Sponges and Stilts — Bitung → Baubau · 11 days
Bitung → Baubau · 11 days
Eleven days through the Gulf of Tomini and down the middle of Sulawesi, on a route few dive boats ever run. Much of the journey takes place on reefs with no other liveaboards, no day boats and often nobody else in the water. Sulawesi itself sits in Wallacea, between the biological worlds of Asia and Australia. That unusual history shows above and below water, and helps explain why the reefs along this route so often feel unlike anywhere else.
Sponges and Stilts
11 days
Bitung → Baubau
When
April 2029
The route
Bitung · Gorontalo · Una Una · Togian Islands · Walea · Pulau Dua · Banggai · Labengki · Baubau
The diving
Sponge walls · Hard coral · Barracuda · Jacks · Wreck · Macro · Soft coral · Remote reefs
Gorontalo
Where the walls turn surreal
The Gorontalo coast drops almost straight from shore into one of Indonesia’s most unusual sponge-covered walls.
Huge barrel sponges grow beside the patterned sponge locals named after Salvador Dalí, known for the swirling forms across its surface and found almost nowhere else.
Caves, crevices and overhangs cut through the wall, usually in excellent visibility.
Una Una
A volcano full of life
Una Una is essentially a volcano rising out of the Gulf of Tomini, with a village at its foot and healthy hard-coral reefs running down its flanks.
Barracuda school in the blue, jacks form walls, sweetlips gather in numbers and sharks move through reefs that see remarkably few divers.
Togian Islands
Still water, wild reefs
Sheltered inside the gulf, the Togian Islands bring calm water, little current and coral gardens in consistently clear conditions.
A marine lake holds stingless jellyfish, while a nearly intact B24 Liberator lies in shallow water, a wartime aircraft that can be dived on a single tank without technical qualifications. At the eastern end, Walea adds walls, macro slopes and reefs.
Pulau Dua
Where the fish take over
Pulau Dua is about sheer numbers.
Barracuda hang off walls and pinnacles, jacks turn in columns and snapper pack the drop-offs on sites that remain barely dived.
Banggai
Color in the middle of nowhere
The Banggai Islands change the mood again, with dense soft coral and unexpected color in the shallows.
Among the sea urchins lives the Banggai cardinalfish, a small striped species that occurs naturally nowhere else in the world.
Labengki
Beyond the hidden lagoons
Karst towers and hidden bays rise from turquoise water around Labengki, with lagoons that only reveal themselves once the boat is inside.
Locals call it the mini Raja Ampat.
Bajau Villages
Life above the reef
Throughout the journey, Bajau villages stand on stilts above the reef flats, often with no land beneath them at all.
These communities have lived on and above the water for centuries. Visits are made with time and with people who know the villages, rather than simply passing by for photographs.
Baubau
Where the reefs give way to history
The route finishes at Baubau on Buton, beneath the walls of one of the world’s largest fortresses.
It was built by a sultanate that ruled this part of the archipelago for around four centuries, giving the journey a very different final chapter from the reefs and remote islands that come before it.
