Marantale
It’s unfortunate to hear that not a lot of people have known of this location, let alone have dived in it. This place is truly beautiful filled with a wide variety of humongous corals, sponges and sea fans. These corals are enormous, of which many are stretching up to 4m in length. Accompanying these corals are a huge range of beautiful colourful reef fishes, such as Anthias fish, butterfly fish, and many more. In this water also cohabits a specific sponge, which was proclaimed by many magazines to have only been found in Togean. Yeap, the Salvador Dali sponge, although not abundant like in Togean water, you can still find several of these “special” sponges in Marantale. Another special thing about this dive site is its super clear visibility. There are barely any particles in the water, and the visibility is reaching up to 40m. The blue shade of the water is very cool and calm, almost unreal, which made us constantly wondering whether we were diving in a swimming pool or some kind of aquarium.
In Marantale, we went to two dive sites, none of which had been named. We told our dive guides that next time when they bring in other guests to this particular dive spot, they should tell them that the first location is called “Maymel”. Maymel as in Mayang-Melati, that’s me and my sister. We love this dive site soo much and we thought itd be so cool to have dive location named after us. Hahhaha, although I must say, I’m not so sure whether the plan will follow through.
For the second dive site, my dad thought of the name “Grand Canyon”. Despite the fact that this name is widely used among many dive sites around the world, my dad reckoned that Grand Canyon would best suit this place. The topology of this dive site is very varied, and almost feels like you’re flying all around Grand Canyon in US. Not that I would know, I’ve never actually been to America, but hey, that name sounds pretty cool. I guess its pretty popular that perhaps, and hopefully, would attract many tourists from around the world.
As you may have probably guessed earlier, or from the photos, this place is for predominantly for wide-angle lovers. With its magnificent corals and superb visibility, it looks like as if you are diving in one of those dive magazines. So here’s a suggestion, if you ever do go out and visit marantale and bring a camera, use you wide-angle lens. You will walk away with such amazing photos. However, there are also several interesting critters here, for those of you who adore macro life as well. My sister had taken many interesting macro pictures during this day trip; feel free to check out her blog.
It’s such a shame that not a lot of people know about Marantale, I think its beauty is simply underrated. I hope to see many dive resorts around Marantale soon, because I can see it as a popular dive location. At the moment, the only dive resort around is Prince John, in Donggala and even when you’re there, it is still another 3 hours away from the resort by car.
In Marantale, we went to two dive sites, none of which had been named. We told our dive guides that next time when they bring in other guests to this particular dive spot, they should tell them that the first location is called “Maymel”. Maymel as in Mayang-Melati, that’s me and my sister. We love this dive site soo much and we thought itd be so cool to have dive location named after us. Hahhaha, although I must say, I’m not so sure whether the plan will follow through.
For the second dive site, my dad thought of the name “Grand Canyon”. Despite the fact that this name is widely used among many dive sites around the world, my dad reckoned that Grand Canyon would best suit this place. The topology of this dive site is very varied, and almost feels like you’re flying all around Grand Canyon in US. Not that I would know, I’ve never actually been to America, but hey, that name sounds pretty cool. I guess its pretty popular that perhaps, and hopefully, would attract many tourists from around the world.
As you may have probably guessed earlier, or from the photos, this place is for predominantly for wide-angle lovers. With its magnificent corals and superb visibility, it looks like as if you are diving in one of those dive magazines. So here’s a suggestion, if you ever do go out and visit marantale and bring a camera, use you wide-angle lens. You will walk away with such amazing photos. However, there are also several interesting critters here, for those of you who adore macro life as well. My sister had taken many interesting macro pictures during this day trip; feel free to check out her blog.
It’s such a shame that not a lot of people know about Marantale, I think its beauty is simply underrated. I hope to see many dive resorts around Marantale soon, because I can see it as a popular dive location. At the moment, the only dive resort around is Prince John, in Donggala and even when you’re there, it is still another 3 hours away from the resort by car.
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