Wakatobi Dive Resort
The Wakatobi Dive Resort operations are tuned like a Swiss watch. Their rep was able to locate us before we got our luggage upon arrival to Bali. He assisted with checking into the hotel, which I booked. The Novotel hotel is right between the international and the domestic terminals on the short walk distance. It is a nice hotel and it is great for the short stay due to its proximity to airport terminals. There is a good restaurant in the hotel, if you don’t want to go out, but as soon as you step out of the hotel you will be swarmed by locals offering a taxi to a restaurant somewhere. We were told that it is pretty safe crime wise in Bali, so it is okay to walk around on your own and use taxi, but we were too tired after flights and stayed on the hotel grounds.
The Wakatobi rep explained what we should expect the next day. The next morning he greeted us again at the domestic terminal and introduced us to few more Wakatobi people. They provided our boarding passes and took care of our luggage. Then we were escorted to the lounge reserved for Wakatobi guests, where we could have breakfast and wait for boarding. The Bali airport domestic terminal looks very nice and comfortable. There are many typical Indonesian installations and colorful indoor gardens. It is worth of short walk around, so it is better to come earlier, not at the last moment.
One suggestion for future divers going to Wakatobi is if there is a piece of luggage that they won't need at the resort (personal belongings, etc. that are for other parts of the trip), they can leave it in Bali. Wakatobi personnel will take care of it until their return to Bali. So, you may pack accordingly. We didn't pack that way; we had 4 pieces of checked luggage and three pieces of hand luggage and it was not a problem for them anyway.
The charter flight to Wakatobi is serviced by Garuda Indonesia, which is definitely the best Indonesian airline. The ATR-72 plane was half full and it was a comfortable 2+ hour flight.
Upon arrival to Tomea Island we were promptly transferred by a bunch of SUVs to the boats, which took us to the resort, which is located on another smaller island. Each couple or group was met and escorted individually to their preassigned bungalow by one of the Wakatobi personnel, which for us happened to be the dive master with whom we would dive the whole week. Our luggage was delivered soon. We did a checkup dive in the afternoon on the arrival day.
The resort is well maintained; nice bungalows, restaurant and dive center, which they call the Long House. A very well organized camera room in the Long House, with the helpful photo guru host, Marco, who was knowledgeable and was always able to suggest the right lens choice for the next dive; you don't have to guess. There is more personnel than guests at the Wakatobi. All staff is very friendly and well trained to make guests comfortable. It was very pleasant stay. Food and snack was very good to delicious and plenty.
Free WiFi with internet access is in each bungalow and around the resort. However it is satellite based; it is not fast and Internet access is intermittent.
You may not need to bring shoes or slippers to the resort. You can have shoeless vacation. They do ask to remove shoes to enter the restaurant. There are salt water taps to wash off send from your feet before you enter the restaurant, your bungalow or the long house. The only time you may want to put something on your feet is if you cannot tolerate hot sand at midday, though most of paths around the resort are shaded by palm trees.
There is no source of fresh water on the island. The resort desalinates ocean water for all their needs. They do have different levels of desalination for water used in a toilet, a shower and drinking water. Don’t be surprised to find salt water in a shower and wetsuit washing tanks in diving equipment storage area. Camera tanks are filled with fresh water of course. They will wash all your diving equipment with fresh water after you complete your last dive.
Drinking water is available in a jug in your bungalow and basically everywhere, on the dive boat, at the long house and in the restaurant. Drinking water was no problem. There is also bottled water in the minibar in your bungalow, but that’s for a fee.
