Diving in the Banda Sea (part one): Arrival
View of an atoll from the descending plane
Wakatobi Resort
As we approach the resort from the water, a dozen or so people form a more or less orderly line on the wharf. They are dressed in uniforms of blue shorts and white t-shirts with ‘Wakatobi’ stitched in sky blue. Their gaze is low, focussed on the Zodiac dinghy that is bringing us in and, surely, I can be forgiven for thinking we might be arriving on the set of White Lotus. (Or Fantasy Island, depending on your generation.)
Wakatobi is an archipelago, home to Indonesia’s largest barrier reef, southeast of Sulawesi Island. We’re in the Banda Sea. The name ‘WaKaToBi’ comes from the names of four islands: Wangi-wangi, Kaledupa, Tomia, and Binongko. On one of the smallest islands is the Wakatobi Resort that is renowned for its scuba diving and its dive experience. And not without reason.
Left: see the chain of tiny islands in far south east corner of Sulawesi?
Right: WaKaToBi archipelago close up (with some of our dive sites flagged)
Two nights before, I flew in to Bali from Melbourne and was greeted at Bali’s airport by a resort representative who magically collected my checked bag – the correct checked bag – before I even arrived at the conveyor belt. Seriously, how did she do that? She loaded it, and my carry on, onto a trolley and escorted me, pushing said trolley, the less than two hundred metres to the hotel I had booked that is part of the airport’s facilities. It seemed a bit of overkill for someone who travels a lot and had flown for only six hours but who was I to complain?
The morning I was to fly from Bali to Wakatobi, I was met by a rep at check in then escorted through security to a café where other guests were already ticking into hearty complementary breakfasts. Smashed avocado anyone?
Inside the plane, chartered from a Jakarta-based budget airline called Wings, large boxes were strapped onto the forward seats. Quite sensible as there weren’t anywhere near the maximum passenger load of seventy two.
Upon landing, we were welcomed by a line of staff and drivers (that’s where I was first reminded of Fantasy Island: ‘the plane, the plane’). I was directed to the front seat of a small, recently cleaned, SUV. It seemed that every able vehicle in the village was drafted to the task of getting resort guests the six or so minutes from the airfield to the fishing port where a sizeable longboat awaited. The convoy parked bonnet to boot along the wharf; they’d have to reverse out one by one. Glad I wasn’t going to be there for that chore.
After the Zodiac is safely tethered at the resort’s wharf, I stand, ready to ascend from the boat, our dive guide, Mali, insists I hold his hand while making the step between the rubber gunwhale and the bottom wooden step. I hope he’ll still be with me in twenty years’ time (when I might need it). Climbing up the steep stairway, I vaguely wonder where my luggage is. The bag I checked onto the plane will, I have been assured, appear in my cabin by the time I board the Pelagian. The resort’s dedicated dive boat will be my home for the next week before I return to stay at the resort for the final four days of my holiday. But where is my carry-on? It was last seen going into the back of the immaculately clean SUV.
Every one of us who steps onto the pier — a him or a her or, – most often, a her and a him, is escorted by a staff member into the resort and, I’m guessing, most are shown to their bungalow or villa. Those of us bound for the Pelagian are asked to meet Mali in the longhouse — the original resort building — at the end of the pier. There we will be outfitted with dive gear before taking lunch at the resort’s restaurant. And if we have trouble pulling on our wetsuits, or remembering our sizes, rest assured there will be someone there to help. I could get used to this.
After a generous, colourful and tasty smorgasbord lunch, we re-board first the Zodiac, then the long motorboat that is capable of holding, probably, forty or so. It will take us to the Pelagian and is, I suspect, made of teak. When I bang my ankle on a raised door sill, I am reminded that any wood strong enough to be turned into a boat like this is, by nature, a very hard wood.
Another – or perhaps the same – Zodiac takes us from the long boat to the liveaboard. With one hand dutifully on Mali’s, I step up from the rubber onto the wooden ladder. There’s another line of staff waiting to greet us, Quickly I count thirteen. Not bad for four passengers. Not even bad for the eight or ten there usually is. The company says that for this week it received an unusual number of cancellations and thus we are four. (That’s Mike sitting at the table. He took many of the underwater photos in part two — thanks Mike.)
Some pics of the lovely Pelagian, my home for the week (notice the very fine art):
For part two click herehttps://www.franbryson.com/uncategorized/spoilt-for-life/