Wakatobi Dive Resort
Wakatobi Dive Resort was recommended to us by friends of Bill’s sister. They have been to lots of dive resorts around the world and said that if they could go anywhere, it would be back to Wakatobi. It is a luxury dive resort on a remote island in southeastern Sulawesi, Indonesia. It was pretty expensive, but since we were going to Asia, and based on that kind of a recommendation, we decided to splurge on it. Luxury is not what I have come to expect when we go diving. Most dive locations call themselves “resorts” but they are more like dive dumps if you ask me (the focus is really on the quality of the diving but they definitely stretch the use of the term Resort). Wakatobi was totally different from what I have come to expect.
The best way to get there is by a private charter plane out of Bali, arranged by the resort, and from the moment we met the Wakatobi staff at the airport, we received first class service. We were escorted through security and led to the airport lounge where breakfast was provided. Once on the plane, the lunch we were served on the three-hour flight was the best we had on any of the many flights of our Asian tour.
Our Cabin
At the resort our bungalow was ocean front, with a lovely canopied four-poster bed, an outside shower, a covered porch with comfy couches and padded lounge chairs with an umbrella at the water’s edge. There are no TV’s, and pretty weak internet service so we were mostly unplugged. I loved the outdoor shower and the plush, super soft towels. Our fridge was stocked daily and room service brought anything we desired, at a moment’s notice.
The dining room was very nice with white tablecloths and great service and the dining room staff greeted everyone by name, I have no idea how they managed that. Meals were served buffet style, and the food was excellent. Bill was happy to find tuna tartare and loaded up on it three days in a row. Much of what was offered had an Asian flair, but I could order pasta anytime and they always had good bread and deserts so I got more than enough to eat.
While the resort lived up to its name, we really came for the diving and we were not disappointed by the sites or the service. A dive guide was assigned to a maximum of 4 divers and you could pay extra to have a dedicated guide. We of course didn’t do that (it was $225/day with a 4-day minimum), but our guide was changed twice as other people did. They brought our gear onto the boat and off again for washing every night. All Bill had to carry was his camera and they would have even carried that back and forth between the camera room and the boat if he would have let them. The Dive Boats themselves were very nice, large, stable, comfortable and just as importantly, not over crowded. Even with our remote location some of the dive sites required a 20-30 min boat ride but I didn’t really mind (the wonderful sunny and warm weather probably had a lot to do with that).
Spearing Mantis Shrimp
It was very nice to be in small groups which allowed us to actually benefit from having a dive guide. Normally because Bill takes so many photos, we end up at the back of a group and rarely get the benefit of the guide finding fish or smaller creatures, that becomes my job. At Wakatobi they group photographers together making the guides job easier. This had a surprising downside for me. With 3 other photographers in our group it meant we spent even more time hanging around a particular spot while each of the guys took their turns trying to get a good shot. Fortunately, there was so much life on the reefs, I never got bored.
Fire Dart
A big benefit of a guide is that they know where specific creatures live on each site and so they make sure to take you to those spots. Our guide showed us many unusual things, like Mantis Shrimp (giant burrowing shrimp), seahorses hiding on sea fans (notoriously hard to spot), … but a lot of the interesting sea life is more transitory so while Bill is taking pictures of one thing, I scout ahead searching for other things to photograph. His camera gear is so heavy, even in the water, that I can’t hold it without losing my balance (camera floats will be on my Christmas list this year) which messes with my buoyancy. In the water, you always strive to be weight neutral, so that you can control buoyancy just by breathing.
Everything is alive, even if it doesn’t look like it. He took well over 1000 pictures and at least 100 videos. This is one of the reasons posting this blog is so late, there were just so many to review and develop. At the end of one of our dive days, Bill was reviewing his photos and was happily surprised to find a great shot of a frog fish. He was so pleased with the shot but could not recall seeing that frog fish during our dives. He later figured out it was a test shot of a picture on the wall in the
Beautiful reefs
camera room. (A lot can go wrong with a camera and flash while diving that can’t really be fixed under water. I’ve learned the hard way to ensure everything is working correctly before heading to the boat by taking test shots and in this case, they had great photos on the wall that made better subjects than the camera table or my foot).
So, the resort was great, the boats were good and the guides were friendly and helpful. The true highlight of the trip however was that the diving was FANTASTIC, honestly the best we have ever experienced. Being so remote, the area gets relatively few visitors and as a result the reefs were pristine. It was really indescribable, but I will try… So many different types of coral, and so much sea life, it was breathtaking. The coral was so healthy and dense, I struggled to find smaller hidden things. It was made even harder to find some creatures because it was hard to concentrate on any one area, there was just too much to look at.
Nudibranch
We swam in crystal clear waters, surrounded by brightly colored fish of all sizes swarming the beautiful reefs in large schools. We found lots of nudibranchs (one of the target subjects for the trip), think fancy worms, decorated like Easter eggs with feathery plumes.So many colors of soft corals, with open polyps that reminded us both of flowers. Hundreds of my favorite coral, anemones, with all the tiny things that hide in their fingers and lots of different types of clown fish, like Nemo. We found lots of Bill’s favorite, sea turtles, and he got some great video of one bathing (scratching his back on some hard coral). We saw crocodile, stone and scorpion fish, all masters of camouflage. There were white sea snakes with perfect black bands, no camouflage for them.
Cuttlefish
At one dive site, we were specifically on the lookout for cuttlefish, part of the squid family, and I finally spotted one hovering on a ledge. They look sort of like squid, with oval bodies and around their mouth they have several fingers sticking out that kind of look like octopus legs. They are generally pretty skittish and dart away when you approach but this one was big and he just stayed right where I found him rather than swimming away. Our dive guide showed us how we could use our fingers to get him to reach out with his tentacles and mimic our movements. Watching him change colors and hover in place, as well as getting to interact with him was so cool, definitely one of my best underwater experiences ever. Check out the video.
The whole experience in and out of the water was excellent. We will definitely go back, in spite of the cost and the 26 hours of flying it will take, hopefully soon! (That will also depend on how well we save money during our other travels.)
… Bill & Dessa
You can see our Dive photos Here
Bill still hasn’t finished the Dive video but we’ll let you know when it is available.
Beautiful! Glad your having fun and traveling the world 🙂