This week in Bunaken … It doesn’t matter if you are a seasoned diver or taking your first breaths under water, it is always a great treat to come across a turtle during a dive. Here in Bunaken we are properly spoiled as we see turtles on a daily basis.

Of the seven spieces of sea turtles found worldwide we are lucky to have two of them here; green turtles and hawksbill turtles. Both of them are on IUCN’s Red List of endangered species (hawksbill turtles are even considered critically endangered) which makes it even more special for us here at Bunaken since we have both of them in such abundance. An interesting fact about sea turtles is that since they spend their life at sea they take up water from the surrounding ocean. This water is of course very salty and the turtles have the ability to separate the salt from the water and later gets rid of the salt by crying very salty tears! So don’t worry if you see a crying turtle, it might not be as sad as it looks like! (Photo: Green turtle, courtesy of Shantala Mählberger)

Apart from turtles the divers have been treated to several shark sightings as well as eagle rays. On the smaller scale it seems to be plenty of ghost pipe fish around with sightings of ornate, robust, velvet and slender ghost pipe fish and during a night dive the divers got to witness a fight between two rare ocellated lionfish (Dendrochirus biocellatus).

We have been busy with courses and have welcomed several new PADI Open Water divers to the wonders of the underwater world as well as PADI Advanced and Specialty divers.

Lastly we are sad to say goodbye to our DMT Pia who is moving to Two Fish in Lembeh to finish her PADI Divemaster course, but very happy to welcome a new DMT; Wim from Belgium.