Time is priceless, especially vacation time. A two week dream diving holiday to an exotic location might seem like enough time to really relax and fill your log book, but ten days in you will already be dreading the inevitable task of packing away your mask and fins for the long journey home. While the diving within the Bunaken Marine Park is fantastic, it is certainly not everything that North Sulawesi has to offer, and many of our guests will combine a trip to Siladen with another resort in the Lembeh Strait for some of the finest muck diving Earth has to offer.

The only thing that puts people off from booking some days here at Siladen and some days in Lembeh is the transfer in between, and it is an understandable concern. Why would you want to spend one of your precious vacation days sat in a car transferring over land when you could be in the water?

Since the arrival of Siladen 12 back in 2015, and her sister Siladen 14 last year, we are able to reach Lembeh by boat in just over two hours, passing through another world renowned diving spot, the Bangka archipelago. The diving in Bangka is very different to the diving in Bunaken, with gentle sandy slopes carpeted in technicolour soft corals rather than endless walls encrusted with sponges and sea fans. By taking a boat transfer between Bunaken and Lembeh, you will have the opportunity to make two dives, and enjoy the beautiful views along the way.

To transfer from Siladen to Lembeh, we usually leave at around 08:00, and after around one hour and fifteen minutes we will be at our first dive site of the day. Upon surfacing from our first dive we will head to our next spot, and after some tea, cookies, fruit, and relaxation, we will be ready to kit up once more for our next dive. This dive will probably take us after 13:00, and no doubt the post dive hunger pangs will be starting to kick in. If time and the tide allows, we can head to one of the beautiful beaches throughout the archipelago for a spot of lunch, or if time is running short because you wanted to do extra-long dives, we can have lunch on the boat during our final stretch of travel. To enter the Lembeh Strait from Bangka will take roughly 45 minutes, and we should be pulling into the resort jetty just after 14:00.
You can arrange this transfer with us directly on site, or book in advance. As the boat will cross between two different seas, the Celebes and the Molucca, we must take the weather into consideration before departure, as flat seas and good conditions on this side of North Sulawesi doesn’t mean it will be the same over on the other side.

We can also make this transfer in reverse, so if you are first visiting Lembeh, we can pick you up by boat and you still get to enjoy some diving while travelling here to Siladen. We will pick you up at your resort at around 08:00, and you should be arriving here in time for a late lunch (of course we also will bring some food with us on the boat). If you would like the arrange this before, just contact us at reservations@siladen.com to let us know your travel plans.