SULAWESI, BUNAKEN ISLAND - SNORKEL AND CELEBRATION - 15 JULY 2017

After breakfast, Jacinta and I boarded the boat for snorkeling. All the others onboard were divers. We stopped at two places and drifted with the currents. There was a lot of fish, and we saw two turtles and coral along the wall. The water was crystal clear. Strangely enough, the coral isn't really very colourful and in some spots non existent. 

The snorkeling has been nice but I am a little disappointed overall with the coral and fish size as this place had a massive rave on being the one of the best in the world. I have snorkel in more awesome places in Nusa Penida, Flores and Rote. One of the people on the boat was Rob who had lived in this area for 15 years and had been doing a variety of environmental studies and surveys. He told me that the marine park was only recent and the lack of coral and larger fish has been caused by bleaching, dynamite fishing, cyanide fishing and boats dragging their anchors across the coral.

Later, that afternoon we walked to one of the villages. There was a celebration at one end of the village. People were doing very loud karaoke and climbing tall poles to win prizes. Most people appeared happy, friendly and smiling. It was very nice.



After the that, Jacinta and I settled into a small restaurant over looking the ocean near the main pier. We watched the locals relax and wandered around slowly while we enjoyed a cold beer.

There was a party at the resort in the evening for the owner who was moving residence to Sanur. They had a little competition and the local guys played some music.