Kusu Island Resort is located on Kusu, a small island in the south of Halmahera Indonesia. The resort is located on the southern side of the island, and the house reef sprawls out in front of the resort. At high tides you can access the reef from your villa if you are on the mangrove side, if you are on the beach side you can access the reef from the beach in front of your villa.
The best and easiest place to access the house reef, at any point of the day, is from the jetty that extends out to where the reef drops off and you can enter and exit via the wooden steps that lead right into the water. The ladder is made of nice wooden planks and spaces between steps are comfortable for most able-bodied people.
Kusu Island Resort’s house reef is fantastic, it’s huge as it pretty much wraps itself all the way around the island. It has some really fantastic shallow hard coral gardens that start about twenty meters off of the beach or mangroves and can be explored at high tides.
At lower tides you won’t be able to access the plateau, instead, you can explore the reef slope which is also great as you have the hard coral reef on one side and the blue water on your other. Where there’s hard coal reef you are likely to encounter many schools of anthias and chromies as well as many other types of reef fish like anemone fish, crocodile fish, lots of fusileers in the blue, lionfish, and quite a few blacktip reef sharks. On a night snorkel, there are good chances of finding walking sharks, cuttlefish, and octopus on the hard coral areas.
The area directly in front of the beach or mangroves is mostly sandy patches with some interesting little colonies of corals and sponges. This is a great place for critters like octopus, scorpionfish, anemones, and even seahorses if you are lucky. On a high tide this area can be awesome for a night snorkel.
Currents can be strong on the house reef, particularly around the full or new moon. We treat this reef with quite a bit of caution in the stronger currents and we may even ask you not to snorkel it when the current is really moving as it can be a safety concern if you are snorkeling without boat support. Aside from the few days around full or new moon the currents tend to be mild and it can be easily and comfortably snorkeled.
