21 replies to this topic

[chinacat46]

B R I L L I A N T !








Much more to come when I get over the jet lag.

[Marvel]

Welcome back, Meowman! I hope that you'll provide us with a few more details soon....

[fbp]

Wakatobi... rock on...

Great place wth better diving... can't wait to hear the report..
http://www.wakatobi.com/homepage.html

and also Froggies:
http://www.divefroggies.com/index.html

It's on the list...

[triggerfish]

B R I L L I A N T !








Much more to come when I get over the jet lag.

well then.

guess that about sums it up, huh.

[chinacat46]

This report will take a few days for me to spill out all the details so I'm gonna take my time and try and do it right since this place deserves no less. I can't say this is the best place in the world to dive but I can say it's one of them. It's not quite at the end of the world but you can see it from here. Some background on wakatobi. Wakatobi is not an island but the name of the resort and a national park. It's located in an archipleago off the south east corner of Sulawesi. The name WaKaToBi is an acronym derived from the first two letters of the four main islands of the archipleago. They are Wangi Wangi, Kaledupa, Tomia and Binongko. The airstrip you arrive on is on Tomia and the resort is on a small island right next door. Once you arrive on Tomia a fleet of the islands best vehicles(old beat up mini vans) shuttle you thru a village to a dock. From here you take a taxi(read dinghy) out to one of the resorts big dive boats. It takes a while for them to transfer all the divers(32 in our group which is the max the resort currently accomodates). From here you go around Onemobaa Island to the other side where the resort is. Depending on the tide the boat can either dock at the pier or in our case low tide you are again transfered via taxi to shore. To get to Tomia you take a twin engine turbo prop plane(40 seat puddle jumper) from Bali. To get to Bali takes about a day of flying from the US. So is it worth to do all this traveling when you can be in the Caribbean in a few hours? Well Ken Knezick our escort holds the record for the most visits. This was his 8th trip and he has dived all over the world so you'll have to ask him but the diving is so easy and extrodinary that I will go out on a limb here and say YES it is. The resort initially opened in 96 and the airstrip has only been open a few years. Before that it took another day from Bali via smaller planes and a few long boat rides to get there. So what is the draw that got Ken to make this trip 8 times and for me to say it's one of the best places in the world to dive? Stay tuned to this report to find out...

[WreckWench]

The logistics are brutal...I know as I've looked at it for a SD trip....but are you saying it was really worth it? And more importantly...would you do it again???? LOL!! -ww

p.s. can't wait to hear the rest!

[chinacat46]

The logistics are brutal...I know as I've looked at it for a SD trip....but are you saying it was really worth it? And more importantly...would you do it again???? LOL!! -ww

p.s. can't wait to hear the rest!

The diving and the resort exceeded my expectations so yes it was worth it. Would I do it again. ABSOLUTELY. In fact I will do it again.

[chinacat46]

