Bunaken

Bunaken is an area of 8.08 km ² island in the Bay of Manado, located in the northern island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. This island is part of the city of Manado, the provincial capital of North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Around the island there Bunaken Bunaken marine park which is part of Manado Tua Marine National Park. This marine park has a marine biodiversity one of the highest in the world. Scuba diving attracts many visitors to the island. Overall Bunaken marine park covers an area of 75,265 hectares with five islands within it, namely the island of Manado Tua, Bunaken Island, Island Siladen, Mantehage Island follows several children his island, and island Naen. Although covering an area of 75,265 hectares, the location of the dive (diving) is limited in each of the five beaches that surround the island.

Bunaken marine park has a 20 point dive (dive spot) with varying depth of up to 1344 meters. Of the 20 diving points, 12 points among them diving around Bunaken Island. Twelve point dive is the most frequently visited by divers and lovers of the beauty of underwater scenery.

Most of the 12 point dive in Bunaken Island lined up from the southeast to the northwest of the island. In this region there are underwater great walls, which is also called the hanging walls, or a giant rock walls that stand vertically and curved upward. These rock walls are also a source of food for fish in the waters around Bunaken Island.

How to reach the location:
Can the Port of Manado, Marina Nusantara Diving Centre (NDC) in the District of Molas, and from the Marina Blue Banter.
From Port of Manado, we can use a motor boat to the island Siladen with travel time about 20 minutes, Bunaken Island 30 minutes, 50 minutes Montehage Island, and Island Nain 60 minutes. While the Marina Blue Banter, we can use the available cruises to the area of tourism in Bunaken Island and takes about 10-15 minutes, while from the Port of NDC to the dive sites of Bunaken Island can menggunakanspeed boat with about 20 minutes travel time.
Every visitor who enters the area of Bunaken Marine Park ticket charge of Rp50 thousand. Rates are valid both for visitors who want to dive or not to dive. In addition to regular tickets, there are also tickets valid for one year with the price of 150 thousand. Visitors who purchase an annual ticket will be given a kind of special badges made of plastic as free passes TLNB.
Tourists who intend to spend the night there could choose a place to stay that consists of various resorts and homestay. There is also the following dive equipment rental services instructors to teach visitors dive. Diving instructor who is on an average TLNB have mastered foreign languages like English, German, Dutch, and French

 

 

 

 

Animals of the Sea at Bunaken
Area of the island is only 8 km away, but extraordinarily beautiful marine park. In it there are many rare marine life.
Imagine, in this world there are only 8 species of giant clams and seven of them contained in Bunaken. In addition there is a finger-sized marine animals are adult sea horses, there are grouper, sea snails, and other marine animals that add to the beauty of Bunaken.

Besides the animals mentioned above, there are about 3000 species are very difficult to mention one by one, with all sorts of shapes and colors are stunning. But the names of the popular marine animals are fish lolosi yellow, fish ila trunk, white oci Fish, fish, horses gusumi, garopa fish, mollusks, and others. You all can enjoy the beauty of Bunaken it by snorkeling.

Do not worry if you are not proficient in snorkeling or scuba diving, there are many instructors who will guide and help you enjoy the beauty of Bunaken.

Things to be grateful when I saw the beauty of Bunaken are much sought after by foreign tourists so that this increasingly popular tourist attractions. Because of the popularity it makes many local officials are intrigued to restore the beauty of their sea and explore the potential beauty of the sea with the guard and open up new tourism arena.

By default this is increasingly arousing tourism in Indonesia and a field of sustenance for the Indonesian people and the community generally in that area in particular.

Residents around the area of Bunaken itself is very well aware that cleanliness and beauty of Bunaken is a valuable asset that must be maintained. Therefore, they try to keep the clean sea and beaches, littered with garbage and other things that can damage coral reefs.

The island is located northwest of the city of Manado, has a diversity of life that is very large, because these islands are places where plankton which is the food of all marine creatures rise to the surface. Because of the large amount of plankton that rises to the top surface of the ocean, many marine organisms that choose this place as home. Snorkler and divers can see 70% -80% of marine species in the world, seven of eight species of giant clams can be ketemukan in Bunaken.

