Beyond Wakatobi with Temukira
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After working in this group of islands for both Operation Wallacea and Wakatobi Dive Resort, spending around 2 years diving, researching, surveying and exploring new sites it was a complete pleasure to be able once more to check out more of this amazing group of islands.
We left behind
the usual slow pace of an Indonesian harbour town of Maumere for the even more relaxed
atmosphere of our boat Temukira. A Traditional motor vessel that was to keep us in comfort for the
next 8 nights while we were to explore the outer islands of South eastern Sulawesi and the northern
islands of Maumere. Most of the areas we were heading into had no dives site names, no regular
divers to visit them and only a short time frame in which they can be comfortably dived by live
aboards. Some initial home work had to be done to find out some basic information, asking good friends
about the area. Reports were made to the appropriate authorities letting them know our intentions before
we arrived.
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Batuata - a calm, comfortable, air-conditioned crossing and early morning as we approached this small island. Charts gave us no obvious clues to areas that would stand out as prospective dive sites though we knew we were in for some deep walls and the corners of islands usually have areas that attract good fish life. Standing on the top deck we could easily see through the gin clear water that there was no damage and opted to go straight for the middle of the island and try for a deep wall dive. There was a Tanjung (point) that stuck out a little from the main reef that would act as our entry point. Having a rear dive deck the boat was ideal for this kind of diving, our skipper Abu Bakar was excellent at maneuvering the boat right where we wanted to be. Giant sea fans lined the wall along with huge sponges and an array of colourful schooling reef fish like fusiliers, surgeons and unicorns. We took the dive for what it was, a perfect dive to cruise along the reef and enjoy the reef scenery. Looking out for bigger fish we saw Napoleon wrasse, bumphead parrotfish and the odd dogtooth tuna. Ascending into shallower depths, we had the delight of seeing a huge eagle ray as it glided closely by. The reef crest was lined with thousands of schooling anthias and damselfish, upon looking closer we saw a few different leaf scorpion fish, robust ghost pipefish and some interesting opistobranchs.
We moved the boat to another area with a wall going into a sloping reef corner. Once more, a pristine wall with spectacular scenery, moving on towards the corner the scenery changed, more hard corals and many large green coral trees (tubastraea). Many fish congregated here in the mild current, further around the corner the reef crest was a mass of hard corals, looking down lots of snappers and some large groupers were seen below us. Maybe this would be another way to dive this site too!
Moving over to the west side of the island, another wall, this time very shear as it fell below us into
the depths. Good fish life towards the corner including 3 different species of jacks and schools of batfish,
this time lots of cool crevices we could look inside and more excellent coral life throughout.
Buton Island - located in the south eastern corner of
Sulawesi. This was the boats first time in the area so we reported into Bau Bau the main town. After
reporting in we headed to an site I had dived, here we searched for weird and wonderful critters. Only
having time for one dive at dusk was enough to see it had not changed, many species of pipe fish, a pipe
horse, 2 leaf scorpion fish, inimicus (devil scorpion fish), what I call a disco clam, a file clam, it
has what looks like bolts of electricity running along its mantle edge. We had some cool opistobranchs
I had never seen before, some with huge emperor shrimps. A really weird
octopus (some kind of mimic octopus I later found out!)
never seen this one before, then comes another real great find…. a blue ringed octopus,
this is
always enough to make a dive an excellent one. More critters too, a few cockatoo wasp fish, in amongst
all these were many different crustaceans starting to come out too as it was now a night dive.
This is actually one of the best critter dives I have done.
Here is a direct sample from logbook of a second dive on this site : - Straight
down from boat, 2 ornate ghost pipe fish black with orange and red colouration.
Frogfish (dark brown), pipe fish galore, cow fish, a pair of flying gurnards,
frogfish (green/yellowy), frogfish (very dark with spots) all this in only
2 square meter area. Lots of weird crabs, anemones, opistobranchs another
pair of ghost pipe fish, an area with octopus galore, bobtail squid, 12
ringed pipe fish together, juvenile black snappers and other cool juvenile
fish, marbled snake eel, dead fish being devoured by come shell oooh! All
this and a maximum depth of 7m. Doing a whole day here you will see many
other wonders maybe mimic and blue ringed octopus, cockatoo wasp fish, leaf
scorpion fish, inimicus (devil scorpion fish), stonefish and the ever so
cool disco clam. Hoga island, the home of Operation Wallacea and some excellent
seamounts, pinnacles and pristine coral filled ridges. We didn't have time
to dive all the great sites here though we seen enough to know it was still
a great area for diving. The first dive was a submerged sea mount with the
most amazing coral gardens, sea fans and thousands of fish too. Schools
of fusiliers like I've never seen here, jacks that came in at us twice and
seemed to just want to have quick look then rush off. A small school of
barracuda hanging at an area with a little current. Then the amazing pristine
hard coral garden at the end, it seemed never ending with hundreds of small
anthias and damsels flitting in and out.
