Kungkungan Bay diving restrictions

Hi All,

I will be going to Kungkungan Bay resort in Lembeh in July and received their canned "diving restrictions". Basically in caps, it says no solo diving. Does anyone know if they actually enforce that if they determine you are an experienced diver? I realize that hanging with the guides is effective due to finding cool animals and I intend to do that. But I'd like some flexibility to not have to worry about HAVING to have my wife with me just to meet the solo diving rules. Anyone have any feedback from practical hands-on diving experience?

Also, can you shore dive solo, or must I arrange for a guide to accompany me (assuming my wife does not want to dive)?

Are there scheduled mandran fish dives?

Any feedback relative to diving flexibility and freedom is most helpful and welcome.

Let me put it this way. If you're diving with a guide, you're not diving solo. How close you are to him is another matter! :wink: But they've seen my ugly mug for years and leave me alone anyways. The shore dive is better with a guide in the beginning anyways. Some special spots you may not find. They have tried to tighten the ship recently due to competition from Lembeh Resort. New pool, new management. But the old rules still apply except Steve does tend to keep a watchful eye.

Mandarin dives are scheduled but only by demand. I personally don't like diving with the guides when other photographers are around because they like to manipulate things with their pointers for the shooters and I don't like that. It's been encouraged over the years and it's a bad habit for them to break. Plus when you have a still photographer with strobes, stuff like mimics and wonderpus usually don't hang around after a few strobe shots. Which is reason enough to dive "solo".

I went in July two years ago, and although the management has changed, I can understand why they may be concerned about solo diving. Many of the sites have quite ghastly vis (don't worry...it's still very cool)and it would be tough to find someone if they got into trouble. I solo dove off the beach (on the right side of the dock). You really do have to watch that you stay in close to the shore, as there are some nasty currents in the straight itself. I was fortunate to find seven giant cuttlefish vying for the affection of a female. I got to watch her laying eggs in a large coral head. All in 15 feet of water.

There was pro photographer there that dove solo. No one seemed to have a problem with it at the time.

It's an awesome place for macro. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

Cheers,

Marli

I last went to KBR in March 04. And that was not long after the new management (Steve and Miranda) took over - so things may have changed or smoothed into everyday practice since then.

I went to KBR alone. And was never assigned an official buddy. As Scubadru says - you are buddied with a guide and you don't have to stay on their shoulder, though most choose to because they will see more. I dive solo in most places I go (Cayman and Red Sea) and KBR doesn't offer this style of real solo diving. But as a dedicated solo diver I don't find their unbuddied with a divemaster style too unpleasant.

The house reef is the real test of solo diving at KBR. I dived the house reef quite a lot during my most recent stay and Steve was not happy for me to dive it alone. So whenever I wanted to dive it he would come in with me. Which was very nice of him. They do try and help! I led these dives and did what I wanted. He just tagged along (as far as I was aware!).

The rules on solo diving have changed since I first went to KBR. In the old days lots of people would solo dive the house reef (Constantinos talks about doing it all the time in his book). When I was there in 04, a german photographer was working on a feature on Mantis shrimps and there was one on the house reef in 2m of water - that he wanted to watch all day. He was not allowed to do that on his own. Instead he had to dive with a surface marker buoy whenever his buddy returned to shore for cameras/tanks/food etc.

So it has changed a bit. But they still try and help photographers however they can.

Alex

P.S. There is a mandarinfish dive.

Oops, forgot to mention that they do schedule mandarin fish dives. I didn't make it as I was exhausted. Take a hood, or better yet a 5mm. It's cold (and I dive B.C.!) I wore a 3mm and a Polartec lined skin, and after 75 minutes in 73 degee water...brrr!

I dove KBR this past Aug. 3 boat dives per day., House Reef is closed at 5pm as I recall. Diving House Reef usually means skipping a boat dive. Extra charge for a night dive - this can be where divers want to go, depending on water conditions. Scheduled mandarin twilight/night dives. The guide to diver ratio is very good. During my 6 day stay is varied from 3 guides/8 divers to 3 guides/3 divers. Usually 2 guides/4-6 divers. The guides know where to critters live, so if you haven't dove the sites before I think its best to stay with them. Just tell them what you would like to see.

Night dives there are always good and sometimes astounding. I have come out of the water laughing, unable to elicit any other emotional response after seeing so much. Muck sites are best at night. When I was there last year I night dived every night for 10 days. I'd recommend this strategy, plus it makes it easier to fit 4 dives in each day!

Alex

p.s. In my experience the house reef is open and closed more to do with tides than time of day. I night dived on it several times last year.

I liked the area very much. I dive solo alot, but they wanted to dive with me..... fine....and extra pair of eyes to help my find things and and extra pair of hands to hold things is always welcome if its thrown in. They generally go up after an hour or so, and leave u be. I had a problem in Mataking where the dive master wanted to surface after 50 mins...... i soon set them straight.

I am heading out at the begining of March - and will report back !

I went before the Mgmt change over and it was all fairly relaxed once they were confident in your dive ability.

Looking forward to nudi falls - cannot wait !

In the refurb have they upgraded/refitted the camera room ?

If so are the plugs 2 pin or three pin ?

and finally are KBR offering a service to copy your images to CD of DVD ?

Thanks,

Steve and Maranda are both keen photogaphers and very helpful. I hadn't been to KBR before the refurb but was there in September. The camera room has about 15 stations with 2 choices of voltage. I think from memory they were all 2 pin.

Maranda kindly downloaded images from my compact flash card to CD. At the time i don't think this was an official service but they were happy to help. In any event there were about 6 other photographers there with laptops who would have been happy to assist. Might be worth taking out some blank CD's just in case.

Ref solo diving - I don't think they would officially sanction solo diving but once they have sussed you out they are pretty relaxed about the diving. Twice my partner ducked out of diving and the guides were happy for me to do my own thing and we just kept each other in sight (occasionally) - they were certainly not intrusive. They do have some wicked currents in the Straits and these swirl round into the house reef. With the volume of river traffic in the main straits they are understandably anxious about people diving at the wrong time but again, in my experience, this was tactfully done should people's enthusiasm be getting the better of them.

Steve

PS. If you have time - consider the island trip. Our no fly restictions gave us the last day in Sulawesi and KBR organised a car and guide. We headed up into the mountains into areas rarely visited. Was only a taste of Sulawesi but really quite stunning.

PPS Check out the bat kebabs in the market !