Dive Review of
Wakatobi Dive Resort in
Indonesia

Bonaire, Cozumel, Curacao

Dive Conditions

Requested to keep dive time to 70 minutes maximum.
Must do a check-out dive, including mask clearing and buddy octopus sharing
before any other dive; a good idea, since the nearest chamber is in Bali.   

Large camera area on boats. Crew treated cameras with respect and knew
which one belonged to which diver by the second day.  Camera room dockside
with 110 and 220 power strips.  Could leave cameras and equipment in the
room overnight without fear of theft.  

Overall Rating

     This was our first "big" dive trip outside the Caribbean and
we loved it. The corals were spectacular.  The dive boats are 65 feet
(extremely spacious) and at most take 12 divers. The dive crew was
extremely competent, setting up all equipment, and serving hot drinks,
fresh baked cookies, and dry towels after each dive.  By the second day,
they knew what we liked to drink and brought it to us without even asking.
Divemaster Irwin was excellent and found pygmy seahorses, robust ghost
pipefish, crocodile fish, leaf fish, frogfish, and many others that we
never would have seen without him. One day, there was a school of baby
pufferfish right under the dive boat.  Also saw schools of bumphead
parrotfish. The water was colder than we expected and we were glad that we
had packed some extra neoprene, including a full hood.        
     There is absolutely nothing to do after the 7 PM dinner hour, so if
you crave night-life, this is not the place for you.  Better lighting in
the cabins to be able to curl up with a book would have been appreciated.
But with the superb diving, who needs night-life! Night diving was
available, and the 5 PM happy hour at the end of the pier offered beautiful
sunsets.
   Don't miss the tour of the local village of Lamanggau, where many of the
boat crew and resort personnel live.  It makes you appreciate what you
have.  We were encouraged to bring school supplies, which we did, but would
also bring small tools, such as screwdrivers and wrenches (metric) for the
villagers if we ever went again.  One fisherman was scraping the scales
from a fish with a shell and we wished we had a knife we could have left
with him.
     We took the 19 hour non-stop Singapore Airlines flight from Newark to
Singapore, and then a 2 hour flight to Bali.  The American airlines should
take lessons in customer and food service from this airline; the treatment
was royal. Spend a couple days in Bali; it's a beautiful island, and you
will have room for souvenirs after you leave your school supplies in
Wakatobi.
 

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