Tropical climate, nice and breezy in the evening.
The WAOW staff will pick you up in your resort/hotel or await your arrival at Gorontalo Airport to assist and accompany you on board SMY WAOW anchoring in the harbour. Our experienced staff will look after your luggage and transfer it to your cabin onboard SMY WAOW while you enjoy our "refreshing welcome drink". As soon as the last guests are onboard you will be introduced to our team and have plenty of time to settle in, get everything ready and enjoy life onboard with us.
Early breakfast befor disembarkation & transfer to Manado airport or your hotel/resort between 06.00am and 11.00am at the latest.
Located to the North of Sulawesi (the fourth largest Island of Indonesia), the Gulf of Tomini reveals marvelous landscapes both above and below the water. With hundreds of bays and kilometers of white sandy beaches, this gulf is rarely visited by tourists and has therefore remained both preserved and authentic.
The region of Gorontalo offers beautiful diving along the colorful drop-offs, adorned with Gorgonian sea fans, bushes of black coral and has cracks, crevices and overhangs to explore, while enjoying the many sponges, including the rare “Salvador Dali Sponge”. The Togian Islands, composed of 57 islands of volcanic origin, are a true paradise on earth…..idyllic coconut laden beaches with turquoise lagoons teeming with life. We can see large sponges, very beautiful hard and soft corals and a colorful reef life. In the deeper blue we find jacks, barracuda and reef sharks, without forgetting the turtles and grouper. In the areas of black sands, including the world famous Lembeh Strait, we can also easily encounter rare fauna. These include several types of pygmy sea horses, different types of frog fish, ribbon eels, bobtail squid and numerous nudibranchs.
Gorontalo, located right in Tomoni bay, centre Sulawesi, has a good combination of dive sites with steep drop offs, overhangs, caverns, caves, pinnacles and chimneys clogged with white fans, numerous gorgonian sea fans, dramatic walls with dense coral growth and mixed coral gardens up shallow in addition to black coral bushes and large sponges. Divers can find several large Salvador Dali sponges (Petrosia lignosa), including a huge cluster of barrel sponges. This species of large sponges was discovered in Tomini Bay in the 1920s and is only found on deep walls around this area.
Togian Island Group (Kepulauan Togian) is an archipelago of six main and about 60 smaller islands that are of volcanic origin; actually Una Una in the northwest is an active volcano. The islands unique geography has created three distinct types of reefs - atolls, barrier reef & fringing reefs - one of the few areas of the world where all three can be found in the same area. There are numerous fascinating dive sites here, from a large barrier reef, where there are caves, overhangs, and swim throughs along with exciting schooling fish action and swift currents to smaller fringing reefs as well as a few atolls. The reefs and large coastal mangrove areas are habitat and breeding areas for the hawksbill turtle, the green turtle and the dugong. Fish life is abundant, with sightings of reef sharks, rays, tunas and barracudas being common. There are plenty of turtles, napoleon wrasse, bumphead parrotfish and realms of colourful reef- inhabitants. Apart from the number & variety of fish, the Togians feature amazing corals & black coral bushes, huge gorgonians & whip corals stretching high into the blue and stunning barrel sponges on the reef.
The walls here are spectacular sites with soft corals and good chances to see a lot of fish like mackerels, tunas, barracudas, surgeonfishes, sweetlips and triggerfish in the blue especially when the current is running.
The sites of Tanjung Fresco, situated at the foot of the point bearing the same name, offers beautifully colorful pinnacles. Here again, we find abundant sponges plus soft and hard corals and macro-fauna.
Welcome to the macro mecca - Lembeh Strait - well known for the volcanic black sand that is home to many weird and wonderful critters that the sea has to offer, where "muck diving" all began. Very often the divers tend to disappear in this underwater world of Lembeh longer than they expected, with performances of those rare critters, all playing hide and seek in their homes of those manmade debris along the sea bed. This is one of those places where, before the dive you can easily hand out your critter list and at the end of your day, it will mostly be ticked off– That's how rich the wonderfully weird marine life in Lembeh is.
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