Mermaid I 12D11N

Check-in on board Mermaid I. Once all guests are on board a safety briefing will be given. If all the guests are on board by 12,00 hours, you have the chance to do 2 extra dives at Lembeh Strait in some fabulous muck dives with critters galore.

Lembeh Strait – some of the best muck diving in Indonesia! Black sand, white sand, gray sand environments full of critters. Frogfish, all kinds of octopi, spiny devilfish, nudibranchs galore and so much more. Cruise overnight to Tanjung Flesko, 70 nautical miles.

Today we will spend the day at Tanjung Flesko, which is the northern cape of the Tomimi Bay. Drifting with some strong currents next to walls and slopes covered in an amazing variety of soft corals. Just let yourself go with the current and enjoy the reef scenery. From Lembeh we will call the whale shark center at Gorontalo, and if the center tells us that there are whale sharks in the area, we will cruise overnight to Gorontalo. But if there are no whale sharks, then we can either spend a day diving in Gorontalo or head straight to the Togians. Cruise overnight to Gorontalo, 85 nautical miles.

Snorkeling in Gorontalo with whale sharks. If we are unlucky because there are no whale sharks around, then we will do 2 dives at Gorontalo. Then we will cruise overnight to the volcano of Una Una, the most eastern island of the Togians. Cruise overnight to Gorontalo – 95 nautical miles. Dives – 2 or snorkeling with the whale sharks.

The 5th day of the trip will be spent at the Volcano of Una Una. Unlike the rest of the Togian Islands, Una Una does not have any white sandy beaches, all the sand around the island is either black or gray. The volcano is short, rising 500 meters above sea level with a 2 km wide caldera, and the last time it erupted was in 1.983. Una Una is one of the great diving spots in the Togians. It has over 35 different dive sites, enough to spend several days diving. It is also one of the best dive sites to see massive schools of blacktail barracudas, schooling bigeye trevallies, and passing pelagic such as tunas. Cruise overnight to Batudaka Island or Togian Island – 58 nautical miles

The next 2 days will be spent in the north of the islands Batudaka, Togian and Malingi and Kadidiri where there is a reef system that is about 165 km long with plenty of dive sites such as Nursery Rock, Kota Wall, Gap, Crack, Shark Rock, Dominic Rock, Labyrinth, Taipi, Batu Gila, Lost Reef, Kadidiri House Reef and Malingi. We will also visit several atolls that are north of Batudaka where you can dive both in the inside of the atoll as well as on the outside next to walls full of overhangs and swim-throughs. Or dive at the volcanic island of Tapuan which is a volcanic island surrounded by a reef and deep drop off walls.

The next several days we will be diving on the south cost of Togian, where there are deep pinnacles surrounded by schooling fish, and also where we can find a WWII wreck, a B-24 bomber. The “Consolidated B-24 Bomber Liberator” lies between 16 and 22 meters over a sandy bottom. The plane is in a fairly good condition. You can still see the two barrels of the turret gun as well as the instruments in the cockpit. We will also spend some time diving around the islands of Walea, Puah and Dondola. These islands are surrounded by reef barriers where you can find plenty of schooling fish as well as good macro life. Then we will cruise from Dondola Island to Pulau Dua, which is the southern cape of the Gulf of Tomimi, 60 nautical miles

Around Pulau Dua there are several pinnacles, some that break the surface, and some that the top are 16-18 meters deep. These pinnacles are completely covered in soft corals and huge amounts of schooling fish. Cruise overnight to Tanjung Ratatotok – 100 nautical miles

The final day of diving will be spent around Ratatotok where we can find some really amazing hard coral gardens before heading back to Bitung. Cruise back to Bitung, 70 nautical miles.

Disembark at 8 am after breakfast, Mermaid I staff will transfer you to the airport or yor hotel in Lembeh.
This is a sample itinerary and is subject to changes beyond the operator’s control. The exact itinerary, route and amount of dives for your cruise may be adapted to best suit the weather conditions, tides and currents, season and other prevailing events.