Before I talk about the diving let me talk about the resort, staff and people on the trip. The resort is pretty much all there is on the island(except a small village on the other side). The resort is made up of a long house which has a few rooms with shared bath facilities and also rooms for some of the diving staff. The long house also contains the dining and cooking facilities as well as the dive and photo facilities. Along with the long house there are 14 Bungalows(more under construction) as well as a number of supporting buildings located well behind the long house and pretty much out of site. Some of the bungalows have AC but mine didn't and it really wasn't needed even during the hotest part of the day. They do have ceiling fans and standing floor fans. Between those and the breeze coming off the water this was more then enough to keep the rooms comfortable and at night almost chilly. Next year all the bungalows will have AC and there will no longer be any rooms in the long house for visitors. The bungalows were very spacious with a king size bed and a twin, mini frig and nice bathroom facilities. I lucked out and got the king while my roommate got the twin. The beds also have mosquito netting but we never had to use it as the island doesn't have a bug problem depending on the time of year. I did see a gecko crawling around on a wall but it didn't climb into bed with me so I left it alone. Back when Bali was bombed a few years back and tourism was down there Lorenzo hired a few 5 star chefs from some resorts there. As a result they have a full time pastry chef and two other excellent chefs which provided very very good food and I packed on at least 5 pounds over the course of 11 days. Each meal was buffet style and all you could eat and more. They also had snacks( cookies, fruit and sandwichs) on the morning boat dives as well as a snack of some sort around 5pm. Meals were at 7AM, 1PM and 7PM. There was usually two or three main choices and lots of side dishes. Deserts were killer and there were usually 3 choices as well as fresh fruit. They have an incredible staff there which caters to your every need and makes being there a pleasure. They have taxi's which will drop you off anywhere along the house reef and when you get out on the shore some one comes up and grabs your BC and tank and carries it back to the long house. On the boats they even switch tanks for you between dives. Behind the scenes there are a number of buildings containing water purification, generators, air compressors, laundry facilities, storage, carpentry and much more. They have a staff of over 100 to support 32 visitors. The trip was organized by a company out of Houston and I won't mention there name since it could be a conflict of interest with singledivers. As I mentioned earlier there were 32 people on the trip with 10 singles and a few buddyless divers as well. They have 3 dive boats and 6 dive guides so each boat has two dive guides and our boat had originally 10 divers but one diver moved to another boat as she had friends on that boat so we ended up with 9 divers and two guides. You don't have to dive with guides but it's nice to have somebody there who knows how to find those where to look for the exotic stuff and can point it out to you. The people in my group pretty much dived loosely with the guide and we showed him some stuff two. But I'll get to the diving in another post. Out of the 32 people 6 were from CO, 2 from Penn., 2 from CA, 2 from Utah, 1 from NY and I think the rest were all from Texas(Houston and Dallas area). However there may have been a few from AK as well not quite sure. There were 6 single guys and 4 single women from about 39 to 60 something. The dive guides were all very knowledgeable but the local diving and 1 was British, 1 a Kiwi, 1 a Swiss, 1 from Beligum, 1 from Argentina and 1 from Indonesia. They all spoke English as well as a number of other languages. Besides diving they do have satellite access to the internet although being a computer geek I didn't want to look at one during my holiday. They also have a TV with movies to watch again I didn't do that either and read and socialized when not diving. They also offer massages for $10 an hour and though I didn't get one a number of people did and were quite pleased. There is a peir that runs out from the long house and each year it has been expanded. It is still under construction and this last phase will take it out to the drop off of the house reef. So once it's done you will be able to walk out the peir and drop off right onto the house reef. All in all the resort and food exceeded what I had expected to find at the edge of the world. Still to come the main reason for the trip the diving...

Edited by chinacat46, 20 September 2004 - 12:28 PM.

[chinacat46]

Well I've told you about how fun it is to get there and what the resort is like so now it's time for the main event the diving

