I got back from Wakatobi, in South Sualwesi Indonesia, a few days ago, and want to tell you about how great it was.
Wakatobi is essentially a liveaboard dive experience from a land-based platform. Everybody in a "trip" (I was in trip # 5) travels to the island together from Denpasar (Bali) on a small charter flight that takes more or less 2 and a half hours to reach Wakatobi. Once there, you are assigned your bungalow, much as you would recieve your cabin assignment on a liveaboard. Meals are served at designated times, buffet-style, with guests seated at long tables. If you expect to lose any weight at Wakatobi, you'd better pack an extra dose of willpower to resist the four desserts on offer after lunch and dinner every day! So like on an LOB, there's a set rhythm to the day (dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, sleep), you spend a fair amount of time in close proximity with your fellow divers and get to know them pretty well; but like a land-based operation, you can do as much shore diving as you please, and you have lots of space to store your stuff, a chance to get sand between your toes, and your own little house/porch/beach to escape to if you want some time away from people.
There are generally three boat dives offered per day: two in the morning after breakfast, and one in the afternoon after digesting lunch. The morning dives are usually further afield (yes, with a snack in between to tide you over till lunch time), while the afternoon dive is often on one of the far stretches of the house reef. Boat dives are done from sturdy and spacious purpose-built vessels, and you dive with a designated group from the beginning of the trip to the end. However, you are free to do your own thing, even on boat dives. You don't have play follow the leader with the guide (though they really know where all the good stuff lives); you don't have to stay down for the full 70-minute dive; you dive your own profile, go at your own pace, take responsibility for your own consumption, bottom time, pp02 levels, etc. Shore dives are even *less* restrictive since there's no 70-minute limit, and you decide on your own surface interval. No matter what you choose to do, it is assumed you are competent, and I liked that a lot.
In fact Wakatobi attracts mostly experienced divers; many are pros; nearly all have photo/video equipment. The resort offers Nitrox for a reasonable fee (I paid US $200 for an 11-day unlimited supply). The cylinders are aluminum 80s, for the most part, but 100's are also available for both Nitrox and air, and with both DIN and yoke-type first-stage connections for both sizes. For photographers, a dedicated camera room with both 110 and 220 v. power outlets for recharging batteries is conveniently located in the main resort building just a few steps from the rinse tank outside. In addition (though I didn't use them since I was shooting digital) there are processing facilities for film.
Now for what you really want to know. The diving is nothing short of amazing. In one small geographic area the three major types of reef formations are found: fringing, barrier, and atolls. Wakatobi dives are generally on walls and seamounts, sometimes with brisk currents in the channels. While you don't go to Wakatobi for big fish excitement, the little stuff is so varied and prolific that every dive has a new wonder to reveal--and sometimes numerous new wonders. Imagine a place where on virtually every dive you see several fans with pygmy seahorses, so that by the middle of the first week the dive guide ends up suggesting that she not look for them any more so that she can concentrate on other critters? I actually saw three different types of pygmies during one dive! My personal favorite (in addition to the "bubblegum" bargibanti pygmy seahorse) was the orangutan crab. (See the photos below of a couple of bubblegum pygmies, a pair of nudis, some squat lobsters, and an orangutan crab.)
I really wanted to see one of the (reportedly) several blue-ringed octopi that live under the resort jetty and in the rubble along the nearby sand chute section of the reef wall (where the boats moor overnight), but unfortunately for me, you need to do those dives at high tide or the current will prevent you from taking the time required to search for the tiny critters. High tide was either at lunch time (and man was I hungry after two long dives) or after midnight (and by then I was snuggled down under the sheets). I guess I'll just have to wait until my next visit to Wakatobi!
Wakatobi is essentially a liveaboard dive experience from a land-based platform. Everybody in a "trip" (I was in trip # 5) travels to the island together from Denpasar (Bali) on a small charter flight that takes more or less 2 and a half hours to reach Wakatobi. Once there, you are assigned your bungalow, much as you would recieve your cabin assignment on a liveaboard. Meals are served at designated times, buffet-style, with guests seated at long tables. If you expect to lose any weight at Wakatobi, you'd better pack an extra dose of willpower to resist the four desserts on offer after lunch and dinner every day! So like on an LOB, there's a set rhythm to the day (dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, sleep), you spend a fair amount of time in close proximity with your fellow divers and get to know them pretty well; but like a land-based operation, you can do as much shore diving as you please, and you have lots of space to store your stuff, a chance to get sand between your toes, and your own little house/porch/beach to escape to if you want some time away from people.
There are generally three boat dives offered per day: two in the morning after breakfast, and one in the afternoon after digesting lunch. The morning dives are usually further afield (yes, with a snack in between to tide you over till lunch time), while the afternoon dive is often on one of the far stretches of the house reef. Boat dives are done from sturdy and spacious purpose-built vessels, and you dive with a designated group from the beginning of the trip to the end. However, you are free to do your own thing, even on boat dives. You don't have play follow the leader with the guide (though they really know where all the good stuff lives); you don't have to stay down for the full 70-minute dive; you dive your own profile, go at your own pace, take responsibility for your own consumption, bottom time, pp02 levels, etc. Shore dives are even *less* restrictive since there's no 70-minute limit, and you decide on your own surface interval. No matter what you choose to do, it is assumed you are competent, and I liked that a lot.
In fact Wakatobi attracts mostly experienced divers; many are pros; nearly all have photo/video equipment. The resort offers Nitrox for a reasonable fee (I paid US $200 for an 11-day unlimited supply). The cylinders are aluminum 80s, for the most part, but 100's are also available for both Nitrox and air, and with both DIN and yoke-type first-stage connections for both sizes. For photographers, a dedicated camera room with both 110 and 220 v. power outlets for recharging batteries is conveniently located in the main resort building just a few steps from the rinse tank outside. In addition (though I didn't use them since I was shooting digital) there are processing facilities for film.
Now for what you really want to know. The diving is nothing short of amazing. In one small geographic area the three major types of reef formations are found: fringing, barrier, and atolls. Wakatobi dives are generally on walls and seamounts, sometimes with brisk currents in the channels. While you don't go to Wakatobi for big fish excitement, the little stuff is so varied and prolific that every dive has a new wonder to reveal--and sometimes numerous new wonders. Imagine a place where on virtually every dive you see several fans with pygmy seahorses, so that by the middle of the first week the dive guide ends up suggesting that she not look for them any more so that she can concentrate on other critters? I actually saw three different types of pygmies during one dive! My personal favorite (in addition to the "bubblegum" bargibanti pygmy seahorse) was the orangutan crab. (See the photos below of a couple of bubblegum pygmies, a pair of nudis, some squat lobsters, and an orangutan crab.)
I really wanted to see one of the (reportedly) several blue-ringed octopi that live under the resort jetty and in the rubble along the nearby sand chute section of the reef wall (where the boats moor overnight), but unfortunately for me, you need to do those dives at high tide or the current will prevent you from taking the time required to search for the tiny critters. High tide was either at lunch time (and man was I hungry after two long dives) or after midnight (and by then I was snuggled down under the sheets). I guess I'll just have to wait until my next visit to Wakatobi!
