(My underwater photos are linked here. Link is at the end as well.)
This was our seventh trip to Indonesia for diving and our sixth to the Wakatobi region. It's not a journey taken lightly - many hours of travel. So why do we do it?
It's all about getting to the Coral Triangle, the most diverse region on the planet. There are 605 coral species vs. 61 in the Caribbean. 37% of the world's coral reef fishes are at home in the Coral Triangle; there are 63 species of Butterflyfish vs. 5 in the Caribbean; 51 species of Angelfish vs. 8. The reefs are in outstanding condition (even with ocean acidification and temperature rises which are killing the corals). And the waters are warm and clear.
We chose to return to the Wakatobi Dive Resort where we had been six times. See 2023 for a report of our last trip which contains links to earlier ones. (Wakatobi is an amalgamation of the names of the main islands that form an archipelago off Southeast Sulawesi - Wangi-wangi, Kaledupa, Tomia and Binongko.)
We departed on October 13th, flew SFO -> Changi (Singapore) -> Denpasar (Bali) arriving on October 15th; our return was November 3rd. The move to the San Francisco area decreased our travel time substantially to 23 hours 50 minutes airport to airport.
Other than the nights on the airplanes, we spent two nights on Bali, 14 at Wakatobi and a final three on Bali. Singapore Airlines is superb and highly recommended. The food is outstanding. The lie-flat beds in business class (realistically the only way for us to go) are "interesting" with a diagonal layout. This is widely noted on travel websites so wasn't a surprise. Carryon luggage is limited to 15 pounds/piece; we may have been the only ones who paid attention to this limit but it did make travel easier to not be lugging heavy overhead bags.
The resort continues to be special - a combination of the healthiest reefs on earth, a wide variety of underwater critters and extraordinary care taking by the staff. It has grown to handle up to 74 guests - with over 400 staff. See earlier reports for details about the resort 2023.
My camera rig is heavy but there was always a dive team member happy to schlep for me. Here's 36 pounds of gear.
Our dive guide, and now friend/mentor/encourager, Andhy Gede really made the trip special.
We are hoping that he will be with us upon our return in 2027.
Valerie and I both passed milestones while at Wakatobi and received delicious rewards.
A few words on underwater photography in general. Water absorbs colors, starting with red. After all, that's why it's blue. This means that photos taken underwater won't be accurate for color without an external light source. I use strobes but have no video light so my videos are "strange". Water also fills up with all sorts of small things, such as plankton, other critters, etc., each of which bounces strobe light back to the camera. You will see this in photos as white or red dots. I don't always try to remove them, particularly for wide angle photos where there are so many. Fish move making them hard to photograph. Perhaps that's why I like critters. Plus I'm trying to hold still against currents and surge, obviously more of an issue with video.
A few words on the identifications that I give in the photos. Identification is an effort fraught with issues. Underwater creatures have the distressing propensity to have different colors, patterns and even features for the same species. Juveniles often look nothing like adults. The key piece of information to identify a creature may not be in the photograph (either because it was hidden or I didn't know it needed to be recorded). Identification books show a single photo when the reality is much more complicated. So the identifications given in my photographs are those of an untrained amateur! If you have any corrections, I'm happy to hear them!
The whole trip was just amazing!
My underwater photos are linked here.