Bunaken Timur — Bunaken | scubaSeason.fun

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Hotels, dive operators, gear, and how to get here are on the Bunaken location page.

Overview

The eastern wall of Bunaken island, generally lighter current than Lekuan and consistently good for pelagic encounters in the blue. Big schools of jacks and the occasional eagle ray cruise the edge. Soft coral coverage is excellent.

What you'll see

4 species curated

Bigeye trevally
year-round
Eagle ray
seasonal
Whitetip reef shark
year-round
Green turtle
year-round

Sightings evidence

1 record on file

Bigeye trevally
high confidence
Last confirmed
May 2026
Recent records
65 within 50 km

Sources & methodology

How we summarise this

We aggregate confirmed occurrence records from GBIF and OBIS within a fixed radius of each dive site. Occurrence records confirm presence and reveal seasonality clustering, but they DO NOT measure per-dive probability — there is no eligible-effort denominator. We deliberately do not publish a numeric '% chance of sighting' from this data.

Sources

Global Biodiversity Information Facility — GBIF Secretariat
Ocean Biodiversity Information System — IOC-UNESCO
OBIS-SEAMAP — Duke University Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab / OBIS
iNaturalist — California Academy of Sciences & National Geographic Society
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species — International Union for Conservation of Nature
WoRMS — World Register of Marine Species — Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)
FishBase — FishBase Consortium
Atlas of Living Australia — CSIRO / GBIF Australia
REEF Volunteer Fish Survey — Reef Environmental Education Foundation

Conditions

Month	Water	Visibility	Current
Jan	27–29 °C	15–25 m	mild
Feb	27–29 °C	15–25 m	mild
Mar	28–30 °C	20–35 m	mild
Apr	28–30 °C	25–40 m	mild
May	28–30 °C	25–40 m	mild
Jun	27–29 °C	25–40 m	moderate
Jul	27–29 °C	25–40 m	moderate
Aug	27–29 °C	25–40 m	moderate
Sep	27–29 °C	25–40 m	mild
Oct	28–30 °C	25–40 m	mild
Nov	28–30 °C	20–30 m	mild
Dec	27–29 °C	15–25 m	mild

Season calendar

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Peak season highlighted · current month outlined

Gear for this site

Beyond the basic kit

SMB — Drift exit standard.

Next step

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Hotels, liveaboards, dive operators, gear recommendations, and travel logistics for the whole region.

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