The beauty of Bunaken on 5 Meter

The beauty of the coral reefs of Bunaken Island is also still very good. They do not undergo a process of bleaching or coral bleaching, the effects of el-nino storm so that the color and its beauty is maintained. In addition to natural factors, the condition of reefs in Bunaken also guard by citizens on patrol around tirelessly to preserve the integrity of this marine park. They realize, without a healthy coral reefs, they will lose a good livelihood. Bunaken marine park's success is now followed by all the marine parks are popping up in Indonesia.

The beauty of Bunaken At 15 meters

In Bunaken, the tourists can see a lot of things that rarely can be seen as:

Pygmy Seahorse: horse sea horse sea is very unique. The size of the sea horse is only for finger nail, and usually resembles a pink house in gorgonians sea fans. This sea horse will always resemble the color of the sea horse home to escape pursuit by their predators such as groupers.

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Komodo island

History :
In 1910 the Dutch named the island in the southern province of East Nusa Tenggara is the nickname of Komodo Island. This story begins with Lieutenant Steyn va Hens Broek who tries to prove statements about the presence of Dutch troops dragon looking like a monster on the island.

Reports of his men about the giant lizard was not a figment. Steyn then killed one of these dragons and bring documentation to the Museum and Botanical Garden in Bogor to be investigated.

Komodo Island is a beautiful charm make this island worth visiting. The main attractions of this island is a close look at the only natural habitat of one of ancient animals that survived for three hundred million years.
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A tense and exciting journey you will meet and spend lots of money, here are some alternative way to Komodo Island. Arriving in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara provincial capital, you can get on a plane headed Ende, and the journey continues for ten hours by minibus to the town Labuhanbajo which is the gateway to Komodo Island or the easiest option to reach Labuan Bajo region is to use the airport flight path Ngurai Rai Denpasar, Bali (available 2-3 times a flight Denpasar-Labuan Bajo every day). Travelers can also use a flight route Kupang Labuan Bajo-flight service even though this is only available once a week.

There is also a sea route, the ferry from Sape NTB ready to Labuanbajo or mengantarakan You can also use the ship Pelni from Sheet Harbour, Lombok (1 time in 2 weeks).

From Labuanbajo, a city located in the westernmost part of Flores Island is the journey continues to Komodo Island by speed boat about two hours. Each speed boat for rent with the price of one million dollars back home or you can use the cheaper timber ship, certainly takes a long time.

To get into the area every person charged 15 dollars for foreign tourists and 75 thousand dollars for local tourists for three days.

On this island you are free to look closely dragons are the largest lizard species in the world with an average body length reaches 3.13 meters and weighing up to 165 kg was free to roam.
In addition, you also can watch the various activities of these rare animals, like dragons mating occurs between May to August, the Komodo dragon was eating the deer, goats, pigs and watch the dragons bask in the street and in the branches of trees in the morning.

Komodo Island animals live and breed well. And the most frightening threats are human beings, because human beings hunt deer or wild boar, favorite food of this reptile. Now, the island's only harbor at least one thousand two hundred, dragons. In addition to the P Park, tourists can find dragons on the other islands are still covered in the Komodo National Park which is the island of Rinca and Padar, so that their overall number to approximately 2500 individuals.

The island became a national park was also stores a variety of exotic flora wood by local people Sepang which is used as a medicine and dye clothes, this nitak tree or sterculia oblongata in the believe is useful as medicines and seeds are tasty and delicious like peas.

The Komodo Dragon (Varanus komodoensis) is an endangered species which can only be found in the Komodo National Park (KNP) in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT). Because of the unique and rare nature of this animal, KNP was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986.

