A swimming pool with blue loungers around it, planted gardens and a path running down through them
Miles Below · Operator · Lembeh Strait

Lembeh Resort

The resort that set the tone for the strait, and the place Ana and Miguel were running on my first trip before they moved to Siladen. The à la carte format is here too, carried across from Wakatobi by managers who trained there.

01The week
The garden between the rooms and the pool, blue parasols along the water and a painted wooden boat set among the planting.
The garden between the rooms and the pool, blue parasols along the water and a painted wooden boat set among the planting.
At the resort

What the week is actually like

What you are actually buying is the guides. Muck diving is entirely dependent on somebody knowing which patch of sand held a hairy frogfish yesterday, and this team has been working these sites long enough to have that map in their heads.

The camera room and the boat routine are built around photographers rather than tolerating them, which after a week of five-hour macro days is not a small thing.

02The place
03The verdict
80
Operator · Lembeh Resort
B+
Grade

The pale band on each row is the range every scored operator on this site covers.

How the scoring works

Operation
8
Camera*
10
Food
8
Setting
7
Value
8
Sustainability
7
Total
48/60
*Camera
10/10SETS THE STANDARD
An open-sided timber drying room, wetsuits and towels on hangers along the rail, a bench down one side and dive notices pinned by the door.
An open-sided timber drying room, wetsuits and towels on hangers along the rail, a bench down one side and dive notices pinned by the door.
04Before you book
The photographer's questions

For the camera

The camera
StationLarge
Camera roomTemperature controlledLarge room, 16+ stations, temperature controlled
Power220V
Camera room outlets6+
Extra power barAvailable on request
Air gunsYes
Camera room chargingIn the camera room
Staff handlingConcierge handling, to boat
EntrySmall boats ; backward roll
Rinse, resortNumerous
Rinse, boatYes
The diving
Dive time60 minutes
Guide ratio4:1 maximum
Photography guideYes
NitroxUpgrade
Tanks80L and 100L
Miles to edit

Camera and diving facts still missing: Unguided.
Same shape as Misool's in operator-facts.json: v, n, src.

Miles, 23 Sep 2026, operator-and-stay-facts sheet

Worth knowing

Three things nobody tells you

The transfer takes real time: fly into Manado, then a taxi that can run two to three hours depending on traffic, then a short water taxi across to the resort.

The water runs colder here than the tropical setting suggests — a 3mm suit left me properly cold by the end of a diving day. Bring a hood.

The resort sits on a cliff face. Garden suites are the easy walk; the view suites can mean hundreds of steps. Worth knowing if you don't want to climb every day.

05The money

Flights, transfers and what to sort first

Most trips begin through Manado, then a short road and boat transfer into the strait.

DAILY RATE
$300 to $550  a day, USD, at the resort
Getting there
Manado (MDC), then road and boat into the strait. Straightforward, which is part of why it works for repeat trips.
Expectations
This is muck diving and that is the point. Arrive wanting walls and you are in the wrong place.
Nitrox
Worth it. Longer bottom times mean better photographs, not deeper ones.
Gear
Macro and super-macro, snoot, and a focus light you trust. Leave the dome at home.
Combine it
Manado also reaches Bunaken and Bangka. Three areas, one set of flights.
06Prints
07The trip
Lembeh Strait
A solar-powered nudibranch, Phyllodesmium parangatum, arms raised, the Lembeh Strait
Would you dive Lembeh Strait?

Put your hand up and I will tell you when a trip is planned

There is no trip here yet. Where they go next is decided by who puts their hand up, so this counts as a vote for Lembeh Strait — and it also gets you each new guide as it is finished. Four or five emails a year.

Four emails a year, unsubscribe in one click, and the address goes nowhere else.

Back to the top