Bunaken Oasis Dive Resort & Spa

Bunaken Oasis sits on the western edge of Bunaken Island, right above the shoreline of the marine national park. It is deliberately small: twelve cottages spread across a hillside so that no one looks into anyone else’s windows, with the original tropical vegetation left standing between them. The restaurant and bar are raised above the shore, the freshwater infinity pool faces open sea, and the resort has its own jetty.

It was built in 2016 to combine world-class diving with genuine comfort without costing the reef anything. It worked: the World Travel Awards have named it Indonesia’s leading dive resort eight years running, and in 2025 the world’s leading one. It was the first property in the area to earn PADI Eco-Resort status — no single-use plastics, its own water treatment instead of bottles, an underground biological blackwater system, and a team that is up to 97% local.

Diving in Bunaken means vertical walls and coral gardens on an exceptionally healthy reef; the park has been protected properly for a long time. There are over 90 sites, many of them minutes away. Turtles turn up on almost every dive, alongside reef sharks, big schools of fish and rare macro life. Reef tops sit at 3 to 5 metres, which makes the snorkelling as good as the diving.

The dive centre is PADI 5-Star with a full technical operation: trimix and nitrox blended on site, support for Halcyon Symbios and Poseidon Se7en rebreathers, sidemount, twinsets and diver propulsion vehicles. Freediving runs as its own programme with a maximum of two students per instructor. Groups stay small — 4 to 6 guests per boat, no more than four divers per guide — and nitrox is free for certified divers.

About a third of guests never dive at all. For them there is boat snorkelling, the spa, kayaks and paddleboards through the mangroves, sunset cruises, a village visit, a picnic on the Nain Island sandbar, and cooking and cocktail classes.