First off they don't have many rules when it comes to diving except that you are supposed to dive with a buddy but they are pretty lax about that if you are diving the house reef. If you are diving the house reef you put your name on a white board and what time you went in. When you get out you remove it. If you don't they may come looking for you after an hour and half. They offer boat dives in the morning every day and either an afternoon or an evening boat dive. The morning boat dive is a two tank trip to different sites and leaves around 8AM. Dives are limited to 70 mins(if you call that a limitation ) although I had a few where I clocked in at 74 and few at 72. The afternoon dive normally goes off at 3pm and the evening dive normally leaves around 5:30(dusk) but it's night by the time you get to the site and get in. Night boat dives are limited to 60 mins and usually get back in the middle of dinner but there is always tons of food so that isn't a problem. You are assigned to a boat for the trip so you are tied to that boats schedule but they all dive they same sites just different days. We did two night boat dives and the rest were afternoon boat dives. So basically you do 3 boat dives a day. There is also unlimited shore diving and the house reef is not to be believed. Turly one of the best sites around and multiple spots to choose from. If you wanted to push it you could do 7 dives a day here although the most I did on a day was 6. One before breakfast, then the two morning dives off the boat. One right after lunch then the afternoon boat dive and then a shore dive around 5:15 which became a night dive by the time it was over. You can also dive after dinner and I did that a couple of times as well. Right in front of the resort there is a sandy area and then after a few feet there is a bunch of sea grass in fairly shallow water. This sea grass contains all kinds of critters and would also make an excellent snorkel. After you get over the sea grass and get to about 8-9 feet the coral starts and there is a wall that drops off that is just covered in the sweetests soft and hard corals. The soft corals here are just awesome although I think Fiji might have some nicer ones these are incredible and the hard corals are right up there with anyplace you have ever dived. Incredible fans and tunicates abound. The water temp was 79 except for one day when a front moved thru and the water temp got down to a chilly 77. I dove a 3 mm Henderson Gold Core as well as a 3 mm Henderson Hyperstretch hooded vest the whole trip and felt comfortable. Some people wore 5 mm suits and one guy dove a 3 mm shorty the whole trip. The afternoon you get there they have a checkout dive and after that the pool is open. The next 8 days are full days and the 9th day they cut you off at 1pm so you can start to dry out your gear and start off gasing before the trip back to Bali the next day. The viz was good but not great and was normally around 50 to 100 feet. The house reef sometimes can have a strong current and other times it's as calm as can be depending on the tide. When there is a current you can take a taxi way down and then drift back to one of the two gullys. The gullys are also filled with some incredible stuff. All the dive sites have the most pristine coral you will ever experience any where and I don't know how I'll be able to enjoy the Caribbean after this. But the beauty of the coral is just the begining the fish and macro life here are off the scale. I've never seen such quantity and variety of fish in my life. From the tinest of pygmy seahores(barely visible and in a couple of cases with a magnifing glass) to bumphead parrot fish almost big enough to ride and everything in between. I saw more nubibranchs on every dive then I had in all my previous dives combined and the variety, color and size of them will blow your mind. There also tiny shrimp and little crabs hanging out in different corals and all you had to do was just stop and look. I saw so many different types of fish I didn't know it was a clusterf**k on my brain. Numerous types of lion fish(including a few twinspots), butterfly fish, wrasse, angel fish, sea bass, trigger fish, file fish, anemone fish(Nemo was everywhere), gobies, blennies, box fish and more. In the Caribbean I can name 90% of what I saw here it was just the opposite about 90% of the stuff I couldn't name. I could identify what family a fish was from but the fish themselves had to be looked up and every dive I was learning new fish. Saw all different size cuttlefish from babies to some about two feet in size. Even got up close to one and it let me touch it. Saw numerous types of pipefish, mantis shrimps, lobsters, incredible decorator crabs and orangutan crabs(both these kinds of crabs are way cool), squid(including two that were mating and then depositing there eggs) and a few types of sea snakes. I saw eagle rays, devil rays and blue-spotted stingrays. On one dive I saw a nudibranch laying eggs. Saw some incredibly gorgeous scorpion fish of all types and varieties including numerous varities of leaf scorpion fish and some pretty good size stonefish as well as some big and small crocdile fish. On one night boat dive I even saw two mandarin fish mating(same dive where I saw the squid mating). I saw 4 blue ribbon eels and one black ribbon eel(juvenile blue ribbon) numerous types of morays. The quantity of the fish was amazing as well. I saw huge schools(1000's) of Sgt Majors, tons of bluestreak fusiliers and it goes on... The worst part though is how can I ever go back and enjoy the caribbean? Turly a dive experience I will never forget. I may see some places as good but none will be better. You won't see healthy coral anywhere and the variety will blow your mind. The deepest I got the whole trip was 80 feet and some of the best was in 10 feet. This is a photographers heaven but unfortunately I didn't bring a camera so I don't have any pics just memories(although I will be getting a few discs from some of the others on the trip). This isn't the place to go to see pelagics but you'd probably miss them if they were there cuz your head will be focused on the reef. I also saw numerous turtles and octopus but never saw the blue ringed octopus although I heard it hung out in the sea grass. Any way I can't say enough about the beauty of the reef and the fish you would have to see it to believe it.

[triggerfish]

sounds pretty boring to me.

i can't believe you went all that way just for what you described.

jeez.




(i hope by this time everyone knows i'm kidding....)

[chinacat46]

You are right if you don't dive you would have been bored stiff.

[fbp]

Great report CC...
what depths are they... 70 min dives would indicate 20-50' dives??
Sulawesi has been on my list, the top one at that, for several years now... so it's good to here, it's just getting better...

thanx for the report.....

[chinacat46]

Well they were multi-level dives with the last 20 mins spent from about 25 to 5 feet. The reefs go almost to the surface and the soft corals at the top of the walls or just gorgeous. I'd normally get down to about 70 or so and then slowly make my way back up. There is plenty to see at every depth. At every turn there is a nudibranch. It got to the point were we didn't even call each other over and less it was a really tiny nudi or more then one. I was also diving nitrox over the 10 days. Between dives they had an hour surface interval minimum(at least on the boat dives). Shore diving was do your own thing and dive within your limits. After diving here I'd like to visit some other spots in Sulawesi as well. The divemasters made it a point to get every crown of thorns we found. They would spear it with their pointers and occasionally we would find two on one dive. The poor guides had to drag then around on their pointers for the rest of the dive. It was the only thing you are allowed to bring out of the water. I saw a couple of big lobsters I would have liked to bring out but knew I'd have a hard time convincing them it was a crown of thorns.

[jextract]

Sounds awesome. You'll have to post pics when you get back!

[Sylvia]

And I thought Bali was wonderful....now must, must do Wakatobi...next year!!!

Kamala if this could be added for August/November, 2005 as an international trip, let me know.

Thanks.