Shore diving in Manado?

Booked for April 17 Lembeh and Manado. Is there any shore diving in Manado, or do you always hop on a boat and head to Bunaken. Will be staying at Murex, although its not the only choice available.

Also, on another thread someone mentioned water temps of 20-22C in Lembeh in May and June. Is this true of April, also? None of the operator web sites mentions water this cold. They all advertise year round water temps in the 24-26C range. Could this be marketing at work?

Murex in Manado does have a beach with shore diving. It is a patch type of reef and does have some varieties of anemone fish to photograph.

I can't comment on water temp in April but found my 3/2 full was perfect for October and some dives racked up to 90 minutes. I did find the dives on the Bunaken side warm enough for no wetsuit.

I dove Bunaken in late March-early April 2002. According to my dive log water temp. was between 26-28 degrees celsius. I was doing up to five dives per day in a 3 mm. and never felt cold. I dove with Thalassa/Santika. There was no shore diving, but some sites were very close, such as the Molas wreck.

I never made it to Lembeh but I've read elsewhere that the water temp. can be about 4-5 degrees celsius cooler at that time of year.

Cheers.