Gorontalo Diving

Sentinels

This is a rather unusual Gorontalo dive site offering a wide diversity of habitats and consequently Sentinels has great fish life.

Sentinels offers a series of 26 pinnacles at various depths running south west along the fringe of a sloping reef with a shallow reef flat. Some pinnacles rise up like long thin fingers, others like stumpy buttresses with series' of tiered acropora table corals. White fox-tail colonial tunicates hang from the overhangs at the base of the pinnacles.

On the sand bottom you can see red or purple fire gobies, lemon sea pens and quilled sea pens, tube anemones, flatheads, garden eels and ribbon eels. Yellow margin triggerfish excavate sand bunkers to use as nests.

Slowly ascend through the pinnacles you're sure to find lionfish, barramundi, lyre-tail grouper, solor wrasse and orange-back wrasse. These latter fish are endemic to the area and are easy to identify - orange back, blue belly and purple head. The very rare pink-eyed goby can be found here, so too are hingebeak shrimps and Sarasvati's commensal shrimp (only identified in 2002).

As you move up the reef slope watch out for the Indian mimic surgeonfish, Lamarck's angelfish, orangetip bristletooths, yellowtail fusiliers and hybrid flasher wrasse. As you can see from that list, this Gorontalo diving site offers an excellent snapshot of most major tropical fish groupings and has something for everyone.

Sentinels Reef Basics: Pinnacles
Depth: 5 - >40m
Visibility: 12 - 20m
Currents: Gentle
Surface conditions: Can be choppy
Water temperature: 28 - 30°C
Experience level: Beginner - advanced
Number of dive sites: 5
Diving season: November - April
Distance: ~25 km east of Gorontalo (40 mins)
Access: Gorontalo dive resorts

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