In Reply to: Re: Is Wakatobi better than Palau? posted by dawhale on September 21, 2005 at 04:31:24:

I went to Wakatobi last year and found it very limited in diving variety -
there are 4 areas that they go to and our 10 day trip repeated far too many sites to warrant a 10 day trip. Several divers got burned out and decided to sleep in several days and miss the first dive.

The first dive area is the fringing reef 5 miles offshore from the resort (Seafan garden to Blade dive sites) - fantastic walls but no fish anywhere and you only get to do this dive once per day due to their slow boats. I found my best photos were taken here and are predominantly wide angle.

The 2nd and 3rd dive areas are just North and just South of their resort (Roma, Mari Mabuk, Barracuda, etc) which are nice but so similar to other areas on Indonesia (even paidang bay on Bali) that I don't think they warrant the $300 per day or special travel to get there.

The 4th dive area is the house reef. We experienced raging currents making macro photography very, very difficult and the sand off the beach caused wide angle photos filled with backscatter.
Wakatobi is located on a point and a lot of trash gathers there. I was so disgusted with this that I started gathering and putting it in my BC, but was waved off by the DM.

I've experienced far better Dive operators/customer service at North Sulawesi, Palau and PNG, but in all fairness to the staff they are way overworked. Remember that everything is geared off of the Wakatobi plane arrival - old guests go while new guests and supplies arrive, all within minutes of each other and the staff never has a break. We did experience a bit of Anti American sentiment from the staff at Wakatobi, but dispelled this as fatigue. They do have a high turnover rate of employees.

Yes, the marketing/website of Wakatobi looks fantastic, but
Waktobi is pricing itself near the $300 per day rate which is direct competition with liveaboards and nearly twice what North Sulawesi resorts charge. For the same money I'd rather take a trip on the Murex liveaboard, a land based trip to Walindi PNG or take a land based trip to North Sulawesi for twice as long for the same price.

Posted by dawhale on September 21, 2005 at 04:31:24:
In Reply to: Is Wakatobi better than Palau? posted by malibudiver on September 20, 2005 at 12:22:18:
"I love diving in Indonesia and will make my fourth trip next year. Wakatobi does not look like my cup of tea. I highly recommend the Lembeh Strait, Komodo or Raja Ampat. I attached a thread from another scuba board about Wakatobi. dawhale "