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Last Notes

2026-10-21 02:55:01 GMT

Bunaken National Marine Park
Indonesian’s Bunaken National Marine Park is a world-class scuba diving destination known for its dramatic vertical drop-off walls, crystal-clear water, and abundant, diverse marine life. Established in 1991 as one of the first of the country’s marine parks, Bunaken encompasses 345 miles2 (890 km2), 97% of it underwater. The park’s rich coral ecosystem includes 390 species of coral, 2000 species of fish, and a countless thousands of invertebrate species, including many varieties of nudibranch, a favorite of ours.
Visiting divers can choose from about four dozen small resorts, dive lodges, and specialty homestays within the park, most of them on the main island of Bunaken. We spent a fabulous week at Bunaken Oasis Dive Resort, exploring under water and relaxing above.
Reaching the park required several hops and different modes of transportation. We flew our favorite business class seats, Qatar Qsuites, from Seattle to Doha and then on to Singapore after a brief layover. (A direct flight from Seattle to Singapore would have taken less time, but we couldn’t get seats we liked and we really love the Qsuites). After a short layover in Singapore, we flew to Manado, the closest mainland airport to Bunaken. The resort picked us up at the Manado airport for a 40-minute drive along moped-clogged streets to a waiting boat. Then a 30-minute boat ride brought us to the resort, about 32 hours after we’d departed Seattle. The resort managers greeted us in person on the dock and gave us a brief welcome and orientation before showing us around the property and to our room.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
After settling in, we visited the dive shop to fit our gear. We brought our own 3mm wetsuits, dive computers, flashlights and GoPro cameras, but rented everything else. When we first started diving again a couple of years back, we were initially a little dubious about renting gear that might be poorly maintained, but this has so far not been an issue for us. The Bukanen Oasis equipment was great, the dive boats spacious and well-equipped, and the crew did a great job of setting up our gear between dives and cleaning everything between trips. We also visited the resort’s extensive tank fill center, where they support recreational as well as technical diving.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
Bunaken Oasis is a beautiful property built on a slope, with the main resort building, including pool, restaurant and dive center nearest the water and the accommodations above. Most areas had wonderful water views.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
Guests stay in individual bungalows rising above the public areas, each with a porch overlooking the resort and the sea. The setting was wonderfully relaxing.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
We had many good meals in their barefoot-required dining room overlooking the sea.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
The resort also arranged two special meals during our stay. We woke up on December 25th to “snowy” footprints outside our bungalow, with Christmas stockings hanging on our door, and had a delicious turkey dinner that night before a performance from the local schoolchildren.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
And the final meal of our stay was a special menu, served poolside just for us.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
The only negative for us was that we prefer to exercise daily, and the resort didn’t have a fitness center. But they did supply some free weights to use in our bungalow, and we could have gone for a run on the inter-village road behind the resort that we instead strolled along one afternoon.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
As much as we enjoyed our stay at Bunaken Oasis, we were there for the scuba diving. And it was fantastic, with incredibly colorful, diverse and abundant sea life. We typically did two dives each morning, and sometimes three, at Bunaken Island and adjacent Manado Tua and Siladan islands.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
We saw Nudibranchs on nearly every dive. Our boat and web site name was derived from Dirona Albolineata, or the Alabaster Nudibranch, an invertebrate indigenous to the Puget Sound that we often see when scuba diving. Over 3,000 Nudibranch species live throughout the world’s oceans—their fantastic forms and psychedelic colors make them among our favorite sea creatures.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
And we saw many of another of our favorite sea creatures, turtles, swimming in the water column or wedged into a coral shelf.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
We particularly enjoyed the park’s many wall dives as well, full of coral encrusted drop-offs and teeming with fish.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
We also did our a first night dive in very long time, for a chance to see some of the creatures that are mainly active only after dark.
[See image gallery at mvdirona.com]
Our routes around Bunaken National Marine Park are shown on the interactive map below. Click here for a full-page map.
https://mvdirona.com/2026/10/bunaken-national-marine-park/
https://mvdirona.com/cache/600x450-0/wp-content/gallery/20251220-opening-pic-1/GP-JRH-011261_web.jpg
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