Happy Gecko Dive Resort

We stayed for a whole week, everything was wonderful. Before noon diving, in the afternoon the obligatory massages. Ask for Meifi Gosal. The food was fantastic, unfortunately The houses are furnished basic, but each of them has a magical view In practice, you don't need anything extra.

This was my second trip to The Happy Gecko and Bunaken Island, and I enjoyed it even more this time. Owners Willeke and her husband Jerry are wonderful hosts, and made me feel very welcome. I requested a vegetarian diet, and the food was amazing! On some days I skipped lunch so I could walk to the other side of the island to snorkel. Their delicious breakfasts and dinners made up for it! The Happy Gecko has several cottages that are reached by a cement walkway up the hill behind the dining area/bar. All have a patio and a view of the ocean. Down in front of the open dining area is the beach and some groves of mangroves. You can walk west in front of the Bunaken Oasis or southeast to the main part of Liang Beach in the evenings to view the sunset over the sea and Manado Tua, an extinct volcano just north from Bunaken. I am a snorkeler and had an amazing time in the water, usually several times a day. I also did a couple of night snorkels right in front of the Happy Gecko. The dive crew was very good at inviting me along in the boat on the dive trips. They dropped me off at the edge of the reef while they dived nearby. I brought along an inflatable yellow buoy that I towed with a short rope to be safe on my solo snorkeling adventures - to make sure other boats would see me, and the Happy Gecko boat could easily spot me for the pickup. Also, my buoy would hold me if I needed that, which never happened. The colorful coral and fish in the Bunaken Marine Park are abundant and diverse, the best I have come across in visits to the Florida Keys, the Southern Caribbean, and the South Pacific (Niue Island). Underwater photography is my hobby and passion, and I came up with enough photos and videos to spend the entire winter reviewing them, inspired by what I saw, and dreaming of my next trip there. (search ‘journeywest coral seas’ to see more of my Bunaken underwater photos). Also, Willeke arranged with a local boat owner (Yan) to take me on exclusive trips over to Siladen Island and the Leukan sites on the south side of Bunaken. I expected that Yan would drop me off and then pick me up later, but he stayed nearby the entire time I was snorkeling, which was several hours. I gave him extra rupiahs because of how boring that must have been for him. Full Disclosure: Like all of Indonesia, trash often washes up on the waves and the tides. The locals on Liang Beach are very quick to clean it up. On a couple days of my 11 day stay at the Happy Gecko it rained VERY hard. This caused enough runoff around the island to cloud the reef the next morning, making for very poor photographs and videos. On the flip side, there were several days that the sea was so calm that it was almost like a lake.