Diving Fukui from Manado

The area: North Sulawesi, the island: Bunaken, the diving: fantastic! Only a 20-minute boat ride away from our diving resort in Manado, you can find Fukui. This is a dive site on the south-western side of Bunaken island, and it’s quite a doozy!

You’re might be wondering why this site has such a Japanse-sounding name. Fukui Point was named after the capital of a Japanese prefecture. We’re not sure who came up with the site’s name, but there you go…

Refer to this great illustration by Machiko Kagii to familiarize yourself with the site:

Starting the dive

Descending from the boat, you first arrive above the mooring blocks at a shallow, sandy flat. A great place for some macro photography, you can see nudibranchs scouring the bottom.

North Sulawesi coral variety

Swimming towards the slope’s edge, you will move eastward to descend to a depth of about 15 meters. Here you encounter stag horn coral and an impressive slope full of cabbage corals. You’re surrounded by large schools of spade fishes, black snappers, goat fish and batfish. Sometimes turtles saunter into the area as well.

Following the slope at depth, you come to (in my opinion) the highlight of the dive: a small group of giant clams. And with that I do mean GIANT clams. Consequently, it’s essential you keep yourself streamlined, so make sure nothing is within reach of these big guys!

Enormous barrel sponges emerge from the bottom like alien factory smoke stacks. In addition, carpet anemones are furiously defended by clown fish with attitude.

Coming back around

If you keep your eyes on the blue, you can see a white- or blacktip reef shark knifing through the water. Similarly, the occasional school of blackfin barracuda will be passing by.

Once you complete the loop of the dive, you return to sandy flats at low depth. As a result, your safety stop practically takes care of itself. This is a perfect opportunity to inspect the small artificial reef here. Garden eels poke their heads through the sand to keep an eye out for predators. However, they quickly retreat back into the sand as our boat’s shadow floats over the bottom before it’s time to go back up.

Diving Fukui at Bunaken is a spectacular dive to do in North Sulawesi with a wide range of wildlife. On top of that, it’s a perfect place for divers of any skill level to practice!

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