The park includes three major islands, Komodo, Rinca and Padar, and numerous smaller islands together totaling 603 km2 of land. The total size of Komodo National Park is presently 1,817 km2. Proposed extensions of 25 km2 of land (Banta Island) and 479 km2 of marine waters would bring the total surface area up to 2,321 km2.At least 2500 Komodos live in this area. Large dragons are usually three meters long and weigh up to 90 kg. Their habitat has beautiful panoramic views of savannas, rain forests, white beaches, beautiful corals, and clean blue seas. In this area, you can also find horses, wild buffalo, deer, wild boar, snakes, monkeys, and various types of birds.

KNP has a rich and amazing underwater sea biotica. Divers claim that Komodo waters are one of the best diving sites in the world. It has fascinating underwater scenery. You can find 385 species of beautiful corals, mangrove forests, and seaweeds as a home for thousands of fish species, 70 types of sponges, 10 types of dolphins, 6 types of whales, green turtles and various types of sharks and stingrays.

The sea around Komodo Island offers vibrant colors and exotic marine life which will enchant divers and snorkelers alike as endless schools of fish ride the waterways rushing up from deep sea vents, below them the seabed is covered with a thick carpet of florescent corals and marine invertebrates, an underwater photographers paradise.

The waters that surround the island are turbulent and teeming with unparalled marine life. A marine reserve has recently been established and this reserve is largely undocumented and remains unexplored. Komodo National Park was established in 1980. It was declared as a Man and Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site in 1986. KNP includes three major islands - Komodo, Rinca and Padar and numerous smaller islands together totaling 41,000 ha of land contains 132,000 ha of marine waters.

The corals in Komodo National park are pristine, with Mantas, sharks, turtles, dolphins, dugong, many pelagics, to the tiny pygmy seahorses, nudibranchs, frog fish, you name it we've got it. The sites vary from gentle easy coral slopes to heart pounding adrenalin rides, from the warm waters of the Flores Sea in the north to the chillier waters down south in the Indian Ocean, the underwater terrain is so varied with sheer cliff walls, pinnacles, sandy flat bottoms, underwater plateaus, slopes, caves, swim-throughs, channels, all with varying colours, sizes and types of coral both hard and soft.

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Raja Ampat

 

Raja Ampat is a fraction Sorong, since 2003. District has a population of 31 thousand souls has 610 islands (only 35 islands are inhabited) with a total area of about 46,000 km2, but only 6,000 km2 of land, 40,000 km2 in the sea. The islands are unspoiled and the sea is still beautiful to make direct tourists hooked.

The archipelago is a place that has the potential to serve as a tourist attraction, especially diving tourism. Raja Ampat Islands waters according to various sources, is one of the 10 best waters for diving sites around the world. In fact, it may also be recognized as number one for the completeness of underwater flora and fauna at this time.

Dr. John Veron, coral experienced experts from Australia, for example, in a site it is revealed, the Raja Ampat Islands located in the westernmost tip of New Guinea, about 50 miles northwest of Sorong, has the best reef areas in Indonesia. Approximately 450 species of coral had been identified during the two weeks of research in the area.

A team of experts from Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and National Oceanographic Institutions (Lon) Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) have done a quick assessment in 2001 and 2002. As a result, they noted in these waters there are more than 540 species of hard corals (75% of the total species in the world), more than 1,000 species of reef fish, 700 types of mollusks, and the highest record for gonodactyloid stomatopod crustaceans. This makes 75% species of the world's coral species in Raja Ampat. None of the places with the same area has a number of coral species as much as this.
1,606 species of reef fish in the Bird’s Head Seascape
1,397 species of reef fish in Raja Ampat
35 species of endemic reef fish found only in the Birds Head Seascape
603 species of hard coral recorded in the Bird’s Head Seascape10 times the number of hard coral species found in the entire Caribbean
57 species of Mantis Shrimp in the Birds Head Seascape
13 species of Marine Mammals in the Bird’s Head Seascape
5 species of endangered sea turtles in the Bird’s Head Seascape
Incredible !

There are several areas of coral reefs that are still very good condition with the percentage of live coral cover to 90%, namely in the Dampier Strait (the strait between P. Waigeo and P. Batanta), Kofiau Islands, Islands and South East Misool Wayag Islands. Types of coral reefs in Raja Ampat is generally fringing reef with gentle slope to steep contour. But it was also found atoll type and type of burns or taka. In some places like the village Saondarek, when the lowest tides, coral reefs can be seen without a dive and with his own adaptation, the corals can still be alive despite being in the open air and direct sunlight.

