Dive Review of Kasawari Lembeh Resort in
Indonesia/Lembeh Strait

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Kasawari Lembeh Resort, Jan, 2008, by Doug Segar & Elaine Stamman, CA, USA ( 2 reports). Report 3893.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	This was our sixth trip to Lembeh, having always stayed at Kungkungan Bay (KBR) in the past. Kasawari is a beautiful resort that offers the perfect situation for photographers. The resort is centrally located in the strait, which makes for short rides to all the best sites on very comfortable boats. It is compactly laid out so trips to your room, dive shop, camera room, dining, and dive boats are mercifully short for older divers. Nestled between lush rainforest and the local village, you feel safe while still feeling tucked away in an ideal setting. There are 8 villas laid out around a central garden with coconut trees and tropical plantings. Two additional villas have decks and gazebos that overlook the strait. We stayed in both of these, Villa 1 with two queens; Villa 2 with one king. These rooms are huge with a desk, sofa, two closets, a safe, mini-refrigerator, AC, ceiling fan, bathrobes, coffeemaker, and WiFi access (nominal fee – bring your own computer). The bathrooms are huge with a two-sink vanity area, tons of hot water, and a door to a private little garden with an outdoor shower. Villa 2 is next to the rainforest, while Villa 1 is a footstep from the infinity pool with Jacuzzi jets and a waterfall. The other villas are equally beautiful, just a bit smaller and without the location overlooking the strait. The dive area is spacious. Gearing up areas are in a large covered open-air space next to the pool. Huge rinse tanks are dedicated for cameras and for wetsuits, and there are hot showers and toilets/dressing areas. The routine is a continental breakfast, first dive at 7:30am, full breakfast, second dive at 10:30am, lunch, third dive at 2:30, snack, dusk or night dive if you’re still game, dinner, and sleep! You put your gear out when you first arrive and you never have to deal with it again. The staff assemble your gear, fill the tanks on board the boats between dives, and rinse your gear at the end of the day. Boats are stable, covered, and have a dry area upfront. There is a bin under your tank for your fins and mask, so you simply put your tank on while seated, then take one or two steps, and giant stride off the low boat deck and you’re in the water. The boat crew is incredibly helpful, being particularly considerate of those with back problems or age issues. As soon as you are out of the water, crew provides water to drink, hot towel for your face, a dry towel, and fresh fruit. Food is more than ample and quality is quite good, a mix of asian and western offerings, ordering off an extensive menu or selecting from a buffet when there are more guests. The bar/dining area is upstairs with a view of the strait. The staff are the best! We have known the manager, Nuswanto Lobbu (Nus), for ten years since he was “just” a terrific dive master at KBR. He is personable and is doing a great job running the resort (and still does a great job finding critters when he has the rare chance to dive). He has a degree in engineering and is very resourceful, even doing an emergency repair on an auto-inflate for us. Nus has assembled a wonderful team, including office and dining staff, housekeeping and grounds crews. Of course, the diving team is phenomenal. With the exception of a few of the newest staff, we know all of the dive guides, both at Kasawari and the other resorts from our many previous trips. It is great fun to see all of them again, whether boating past them, at a site, or even underwater! At Kasawari, we consider Ali a friend, and simply the best dive guide we have ever had (sorry, Nus, you’re second!). He sees even the smallest and best camouflaged critters and can find anything. He is incredibly enthusiastic (even underwater) and never seems to tire of looking for something new to astound you. He is a super-hard worker, and mentors the other dive guides, both through words and example. While we love Ali, all the other guides are also experienced in Lembeh and very adept at finding the strait’s secret critters. As evidenced by our trips back to Lembeh, we cannot say enough about the wonders of the strait. On this trip alone, we saw frogfish (5 species, many actively “fishing”), cuttlefish (flamboyant with some hatching from their eggs, pygmy), octopus (hairy, mimic, blue-ringed, cyanea, coconut or blue-margined – one living in a waterbottle), ribbon eels (blue, black, and yellow), many species of scorpionfish, including Rhinopias (2 species, colors orange, purple, and red), several waspfish species, sea snake, cockatoo flounder and other flatfish, lionfish (at least 3 species), juvenile batfish (2 species), numerous species of pipefish, ghost pipefish, Pegasus, pygmy and other seahorses, flying gurnards, fingered dragonets, electric clam, crabs (decorator, Porcelain, orangutan, zebra), squat and hairy lobsters, many species of shrimp (including harlequin), and many species of nudibranchs (including a Spanish dancer, solar nudi, Melibe, mini-solar nudis). Habitat is at such a premium, in one small hole, we saw 5 eels (3 species), a large swimming crab, 2 species of cleaner shrimp, cleaner wrasse, and domino fish! Even above water, we were treated to what was obviously a mating congregation of large frigate birds circling the land. If you have any doubts about Lembeh diving, feel free to visit our website (reefimages.com) to see slide shows of some of the marvelous critters you will encounter. We simply cannot give any higher recommendation to photographers interested in rare critters than Kasawari – shoot away in luxury!
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomons, Philippines, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Palau, Australia, Hawaii, Red Sea, Caribbean (various), California, UK
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm, no currents
Water Temp	79-81°F / 26-27°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	20-60 Ft/ 6-18 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	None
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	None	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	None	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	The camera room is a photog’s delight with 21 individual spaces, shelving underneath, towels, outlets with both 110 and 220, and compressed air. It is well-lit and locked at night with security guards nearby. You signal that your camera is ready by putting it in a bin in the camera room, the staff carry it to the rinse tank for your water inspection, take it to the boat in the bin where it is well protected, hand it to you in the water, and then repeat the process, taking it to the camera room for you after its rinse.

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Dive Review of Kasawari Lembeh Resort in Indonesia/Lembeh Strait

Kasawari Lembeh Resort, Jan, 2008,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Kasawari Lembeh Resort in
Indonesia/Lembeh Strait