I recently had the good fortune of visiting Lembeh Strait in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi region. Lembeh was somewhere I had wanted to visit for some time, but for a clear water loving tec head the area offers very little. What is does offer however are critters, lots of critters, and is reputed to be home to the world’s best muck diving. Having entered and won the trip as part of a Wetpixel & Dive Photo Guide competition, I was more than happy to be spending almost two weeks working on my macro photography technique (something I have done very little of recently). For once, I was more than happy to leave the rebreather and tec gear at home, making my check-in bag a meagre 23kg!

A flight from Sydney took me to Denpasar (Bali), then another double hop took me onto Manado which is the closest major city to Lembeh Strait. From there an 60 minute drive takes you to Bintung, which is the township/city closest to the strait and diving resort operators. The strait itself is smaller than I perceived from maps and is very much what I consider a working harbour. Lots of commercial fishing and locally made timber boats use the port.

My diving and accommodation was kindly provided by Eco-Divers who run a distinctly different operation in the strait from most of the other operators. Each day, we’d drive from Lembeh Cottages to a wharf (about 25 minutes) and would spend the whole day on a liveaboard like vessel (aka Nautica), eventually returning to the hotel at night. The standard Lembeh model would be to stay at a resort on the water’s edge of the strait, using the dive boats to do 2, 3, or even 4 dives a day. The day boat is nice for what it is, with normal toilets, lots of space, mains power, camera tables and even wireless Internet. All diving is done off spacious and fast speed boat tenders.

According to the Eco-Divers’ website their format is optimal because the day boat is moored in the middle of the strait and offers easy access to all sites, however in reality most of the resorts are only a few hundred metres from the mooring site anyway so this is a mute argument in my opinion. If I was to return, I would definitely dive with one of the resorts on the water’s edge.

My first dive was on an incoming tide at a site called Nudi Retreat 2. My initial reaction was WOW, the water was relatively clear (20m visibility), very warm (29c) and there was an abundance of marine life, coral, and typical reef fish. I thought, this is not what I expected, there should be black sand, bad visibility and weird alien like creatures about the place. As it turned out, that one dive would be extremely different to next 36 that I would do.

My second dive, and much of the dives I did on the trip turned out to be pure muck dives. They’d involve lots of swimming to keep up with guides, grey muddy/silty sand (not sure I saw this BLACK sand they speak of), 20m average depth and a wide variety of critters. What you get in return for this ordinary dive, is to see and in particular take photos of some pretty spectacular subjects. I had to work for it though, both doing research and asking the guides to take me to given places for certain critters.

I saw mimic octopi, pygmy sea horses, ribbon eels, mating mandarin fish, ornate ghost pipefish, predating frog/angler fish, every type of shrimp known to man and even and the world’s smallest harlequin shrimp. What I didn’t see however (through no lack of trying), included the lacy and prettier scorpion fish, wonderpus octopus, flamboyant cuttlefish, blue-ringed octopus and normal sized harlequin shrimp. Now, I’m not complaining as I got to see a lot, but I’m highlighting this as my expectations were obviously higher than Lembeh’s ability to deliver on the two weeks I was there. I imagine this is due to some of the reviews that I’ve read, so don’t assume you’ll see everything and do seize the moment when you do; you may not see it again even during a longer stay.

One surprising dive I did was the Malawi wreck (aka Tanduk Rusa), a 60m Japanese freighter sunk in 1943 during WW2. Being a keen wreck diver I did this dive a couple of times, but it’s well worth a visit for either being a wreck or the macro life that adorn the hull. Sitting in about 30m in the middle of the strait, the wreck is subject to currents but is easily dived with some planning. Penetration into the front and rear cargo holds is extremely easy (although they’re now empty), and for those more ambitious there are lots of dark and scary holes I found interesting. The huge propeller is also of note and worth a visit, though due to the reduced visibility I did not bother with any wide angle shots.

Unfortunately no review of Lembeh Strait is complete without mentioning the unsightly rubbish and litter that plagues the area. Rubbish floats on the surface and hits you in the head when you jump in, it collects on the bottom and then there are the almost life like mid-water floating plastic bags (my personal favourite). I’ve been told this has become much worse since the tsunamis, regardless though it is a major issue when you’re on a nature based holiday.

Diving Lembeh Strait is more like flying around the surface of the moon than it is like diving a coral reef. It’s grey and almost crater like, but to the photographer it’s serious playground. Work hard and you will be reward with all manner of critters that result in some spectacular images. Don’t forget your macro kit though, as you’ll need greater than 1:1 at times to do some of the shots justice. My final thoughts on Lembeh Strait were, and still are, why the hell would you want to dive there if you didn’t have a camera? Some people are obviously into small and weird critters, but for me I’ll take the clear water, big fish and beauty of a coral reef over the muck diving of Lembeh Strait any day, so in the end I consider Lembeh Strait a photography destination, not a diving one.

More photos from the Lembeh Strait trip are online on flickr.