With over 17,000 islands, Indonesia has a ton of great snorkeling destinations and sites. As snorkeling professionals, we have spent a significant amount of time exploring this vast archipelago and we've decided to come up with our own list of the country's best snorkeling sites. Of course, this list is completely subject to seasons, marine life behavior, personal preferences, currents, visibility and so much more. You could snorkel what many people might consider as "the best site in Indonesia", only to find that the marine life is scarce, the visibility is poor, and the coral doesn't appear very vibrant on account of the cloud cover at that given moment leaving you a bit confused about what people are talking about. Please note that when talking about snorkeling sites in such a subjective way we also need to take into account the unpredictable element of nature as well. Please note that these sites aren't ranked or presented in a sort of order, we simply think these are some of the best snorkeling sites in Indonesia. Tatawa Kecil | Komodo Tatawa Kecil is not a site we are able to visit often as it's a small rock in the middle of a very current-prone channel in Komodo. However, when the currents are amendable we can explore this small rock island and enjoy the surreal beauty beneath its rugged topside. This site is all about large hard coral formations, big fish, potential for manta rays, and all-around excitement. Current: Mild to none (when we snorkel it) Visibility: Typically very good Reef: Mostly made up of hard corals with some sponges and soft corals mixed in. Marine Life: Anthias, Fusileers, Bluefin Trevally, Giant Trevally, Napoleon Wrass, Giant Sweetlips, Many different types of butterfly fish and angel fish, Scorpionfish, Hawksbill Sea turtles, Whitetip
With over 17,000 islands, Indonesia has a ton of great snorkeling destinations and sites. As snorkeling professionals, we have spent a significant amount of time exploring this vast archipelago and we’ve decided to come up with our own list of the country’s best snorkeling sites. Of course, this list is completely subject to seasons, marine
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
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
Location Description Halmahera is the large odd-shaped island just west of the Raja Ampat region and east of northern Sulawesi. In terms of tourism, it's pretty much new to the scene. With the exception of the occasional liveaboard passing through and the two snorkel and dive resorts in the southern tip, Halmahera is rarely visited by snorkeling enthusiasts. This lack of tourism is by no means a reflection of the area's reefs and snorkeling potential, quite the opposite actually. Halmahera's unique position between two of the world's most bio-diverse marine eco-systems—Sulawesi and Raja Ampat—makes it one seriously good destination for snorkeling. There are two ways to arrive to Halmahera for snorkeling, with the first being by plane. There are a number of routes in which to arrive, however, the easiest and most comfortable is via Manado in North Sulawesi. From Manado, it's a short hop to the small port town of Labuha which may or may not involve a brief stopover in Ternate. Once in Labuha, it's a quick shuttle ride to the harbor followed by a 30-minute boat to Kusu Island Resort where all the snorkeling will stem from. The other way to get to Halmahera is by liveaboard. At least at the moment, liveaboards do not start or finish from Halmahera directly. Instead, any liveaboard snorkel safari to Halmahera will begin in Sorong and sail through Raja Ampat as well as Halmahera before finishing in Lembeh Strait in North Sulawesi, or vice versa. There's just not enough infrastructure to support the refueling and stocking of high-end liveaboards in Halmahera at the moment. The best snorkeling in Halmahera is around the south between the southern island, Bacan (pronounced Bachan), and Halmahera island to the north. Around this channel, you'll find numerous smaller islands fringed with stunning shallow coral reefs.
Location Description Halmahera is the large odd-shaped island just west of the Raja Ampat region and east of northern Sulawesi. In terms of tourism, it’s pretty much new to the scene. With the exception of the occasional liveaboard passing through and the two snorkel and dive resorts in the southern tip, Halmahera is rarely visited
In late November of 2021, I had the pleasure of being able to visit a brand new snorkel and dive resort in Indonesia called Kusu Island Resort in southern Halmahera. Halmahera, if you're wondering, is the large odd-shaped island just west of the Raja Ampat area. I was visiting Kusu Island Resort for two reasons, the first was to check it out as a potential resort to run our snorkeling safaris through, and the second was to produce some promotional content for the new resort. As Kusu Island Resort is not 100% open to the public yet because of the seriously annoying restrictions to still in place for foreigners visiting Indonesia, I was the only “guest” and had the whole place to myself for two full weeks. Yes, my job has some serious perks! Anyway, my time was not spent lounging around, quite the opposite actually. I used every bit of daylight and a good portion of the night to explore as much of the reefs and resort as possible to make sure everything is “up to snuff.” Here's what I found. The Resort Upon landing at the Labuha airport on the island of Bacan (pronounced Bachan), just off the southwest corner of Halmahera you'll be met by a member of the Kusu Island Resort team and taken to the nearby port where you'll jump into the resort's comfortable speedboat and driven about thirty minutes to Kusu Island, where the resort is, obviously. The resort has been incorporated into the island in a very natural way and the only evidence you'll see of the resort, in the beginning, is a long—beautifully built pier that extends from the mangroves and ends where the reef drops off into the blue. It's only when the boat is parking on the wooden pier that
In late November of 2021, I had the pleasure of being able to visit a brand new snorkel and dive resort in Indonesia called Kusu Island Resort in southern Halmahera. Halmahera, if you’re wondering, is the large odd-shaped island just west of the Raja Ampat area. I was visiting Kusu Island Resort for two reasons,
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