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I was with a group of eight and we were to fly with Singapore Airlines to Singapore, 16 hours, then Silk Air to Manado 3 ½ hours. We had heard that baggage weight could be a problem coming back, however the only problem was at Heathrow. The normal thing, no adjustment for dive kit, after talk of £33 per kilo and almost one hour our allowance was increased to 35 Kilo's. The flights were both very good, with us being kept fed and well watered. Once in the small but very clean Manado airport you start to feel like you are almost there and after a two-hour drive we finally arrive.
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If you have seen the book and wondered at the amazing
images of the strange and beautiful, then like me you may have got
the map out to see if you could find this place. Almost on the other
side of the world and at the top of North Sulawesi, is the small
but very busy shipping lane, the Lembeh Straits. The straits are
made by the gap between Sulawesi and the small Sarena Island.
Next to this busy shipping lane with its strong tidal currents is
the Kungkungan Bay Resort. With the view of the bay from the restaurant
to excite you once you arrive, you start to unwind from the almost
24 hour trip. The first site of the volcanic sand as I was taken
to my house was the first clue to perhaps why the life here maybe
so slightly strange. This was one of 16 of these traditional stilt
homes, they were big airy, with views of the bay and with the water
washing within 20 feet of them. The large bathrooms and spaciousness
more than made up for the lack of air conditioning. North Sulawesi
enjoys a mild tropical climate with gentle breezes. In the day the
temperatures are generally in the mid-eighties cooling into the
seventies at night. Clean towels arrive regularly and until John's
bed became a camera servicing area the room and beds are cleaned
once or twice a day. Power at the resort is 220 volts but the camera
room near the dive area has both 220 volt as well as 110 volts for
battery charging purposes. The camera room is large, clean, and
secure. So after a quick shower, some unpacking it was off to sort
the dive kit.
Here once your kit is at the dive hut you don't carry it again.....
No that's it, once you have put it together it is moved on and off
the boat for you. You are left to check it's there and that's it.
So if you are not here with cameras, which you are asked to put
into fresh water tanks so the dive crew can load them on the boat,
all you have to do is grab your wet suit put it on or take it off.
It was then time to grab a beer on the restaurant balcony before
bed.
The tides, and currents in the strait can be amazingly fierce. As
these transport the nutrients that provides the environment for
these marine animals, we may not be diving this area without them.
However even if they are clearly visible as you travel to the dive
sites or from the shore, we only felt them on a few dives. 
All the boat dives are one tank dives and diving from the shore
when current permits. We were to do 3 boat dives a day and planned
to do one night dive from the pier each night. These were timed
as 8 am, 11 am, 3 pm and night dive between 6 and 8 pm. With cameras
to service, food and you need to allow time for the food to arrive,
this left little time for anything else. 
The dive crew and boat crew were great and you need them. The dive
guide that I would try to shake off elsewhere is very much needed
here. Trust me on this, they find stuff you would miss, yes after
3 or 4 days you start to spot stuff, but then they will find something
smaller or stranger, so you have to work with this. The 29 dive
sites should keep you interested and you may not expect to see coral,
which I think almost matches the Red Sea. As for the muck diving,
bottom of a 27 degree muddy puddle diving, well, let me describe
one of these. 10 to 15 minutes from the dive center and you are
at most sites and this one is about 10 minutes, the dive guide ties
us on to a mooring and 4 meters below is the mud. This is a mix
of mud and the volcanic sand. As this is just in front a small fishing
village, the amount of paint tins and other rubbish added to the
gloom. 
The dive guide is in first to check the current, once you have seen
the currents here you would understand, and then in you go to find
the guide by the mooring. On this site you would work your way down
to around 15-17 meters meeting small clumps of soft coral on the
way and with it a yellow lionfish, a fish with probes for front
fins and an octopus that does impressions, honestly it does. The
Lionfish, Dragonet and Mimic Octopus was just the first 30-minutes.
If you were not taking pictures then you would see more. Then the
next 30 minutes, well some of the best stuff always seems to be
by the moorings and here is no exception. As we got closer to the
boat and you need to be less than 10 meters to see the boat we start
to see other divers. The dive guides had asked for a wish list at
the start of our stay and they had been working their way through
this. On this dive we were to tick off Flamboyant cuttlefish. We
took it in turns to get photographs while the guides were off to
find something else. After watching these guides for 10 or more
dives, even when you have been in the water for 60 minutes and they
are shaking with cold, these guys will keep looking for things.
Not once during this trip was I asked to end my dive even when I
was into my 70 plus minute, nor were we herded around as a group.
If you like to take your time, be shown strange small things, want
to see one thing and spend your dive with it these guys are happy
to oblige. 
By the end of the trip, I was worn out. This was a great trip, lots
of film, great food and company. I came home to dry out, it rained
all but one day so if I was not in the water the water was falling
on me. Thanks to the team at Kungkungan.