Wakatobi

[mike]

Other than the long trip to the other side of the world, I enjoyed every part of my trip to the Wakatobi dive resort. All aspects of the resort: the bungalows, food, staff, remote and quiet locale, and of course, the diving, were all excellent.

The first thing that happened when we got to the resort was the staff gathered all of us for an orientation briefing. I liked the tone set from the beginning. The environment felt casual, and I felt like we were going to be treated like responsible adults on the dives.

At the orientation briefing we were given our bungalow assignments. I found the bungalows to be very comfortable. There was plenty of room for the king sized bed, a small desk, a bamboo loveseat and coffee table, a wardrobe (with a small safe inside), a cabinet (where we actually ended up putting all our clothes – we didn't use the wardrobe), a mini fridge, a couple of end tables, and still there was plenty of room to move around and get dressed. In particular I liked the large bathroom with the open shower (no walls around the shower head). At this time I took off my shoes and left them there in the bungalow for our whole time at the resort. The bungalow also had a spacious porch with two chairs, a small table, and set of wooden bars for hanging stuff like towels and swimsuits for drying. And in front of each bungalow was a foot pool for removing the sand from our feet. The water in the foot pool was cleaned out every day.

Three meals a day were served in the restaurant, which was just recently constructed and is plenty spacious. With just the 25 total guests on this tour plus the staff, the restaurant looked pretty empty. Meals were served buffet style, and every meal was excellent. The cooks managed to provide a nice variety. I am also a big fan of desserts. Lunches and dinners usually had three sugary desserts (like cakes, pies, or crème puffs) along with some healthy alternatives like fruits.

The local staff was friendly and efficient. Our rooms were cleaned once a day while we were gone on our first dive. And the bed was turned down during the third boat dive. The staff in the restaurant made sure there was always plenty of food.

Okay, so all that made the resort comfortable and I began to feel very much at home. But the meat and potatoes of the trip was the diving, of course. Their service on the boat was great. We never had to lug any equipment around. The only work we did was analyzing the gas in our tanks. When we got on the boat our BCs and regs were already setup on our tanks. When it was time to get in the water, one of the guys on the boat would lift the tank for us, put it on the bench, and hold the straps on the BC wide so we could slip into the equipment. They handled the camera equipment well. And at the end of the dive there was always someone at the ladder on the boat to take our camera equipment and grab the top of our tanks to help us up the ladder. And then when taking off the BC there was always someone there to grab it and put it down. And if there was another dive still to come the guy would take the reg and BC off the used tank and put the equipment on the next tank. Truly all we every worried about was setting our computers with the correct air mix, and making sure our cameras had fresh batteries.

And after the dives there were drinks and snacks. I personally always went for the hot chocolate and cookies.

The boats were spacious. We only had 10 guests on our boat, but it looked like the boat could handle 20 easily. I would guess the camera table was probably 15 feet long and 8 feet wide. We dove in groups of 5 with one dive guide. The dive guides were not anal about us having to stick with them. But they were good at finding much of the well camouflaged creatures so it was convenient to be in the general area of the dive guide.

Much of Wakatobi's creatures are of the smaller variety. An extreme example of this is the pigmy seahorse. The guides proved skilled at finding the little buggers. Typically no more than a quarter of an inch tall with amazing camouflage, they can prove difficult to see even when the guide is pointing right at it. But not everything is so small. We even had a few sightings of some rays, and our group saw a white tip shark. But the large creatures are definitely not the focus at this resort. Color is everywhere, and life is everywhere. Just remember to bring your macro lens. Many unusual fish were there to be found. I felt some of the fun, and the challenge, was just recognizing that some of the things we were looking at were fish.

Water temp was 78 to 80. I found it comfortable and wore a 1mm the whole time. But I was the exception. Most the others wore 3 to 5 mm. Visibility ranged from 50 to 150, but I would say most the time vis was about 75. The guides were conscious of dive conditions. There were a couple of occasions where the guides notified us we were going to a different dive site from the one that had been scheduled due to the current. All in all the guides did a good job of selecting sites where the drift diving was good.

Every one of our dives was spectacular. I can’t wait to go back.

[csavoie]

Sounds like a great time!! I look forward to hear what others thought (hint hint)