We checked out Operation Wallacea base camp to visit the ever so friendly
staff looking after the area. The staff joined us on our next dive as there
compressor was away being serviced. A pinnacle coming up from over 100m/330'
depth to within about 5m/15' of the surface. This site is actually part
of a huge ridge that is over 200m/650' in length and can be dived the whole
length (when conditions allow) to finally end up in another site aptly named
The Coral Gardens. We opted to check out the area around the pinnacle and
take a look at the marine life here. Descending past beds of giant sea fans
and pristine coral formations to an amazing series of swim-throughs in the
middle of this coral filled ridge. Ascending and looking for some small
critters, we saw about 5 pigmy sea horses in a fan at 22m/70'. Then we came
to the side of the ridge where large schools of unicorns, fusiliers, snappers
usually swim around, while the resident school of giant trevally menacingly
move amongst them. The giant trevally here are used to divers and can easily
be approached while they are on their cleaning stations. The top of
the pinnacle is home to many lion an scorpion fish along with many different
species of clown fish along with the porcelain crabs which also live within
the anemones here. We got one more dive in before it was too dark, the Mid
Ridge Channel, This is where snappers and pelagic fish usually hang out.
The site is made up of a channel that lies between Hoga island and a submerged
reef. On entry we were instantly in view of many different schooling fish
swimming amongst the great coral bommies in this white sand channel. Visibility
varied here and the channel was poor due to both low light and small particles
on the falling tide. Over the edge of the channel the wall drops off, here
we found clearer water which opened up so we could see the many sea fans
and large tubastraea coral trees that line the edge here. We moved to the
shallower reef crest and enjoyed the views all around us, vibrant colours
of soft corals and fans even at shallow depths of less than 6m/18'.
Our night dive was on one of the home reefs
on Hoga island, the area where we entered has deep overhangs and at night
you have to keep looking up as the reef here is filled with brightly coloured
corals (tubastraea). Many black coral sea fans and soft corals with different
crustaceans, opistobranchs and skeleton shrimps galore. The walls here make
for great colourful night dives best dived in very shallow depths along
the reef crest. Runduma - dropping in here was a treat, a shear wall with gin clear
water seemed to go down forever. Immediately a huge school of jacks came
in to welcome us along with some giant trevallies leading the pack. Then
a school of yellow tail barracuda and a few large white tip sharks too and
then oh! down there a little deeper a huge overhang beckoned me down as
it was teeming with fish life. A quick look, it was packed with fish, snappers,
sweetlips, jacks, a few sharks in there too, all this amongst great reef
scenery. Starting a slow ascent towards the reef corner, minimal low lying
coral life with thousands of beautiful blue tunicates lining the wall face.
A slight current meant we turned around, drifting back over a perfect reef
with giant sponges, fans. Lots of turtles came out from resting as we slowly
drifted by eventually coming to an area where hundreds of sergeant majors
and surgeons were surrounding the reef crest. The reef top here had to one
of the most beautiful in the island group, we spent so much time just slightly
off reef admiring the scenery in front of us.
We headed to south into Karang Runduma a submerged
reef surfacing at low tide. Wanting to dive the outer edge we entered a
little too far west which took us along a wall, not the best we had seen
what made this great was the schooling long nosed unicorn that seemed to
follow us most of the dive. Our dive here ended by going over a pristine
hard coral garden below us, not many fish here but a the odd reef shark
swam down below. Kentiole, dropping in towards the corner it seemed at first I thought
we were in for a boring dive as the steep reef slope had very minimal coral
with only some small schooling red tooth trigger fish. Though this was only
start, as we went around the corner things changed dramatically. Huge dramatic
canyons, three in all with huge overhangs covered in colourful corals one
area covered in colourful soft corals, further around it seemed to be as
it became fairly baron again so we turned back to enjoy the canyons from
shallower depths. Fish life here wasn't too great though we saw midnight
snappers, different species of jacks and a few very large dogtooth tuna
cruising close by. On the reef crest towards the corner, a small school
of blue lined barracuda held themselves still in the mild current which
we could easily swim against to watch. This proved to be one of the our
favoured sites for its dramatic scenery, we named it KeKaK (Kentiole Kickass
Kanyons).
Diving a different area of this island. Another
great wall, we instantly saw two different schools of maybe 20 or more skipjack
tuna going by. The light was getting low so we looked for some smaller marine
life, finding some great little critters hiding themselves, ghost pipe fish,
soft coral crabs and others. Moramaho - deciding to check the outer side outer side, it was
a little choppy, though our boat captain was so used to moving the boat
around, he told us it would be no problem. A very steep sloping reef with
huge beds of sea fans lining the depths beyond 20m, every few minutes large
barracuda seemed to go by, followed by a few dogtooth tuna. Slowly ascending
we noticed the reef became fairly sparse in coral life, probably due to
the large waves here. In the shallows fish life was great, large hump head
parrot fish, oriental sweetlips, turtles and lots of different parrot fish
seemed to be on this reef crest.
