Tuesday May 31 through Tuesday June 7-Wakatobi

Tuesday May 31

We arranged with the Conrad for a car to the airport. It was definitely better quality than the Mimpi cars :) Everything worked like clockwork. There was a lady from Wakatobi waiting outside the terminal with a porter. He took our bags on a cart and we followed him inside where there was another Wakatobi man who gave us boarding passes and Wakatobi luggage tags. Then another man escorted us through security to wait in the lounge. Not the best airport lounge we'd ever been in, but definitely beat the main terminal! We waited there about an hour and then boarded the plane. This was a good sized turbo prop. The flight lasted 2 and ½ hours and the last 45 mins or so was over really spectacular scenery—atolls and georgeous turquoise water.

Then we touched down on the Wakatobi landing strip (hard and fast I might add). Wakatobi staff were waiting for us so we all piled into a series of vans and drove through a village. One of the main dive boats was tied up at the dock, and we had to descend down a long, steep stairway (we felt really sorry for the poor guys who had to bring all our dive gear bags!

Then it was about 10 minutes on the boat to Wakatobi which is on another island from the airstrip. They served us a nice cold drink en route. It just so happened that the dive staff member, Ana, that was in our minivan was also the one who showed us our bungalow.

It's really beautiful. It was just recently remodeled from a standard beach bungalow to the select bungalow, so it looks brand new! It's got a huge covered front porch, and a fabulous enclosed outdoor shower that is huge.

Then we went for lunch which was really, really good. It is served buffet style but it's gourmet food. Very good. After we checked into the dive shop and got the orientation, we had the chance to do a check out dive. Ana explained that the purpose of this dive is to give people who haven't dove in a while a chance to check out their gear, and get comfortable with skills. She said we didn't have to do it since we've been diving for a week already. So we decided to skip it, and settle into our bungalow instead.

Dinner was great too, I feel a trend coming on here! :) We are both very excited to dive tomorrow. Should be great!

Wednesday June 1

Three fantastic dives today. Most dives here are wall dives. We saw a crocodile fish on two of the three dives. What a weird looking critter.

Thursday June 2

Three more great dives. The third dive had the most amazing schooling fish display I've ever seen. They were everywhere; so many different kinds of fish! The biggest schools were red tooth triggerfish, pyramid butterflyfish, and yellow damselfish, also bluestreak fusiliers.

Friday June 3

Today was the “signature” Wakatobi day. The first two AM dives were two of their best spots. The Zoo: which doesn't have the incredible corals they have elsewhere, but does have tons of fish.

The second dive was Roma, which stands as the best reef dive I've ever done. Wall, flat reef, and TONS of fish. Was just gorgeous. There was a pretty incredible growth of cabbage coral at about 65 feet, that looked like roses.

We didn't do an afternoon dive because this was our night dive night. We went to the same place as the third dive on June 2. We saw two scorpionfish and one crocodile fish. Also the lionfish came out to hunt which was pretty neat to see. A big black one was obviously using our lights to hunt. He followed us around for the last half of the dive and did eventually catch a fish. It was a little unnerving having something follow you out in the dark that was poisonous. We kept a pretty close eye on him. All together a great night dive.

Saturday June 4

Slept great last night! In fact I've slept well every night here. All this diving makes you TIRED. Our first two dives today were wall dives. Incredibly gorgeous and lush walls. The first dive had no current so it was very relaxing. The second site had a pretty strong current to start, but it lessened as the wall went on. The second site was “fisher”. Lots of fish around all the time.

Sunday June 5 through Monday June 6

I'm combining entries because there is a repetitive element here. We get up at about 6AM, have coffee on our front porch, go eat breakfast at 6:45 be on the dive boat by 7:15 or so, dive two terrific and amazing dives, clean up a little to eat lunch at 12:30, then go out on the boat for another amazing dive at 2:30. Then we shower, and hit the jetty bar for some Bintangs or something more exotic (we also tried a Jetty 2005 their special drink which was very nice). We watch the sunset, then go back and change to eat dinner at 7PM. Then we're usually totally exhausted, crash, and sleep to do it all again the next day!

One evening we spent at the jetty bar with Ana, our divemaster. That was fun getting to know her better. Her husband Miguel is the dive center manager here. She spent a lot of years in Playa del Carmen and Cozumel, so we spent a lot of time discussing cenotes.

One evening after dinner, Ana brought us a specially designed cake to celebrate my 150^th dive (which happened in Bali), and Jim's birthday (which also happened in Bali). I wish I could have taken a picture of it. It was almost too pretty to eat (note I said almost!) One of the waiters told us their pastry chef was specially trained in Japan. It was an awesome cake, decorated to look like a reefscape with two fish leaping. A very special touch.

We had a nice conversation with one of the divers here by himself last night at the jetty bar. He is very well travelled, and was telling us about various places we were interested in, such as Fiji.

We were starting to pack this afternoon, and discovered our safe had accidentally locked (we never set the combo). It took about 4 different guys to get the right key to open it. But we got everything out, so that's good.

Our two final dives today were very good also. The first was a steep wall, the current wasn't too bad. We saw an octopus, and two pygmy seahorses, that were big enough that with the magnifying glass, you could actually tell that they were seahorses! We also finally saw a ghost pipefish!!!

The second dive we saw a spotted eagle ray and two turtles, but I'm very glad this was my final dive at Wakatobi and not my first. Very weird currents on this dive. We started out with the current, then got blown up the wall, calm, blown down the wall, then went into the current more and more. So we finally turned around, and by that time the current had completely reversed, and we just rode it back to the boat. The area near the boat was calm so we spent a lot of time looking around there. Saw a huge lionfish there.

In the late afternoon we toured the Pelagian, Wakatobi's liveaboard. We took one of the dive boats over to where it is moored, near the island with the airstrip. Very nice boat. 35 meters long, with two zodiac tenders that actually take the divers to the sites. We saw the master cabin, the best room in the place. It was very nice! The bathroom was pretty unbelievable for a liveaboard. It was interesting to actually see a liveaboard in person (especially a luxury level one), but we both would still rather be land-based. More options of things to do.

Wakatobi Final Impressions

Best Dive:  Tough one, but Roma.  The dives all had a "sameness" to them, but Roma had it all: great wall, great coral, and tons and tons of fish!  The rose of lettuce coral was pretty spectacular.

Best topside attraction:  Probably the food.  Amazing what they have created here.  We took a resort tour one evening that showed the "back end" of the resort, where they create the water, the electricity, and the compressors for the tanks.

Worst thing:  Not a thing!  Just the most amazing place we've ever been.  First class all the way.  

We're already planning our return trip; Ana suggests October as the best month.  We've already got next year planned out, so we're looking at Oct 2013.  Hopefully, we can get someone else to come with us and make it a mini-group trip.

Wakatobi was so amazingly well organized.  They took care of you from the minute you got off the plane in Bali, to getting in your taxi back in Bali after the trip.  Just an amazing place.  Expensive; but worth every penny.