow reef by triggerfish and my fins now have bite mark souvenirs.

The east side reef was also very enjoyable, again lots of hard and soft corals. It’s always nice to be able to reach a reef from shore on your own schedule. Duiklocatie/Mandolin Point was deeper, sandier and just less to see. We spent a morning on the southeast corner of the nearby island of Siladen which we enjoyed very much. We experienced a stronger current and a bit of small boat traffic near the pier on the south tip of the island.

We were told the reefs north of Lekuan, heading up towards Happy Gecko Dive Resort, weren’t as good for snorkeling, but we don’t have personal experience there.

On the water in a boat, north of Bunaken, near Mantehage Island, we also spent an hour watching a large pod of spinner dolphins.

Snorkeling Lembeh Strait

Our next stop was Lembeh. Lembeh is famous for muck diving and there are many dive resorts on both sides of the channel between Sulawesi and Lembeh islands. Nearby is the large town of Bitung so there is more boat traffic and human impact than the other places we visited.

We stayed at one of the dive resorts and enjoyed our time at the resort very much. The rest of the guests were divers, many repeat customers. Each had a huge camera rig to get those perfect macro shots of nudibranch. Our resort was very much geared towards diving so we had to work with the staff to figure out the best snorkeling spots.

Joining a dive boat for snorkeling doesn’t always work well for the snorkelers. We ended up hiring the resort’s small boat and found some very nice reef areas around the small islands in the center of the main channel; Critter Hunt and Serena Besar. There were some soft corals that we saw nowhere else on the trip. Nudi Falls was a vertical wall, into the water, full of colorful corals and creatures. As a snorkeler, it’s best to visit at low tide so the good stuff is more at eye level.

We struck out on the muck snorkeling side of things. The bottom was often deeper and water cloudier in these areas and we were newbies in the search for muck creatures.

Before leaving Sulawesi, we did a land tour in Rantepao and found it well worth the visit.

Snorkeling Raja Ampat

We flew from Manado into Sorong at the far eastern edge of Indonesia. After a quick taxi ride to the port we took the public ferry to the small village of Waisai.

In Raja Ampat there are really three different lodging types: classic dive resorts, liveaboard dive boats, and homestays. Diving tourism is catering to westerners flying in for their dive holiday and being well taken care of. The homestays are small, family-run affairs frequented by independent travelers. They are usually simple bungalows with meals, electricity when the generator is running, bucket flush toilets, and limited English spoken.

There is a wonderful cooperative organization Stay Raja Ampat supporting many of the homestays in this region. You can see photos, descriptions and reviews of each homestay, reserve your stay and arrange a boat transfer. It is also full of good information for understanding what to expect from a homestay and to plan an independent snorkeling trip in Raja Ampat.

We spent a lot of time trying to figure out which homestays to visit. There are many islands scattered throughout Raja Ampat. Some, like Kri, are full of homestays and small dive resorts and are not that far from the Waisai ferry terminal. Other places like Batanta, Misool, Fam or Wayag are more remote and require a longer, more expensive, boat transfer to get there.

Batanta, Northern Raja Ampat

At the Waisai ferry we were met by representatives from the Stay Raja Ampat cooperative. They directed us to their nearby office where we bought our marine park passes. They introduced us to our homestay host, and escorted us to the boat for our two hour ride across the Dampier Strait to the tiny island of Dayan, nestled in the northwest corner of Batanta Island.

Spots We Snorkeled From Dayan Island:

• The house reef was decent, but not spectacular.
• Nearby Coral Garden at the southern end of Dayan was a smaller area, but very nice.
• Flower Garden encompassed the southern sides of the small islands in the channel and it was very good for coral and creatures.
• Bumphead Reef was a bit further south off the shore of Batanta itself; it was a shallow reef with very good hard and soft corals, schools of smaller fish, and nudibranch.
• Dugong Reef, across the channel, had lots of staghorn coral, but was not that interesting.
• Manta Alley, the reason we came to this area, has a submerged sand point about 20+ feet deep off the northern point of one of the small channel islands. It’s a manta cleaning station. We went there twice, the first time there were several groups in the water and we did not see any mantas. The second visit we got an early start and saw two, circling the point.

Our host transferred us, in their long boat, to our next homestay on Biryei Island, a medium sized island just off the north coast of Batanta. It’s just around the corner from the very fancy Papua Paradise Eco Resort, previously used by one of the trips Tropical Snorkeling promotes.

Spots We Snorkeled From Biryei Island:

• The house reef here was very good, mostly hard corals, but good variety with some large fish in the deeper water.
• Nearby Pulau Dokri was OK, but not as good as the house reef.
• Pulau Kri Batanta is in the middle of the Dampier Strait and is a mostly submerged reef with a few photogenic, small sand islands. The water was crystal clear here, but we experienced some very strong currents. We did see a wobbegong, a flat, bottom dwelling shark.
• Pulau Wai is a small island with a dive resort. The reef on the west side of the island was very good. We took a short walk through the forests on Wai and saw colonies of large flying foxes or fruit bats and the marsupial cuscus up in the trees.
• At Ayof Reef we tried to see Dugong, but none were to be found. Other than Dugong I wouldn’t recommend Ayof Reef for snorkeling.
• Our favorite snorkeling place that we visited in the Batanta area was Pulau Urun, we spent two days on this reef. It’s a mid-channel submerged reef with a small sand island that may be above or below the surface depending on the tide. There is a large shallow reef area on the west side with a steeply descending western edge. You’ll need to visit at a higher tide if you want to swim over the shallow reef area, instead of along its edge, but the area is very enjoyable at any tide level. There were a large variety of healthy hard and soft corals, many fish species and larger fish off the reef edge. We spent 30 minutes watching two large octopuses, a trip highlight. Lots of wonderful coral landscapes to be seen.

Misool, Southern Raja Ampat

We finished up our trip on a local liveaboard boat visiting the Misool area. Misool is one large island and then many small islands in the southern part of Raja Ampat. It’s a much longer ferry or transfer boat ride from Sorong than other places in Raja Ampat. In the Misool area there are a few villages and homestays and many Sorong based dive liveaboards. There is one main dive resort, the Misool Resort, which is used by some of the Tropical Snorkeling trips.

Most of the liveaboards that I found in the Misool area were geared towards divers. We were lucky enough to find the Raja Ampat Adventures boat and crew and had a wonderful 10 days exploring Misool. We snorkeled multiple times each day, did some short hikes up to spectacular view points and enjoyed relaxing down time on the boat.

This boat is not a luxury cruise; think of it as a floating homestay or hostel, but it’s clean and well kept. It has three guest rooms, with two bunk beds in each room, so a max of 12 guests and six friendly, hardworking crew members. There are three shared bathrooms with bucket flush toilets.

The business was started 20 years ago by two Indonesian brothers and they put on a great trip. The crew knows the area well and our time in and on the water rarely disappointed.

We saw the best coral of our trip, clear water, the fantastic karst islands of the Misool region, giant oceanic mantas, sharks, huge schools of fish surrounding us on all sides, many nudibranch, tiny sand beaches, good food and good company. We also got to swim in a lake full of stingless jellyfish!

We Enjoyed Our Snorkeling Adventure in Indonesia

It took a bit a planning to pull it all together, but once we were there everything went smoothly. We met some great fellow travelers from around the world. Our hosts were warm, friendly and worked hard to show us the best of their corner of Indonesia. It wasn’t a luxury vacation by any means, but we were there to see amazing countryside, sea life and coral reefs and we weren’t disappointed.