The west side of the island was totally calm once more, seeing over the
edge of the boat into crystal clear water we could see this was the best
side for reef diving. A point was noted for our entry which would take us
on a very slow drift past a few deep overhangs filled with soft corals and
sponges, a school of over 20 dogtooth tuna cruised by, the largest leading
the school, they came in really close. I noticed a beautiful overhang with
a large fishing net tangled in the corals, I signaled and the others came
in to help, we managed to free the net eventually leaving behind a once
more beautiful overhanging reef. Slowly we moved it around and managed to
tie it up on itself into a huge ball, moving off reef it was then sent into
the abyss below. Ascending shallow we cruised over the pristine reef crest
filled with small anthias, damsels, schools of seargent majors, surgeons
and many other colourful reef fish.
Heading back east, we made our last dive of
the day on Karang Koka. Due to the limited time, we dived on the northern
corner as this was on our way. The area where we dived was best at around
20m with a huge crack in the reef with excellent coral growth, what made
it even better was that the crack slowly got shallower making the dive much
more interesting. The shallower areas of reef here were heavily covered
in hydroids, these are not the nicest of reef inhabitants. Tomia - the island group which is home base to Wakatobi Dive
Resort. One of the local fishermen heard my voice and called out, an
very good friend who had previously worked with me. He told us the best
area to moor the boat for the night. In the morning went on land to pay
our respects, report in and ask for information about buying fuel and other
goods for any return cruises. Local people on Tomia island are very friendly
and helped us with all our needs.
Heading out towards the easterly islands in search of some other great
dives, a reef corner here proved to be amazing, its coral gardens were probably
the best I had came across and there was no need to go deeper than about
16m which makes this even better still. A very mild reef slope slowly descends
into sand flats which then rise up again into coral sea mounts filled with
pristine coral formations. Around the edges lie coral bommies filled with
colourful corals and some small sea fans. One diver sat down on a sand patch
for ages just to admire of the beauty of this one small coral bommie, it
had a hole through the centre and angel fish and other colourful reef fish
swimming in and out. Moving in search of more, we found a pristine coral
ridge lying with some really pretty coral bommies in the middle where a
small school of blue lined barracuda swam slowly above. Huge gardens of
hard corals with plenty of small colourful anthias and damsels swimming
around amongst them made for an excellent saftey stop. A good friend ahs
since told me he has been seeing large rays in this very same area, this
would just top it off as being one of the areas top dive sites.
Next a channel for a drift I had heard so much about, it had to be dived.
We had waited for the right tide so the water wasn't too murky. Descending
down into the atoll the current slowly swept us over a sandy bottom at about
18m. Visibility was less than the other dives we had dived, this didn't
effect the dive, 2 eagle rays ame down in front of us, then the fish life
picked up. It was amazing, hundreds of large unicorns, yellow back fusiliers,
surgeons, we held on in the current at one place, here the fish seemed to
congregate and then in came another eagle ray along with a huge school of
jacks, these circled around us a few times then all the fish just seemed
to leave. We carried on with our drift and came to the edge at 14m where
visibility suddenly became much clearer. Holding on here as many different
species of fish kept coming in close by us, then below us two large white
tip reef sharks went by. As there was no current below we descended away
from the current and moved away from the channel mouth. There was great
reef here with allsorts of colourful coral formations, lots of opistobranchs
and at 11m we came across 3 tiny pigmy sea horses, then more small critters
including robust ghost pipefish.
This dive was so good we dived it again, this
time better than before with a strange narrow horizontal thermo cline with
gin clear water, this was where a huge school of jacks and surgeons held
them selves in the now very mild current. A few more reef sharks along the
edge of the channel drop off, I opted to go in search and see if the reef
was good on the other side, sure enough more really colourful reef crest
where Sue found many more great critters. Kakabia island - our first dive was on the corner of the reef,
this was a good fishy dive. The best scenery was fairly deep with beds of
huge sea fans from around 25m/82', endless schools of unicorns and fusiliers
seemed to pass by us. Some large dogtooth tuna, wahoo. The shallows were
good in places with some patchy areas we found a few leaf scorpion fish
and some interesting nudibranchs.
Another side of the island is where we found a huge crack in the reef,
it was possible to swim down through this to 15m/50' and down a spur with
walls descending on either side, fish life here was minimal in the deeper
areas compared to other sites, though we saw a small school of unicorns,
lots of parrotfish and a few mid sized dogtooth tuna. Though it was the
reef scenery here that made this dive special. Shallows were all really
good with lots of great small fish life flitting in and out of the corals
over the reef crest.
Our last dive was on the southern wall, a
really interesting wall with a few spurs where most of the fish seemed to
want to hang out. A few large Napoleon wrasse white tip sharks and lots
of long fin banner fish. Conclusion Interested? Click here to inquire for
more information on this area
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A cruise to take you through some of the worlds best coral reef scenery
for wall diving and amazing topographic sites. All this mixed in with some
great fish dives and dives in an outstanding critter area, makes this a
truly outstanding cruise to take here in Indonesia!
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