Banggai Archipelago

The Banggai Archipelago is a chain of small islands east of the Togean group, separated from them by the same Gulf of Tomini and reached by a different ferry. The reason to come is one fish: Pterapogon kauderni, the Banggai cardinalfish, which evolved in this archipelago and nowhere else on the planet.

It is a small striped fish, no bigger than a hand, and it broods its eggs inside the male's mouth. You see it in shallows over sea-urchin colonies; the urchin spines are the nursery.

The reef beyond is healthy and the diving is quiet — fewer boats than the Togeans, no signal on most islands, and the slow rhythm of a place no through-traffic visits.