Diving at Wakatobi is great, pristine reefs with great diversity of dive sites. In my opinion, it is suitable for all diver experience levels, from beginners to seasoned divers. September is probably the best time to dive in Wakatobi. It is the driest month of the year; there was no rain at all. Weather was mostly sunny with few clowds. Water was quiet and clear; we only had a day or two of somewhat choppy sea while 10-minute crossing the channel. Calm sea at dive sites. Visibility was great; more than 100' for most dive sites. Dives are usually calm and easy. Currents depend on tides of course. Mostly minimal current, and if there is current there is no need to go against - it would be converted into a drift dive. Currents are being checked before each dive and discussed during the dive briefing. On one or two occasions the boat changed the drop point because current was going the opposite to expected direction; we simply started the dive from the other end of the same dive site. We did experience some moderate (it could probably be considered somewhat strong for some less experienced divers, but we have seen much worse) current on couple dives. In those cases we would go with the current and stop to explore areas behind corners, where was no current. Reef hooks are not allowed and probably not useful in there. All dives were great with no exception. Marine life is rich. Sure it is not comparable to let's say diving at Raja Ampat, which to me is like a benchmark; I haven’t seen anything better. Marine life diversity at Wakatobi is great, but not as great as Raja Ampat. We have seen a lot of stuff: pygmy seahorse, pygmy pipehorse, nudibranchs, stargazers, various shrimps, ribbon eels, giant turtles with remoras, giant bumphead parrotfishes, unicorn fishes, crocodile fishes were frequent and sometimes in bunches up to 3 species next to/on top of each other, plenty of various colorful reef fishes, schooling jacks, etc., etc. It is not possible to mention all. There is not much big stuff around though and that was what we expected anyway. We didn't see any sharks or much of other pelagic. Coral formations are great: soft corals, hard corals, giant sea fans, etc. ... healthy and colorful. The resort house reef is great, healthy and full of marine life. We dove the house reef every day in the afternoon, on sunset or at night. Every time there was something new to see. We found a gorgeous big basket star right next to the entrance galley on the night dive. The resort provides free taxi-boat, if you wish or if there is current, to drop you off at the far end of the reef for you to drift back to the pier. They would check the tide phase, the current direction and its strength for you before the dive. There is always someone watching divers on the house reef. If you finish the dive far from the pier either the taxi will pick you up or you swim to the shore, which is close and couple guys will assist you out of the water and will take care of your gear. Night dives must be finished before 10pm.
You don’t need to worry about your diving equipment. There is many assistants taking care of it, who would bring it to the boat or to the pier and take it back to the storage area. They would put it together and help you putting on and off. You only required to analyze nitrox for your next dives.
Diving was in small groups - 4 to 6 divers per a dive guide. They take good intervals between dropping groups to avoid crowds, so you almost never see another group underwater. The resort wasn't filled to the capacity, which was a surprise because it was really good season for diving. Except of one day we were only 4 with our dive guide. We dove with Yono for the whole week and were very happy to have him as a divemaster. I think other divemasters are good as well. Dives are typically not deep and scheduled to be 70 minutes. We were not forced out as soon as the first diver got low on air. Yono wasn't strict but was attentive. He would escort to the boat the diver low on air and return to the group. He knows all the marine life and the way to find it. He also was good at suggesting the right lens choice for the next dive. He knows what is expected to see on the next dive and does understand photographer’s needs.
A week of diving passed quickly … too soon. We booked 5 days of unlimited diving, the sixth day, the last one was supposed to be light diving with two morning boat dives. We were surprised to learn that we will only do one dive on the last day because they consider the checkup dive which we did on the day of arrival to be part of the last light dive day package. Well, the checkup dive was indeed the complete guided dive on the house reef. We didn’t argue that; we paid $70 or $75 pp to upgrade from the light dive to the unlimited dive day. So, if you want to maximize your diving experience, you should book the unlimited diving on the last day too. It will cost you less, if booked in advance.
The trip back to Bali was equally comfortable. We had over 8 hours between flights in Bali. When we mentioned that to a guy who greeted us at the Bali airport on the day of arrival, he suggested to take a half day cab tour around Bali instead of just sitting at the airport. We booked the tour from the Wakatobi resort. The cab was a comfortable SUV type with the spacious trunk for our luggage. We were free to choose where to go. We visited the Uluwatu Temple and had a chance to see the part of Bali. We stopped at the place that serve and sell an authentic wild Luwak coffee. Unfortunately we had no time to see the traditional Indonesian dance performed at the Uluwatu temple every night at sunset. They just started the dance, when we had to leave for the airport. I have to say that that place was very busy with tourists. Our guide in Bali, Suka was great. I understood that he doesn't work for Wakatobi Dive Resort directly, but they often contract him to entertain resort's guests. If time allows I do recommend taking trip around Bali.
Once again the trip was great; we were happy at every part. Thank you Blue Water Travel for arranging that.
