Bunaken Island Diving

Depan Kampung

Located in the south east section of the island and literally meaning "In front of the village", Depan Kampung offers quite a variety in underwater Bunaken diving terrains.

Starting your dive on the wall to the west, you can drift along at a healthy pace admiring the vast numbers of pretty pyramid butterflyfish, black damsels, and juvenile redtooth triggerfish. Neon and yellow dash fusiliers are scattered everywhere. Large black and white banded sea snakes slide up and down through the dendronephthya corals in search of easy pickings.

Round one of the jutting seams that split the reef and you may just startle a whitetip reef shark. Normally skittish and only occassionally inquisitive, the sharks may circle a few times if you have piqued their interest, otherwise they'll race off past the batfish into the depths.

About half way through the dive the wall gives way to a steep slope dominated by branching green cup corals and pink hydroids. Here there's always plenty of yellow margin triggerfish, gilded triggerfish and angelfish. The blue gilded angelfish is always a pleasure to see with its luminous orange markings.

Time for your safety stop and time to slow things down a little. With some careful attention you could find leaf scorpionfish, many different nudibranchs, picasso tobies, and the photogenic razorfish, quite common at Bunaken Island.

Depan Kampung Reef Basics: Wall and slope
Depth: 5 - >40m
Visibility: 20 - 30m
Currents: Can be strong
Surface conditions: Calm
Water temperature: 27 - 30°C
Experience level: Beginner - advanced
Number of dive sites: 1
Diving season: All year round, but can be rough from January to March
Distance: ~18 km north of Manado Bay (40 mins)
Access: Bunaken and Manado resorts and liveaboards

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