Unique species that can occur during diving is some kind of dwarf sea horses, wobbegong, manta rays and fish. There are also four endemic fish king, namely Eviota king, which is a kind of fish gobbie. At Manta Point which is located in Dampier strait Arborek, you can dive in the company of some tail Manta Ray is benign like when you dive in Derawan Islands, East Kalimantan. If you dive at Cape Kri or Chicken Reef, you can be surrounded by thousands of fish. Sometimes a collection of tuna, giant trevallies and snappers. But those tense when we are surrounded by a collection of barracuda fish, although in fact it's relatively harmless (which is dangerous if we see barracuda solitary or alone). Reef sharks are also frequently seen, and if lucky you can also see the turtle is still eating sponge or swim around you. In some places like in Salawati, Batanta and Waigeo also seen dugong or sea cow.

Because the area of many islands and narrow straits, so most of the dive at a particular time has a strong current. It allows also to perform drift dive, dive, following a strong flow of water is very clear as he broke through a collection of fish.

The World Bank in collaboration with global environmental institutions establish Raja Ampat as one region in East Indonesia, which received assistance Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program (Coremap) II, since 2005. In Raja Ampat, this program covers 17 villages and involve the local population. Fishermen are also trained to cultivate fish, grouper and sea grass. Especially for you who are not interested in diving activities, the blue expanse of ocean that refract the beauty of the sky, a sprinkling of white sand that radiate like a pearl sheen, can be enjoyed. In addition, there are group of islands with a fascinating and unique flora and fauna such as red paradise, paradise Wilson, maleo Waigeo, various parrots and parrot, possum Waigeo, as well as various types of orchids. Diving on the island of Papua Mansuar is one of the leading resorts in this region. Foreign tourists diving enthusiasts at home for days in a month even enjoy the beauty of Raja Ampat's there and stay in Papua Diving.

Each year the resort is visited at least 600 special tourist who spent an average of two weeks. Lodging is very simple that only a walled and roofed woven palm leaves that cost at least 75 euros, or Rp 900,000 a night. If you want to dive must pay 30 euros, or approximately USD 360,000 once a dive at one particular location. Most tourists come from Europe. Only a few tourists from Indonesia to stay and dive in there. Kri Island, Waigeo, and Misool also prepare the resort for visitors. On the island there Misool Eco Resort is built by applying the principles of strict nature conservation. There are agreements with indigenous populations around the region to maintain an integrated ecosystem-called "No Take Zone" which prohibits any taking of marine exploitation, ranging from hunting shells, turtle eggs, shark's fin to just fishing. In the extreme, even in eco resort prohibits the use of antiseptics as waste exhaust feared would kill the coral reef ecosystem in the vicinity.

Some resorts are relatively expensive to set prices for presenting a complete facility. Travelers with limited costs can also take advantage of government-owned resorts are much cheaper in the area Waisai, the capital of Raja Ampat. You have to fly first to Airport Domne Eduard Osok, Sorong, Papua, and then directly to the location by speed boat with a capacity of about 10 people at a rate of Rp 3.2 million each way. It takes about 3-4 hours to reach the area of Raja Ampat Islands in particular to Mansuar. To get around the island you want, we can hire a speedboat capacity of 10 persons with a price of USD 3-5 million per 8 hours, depending on the intelligence we offer. We can also take a package tour by visiting the village to see typical local plants and animals such as birds of Paradise.

To enter the area of Raja Ampat, each person must pay an entrance fee of Rp 250 thousand for domestic tourists, and Rp 500 thousand for tourists from abroad. A round pin that serves as this identity we will receive, after paying the fee. Uniquely, the pin is valid for one year, from 1 January to 31 December. So if in one year that we go back and forth to visit Raja Ampat, only need to pay an entrance fee only once. Of course, the pins were not allowed to be lost and should we wear as identification.

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