Tanjung (cape) Bira nestle at the southeastern tip of Sulawesi, exactly above Selayar. Tanjung Bira is a very dry peninsula with no freshwater river. The area presents white soft sand beach and sparkling from blue water that getting turquoise and clearer as the water goes shallower.
The diving around Bira itself is on nice fringing reefs, but around Kambing island, a kind of massive rock rising out of the ocean between Bira and Selayar Island, is the place where the coral cover the walls and the marine biotas live a fantastic life. In Pulau Kambing is a wall dive that drops down to at least 60m. Sometimes there is a lot of current and the strong one. Here you can encounter white tipped, black tipped sharks on the wall and nurse sharks at the coral garden that starts from about 15m. Schools of mackerels or tunas and great trevallies as well as groups of bumphead parrotfishes also spotted here.
At a site called Shark Feeding, on the depth around 30m you could find traffic of sharks. If you are lucky, you can also encounter manta rays, marble rays, turtles, barracudas, hammerhead, and Mola mola. But watch out for the currents. When the evening come and the sky cast its strong orange color, get ready for a night dive in the coral garden. In the coral garden you might find scorpionfishes, cuttlefish or octopus. Night dives close to Pantai Kecil in the south of Bira harbor is the moment where you could encountered many unique creatures, such as Spanish dancer, lionfish, a sleeping turtle, cuttlefish and octopus. Watchout for the A huge Conus shell (Conus geographus) that hunting for prey such as fish and mollusks. The slug normally shoots extremely poisonous darts at its prey. The venom paralyzes and kills the fish and even humans.
Pasi Island is very delicate for divers beginner. The coral garden is very attractive especially with the busy life of plethora of fishes. With maximum depth around 20 m, this sand bottom site is covered by corals and fishes, such as damsel, angelfish, cardinal, grouper, triggerfish, surgeon fish, boxfish, puffer, and many more are creating a busy underwater city life.
To see all those stuff you must go through a long journey, 6 hours road trip from Makassar to Bira. But all the efforts made are worth it.
