 The southern islands |
Only during the short time between the two monsoon periods from April to mid-May and once more from October to Mid-November the islands in the south and south-east of Sulawesi in Indonesia can be dived safely. During the rest of the year the most interesting reefs of the Taka Bonerate and Tukang Besi Islands are exposed to the constantly blowing monsoon winds so that very high waves build up, which make diving and travelling in this region quite difficult. On the other hand these meteorological conditions also prevent fishermen with their small boats to reach the far off atolls and islands.
The islands in the south and southeast of Sulawesi consist of the Island Selayar, the world´s third largest atoll Taka Bonerate and the Tukang Besi Islands in the east.
In between are situated three smaller islands of volcanic origin which rise from the seabed out of 3000 m depth. The remote situation of these islands and the lack of any tourist infrastructure means that until now very few divers were able to visit and dive these atolls and islands. In the eighties Jacques Cousteau travelled around this area calling it the "probably best diving in the world".
In April 2001 whe had the chance to visit these remote islands on board of the Ciska and to dive untouched drop offs and atolls.
The Ciska is a 1999 built wooden ship. It is 25 m long and the engine is 220 hp strong. The maximal speed is 10 knots and 8 Persons can stay on the boat comfortably.
We started our trip in Bira and then followed the eastern coast of Selayar to the south and from there to the east to the Taka Bonerate Archipel. We spent two days diving at Pulau Kakabia in the middle of nowhere between Taka Bonerate and Tukang Besi and then went north to the island of Buton to dive at Pasarwajo. From there we eventually went south to the Tukang Besi Islands.
Our dives at Bira where by far less spectacular as some years ago when we even saw giant hammerhead sharks in the area. This time we saw very few sharks and other pelagics in the area. New dive sites where in front of Pulau Pasi just off Selayar where we saw some sharks and on the western side of the island beautiful coral gardens, moray eels and blue spotted stingrays. Pulau Pasi has very strong currents.
From Bira we followed the east coast of Selayar to the south. On our way we had encounters with sperm wales and dolphins.
Our next destination was the Selayar
Dive Resort near the southern tip of the island. Jochen Schultheis,
a German, has set up a nice and very lonely resort at a long white beach.
At the moment there are some spacious bungalows with ac, ventilators under the ceiling, hot and cold water and refrigerator. Jochen collects his guests with the speed boat from Bira. The price is 110 US$ for accommodation all meals, two guided dives and one dive at the house reef. You have to pay extra for the transfer to the resort.
As most of the dive sites are situated on the eastern side of the island,
diving is only possible from October to May. During the east monsoon waves
get too high to reach the dive sites.
Our dive in the north of the resort (Tanjung Cumi) was very good. We found very diverse hard and soft coral and huge gorgonian fans.
The house reef also is a nice wall with interesting overhangs and caverns. As the sea gets very deep already a few hundred meters from the coast it is always possible to meet the big fish. Jochen had regular encounters with barracudas, turtles, giant groupers, eagle rays, manta rays and even hammerhead sharks.
Our next destination was the Taka Bonerate Archipel. It is with a size of 2220 square kilometres the third largest atoll of the earth and rises out of the 2000 m deep sea bed.
We reached Pulau
Latunda on the north-western side of Taka Bonerate after 4 hours.
Our late afternoon dive on the western side of the reef led us along a very deep drop off. Visibility was about 25 m and we saw napoleons, sharks, dogtooth tunas and some blue spotted stingrays. We called the dive site Snow Reef as the wall was totally covered with thin white sand. This might be caused by the excessive dynamite fishing in the interior of the atoll.
The next four dives on the following
day all took place on the northern and north-eastern side of the atoll.
Near Belang Belang and Taka Lamungan we saw sharks, napoleons
and two pigmy mantas at a beautiful wall off Lamungan.
We reached Pulau Kakbia after a 12 hours journey from Taka Bonerate during the night. In the morning we were first greeted by flocks of birds using the thermal winds to rise into the sky. They flew around the boat and seemed to be very curious.
After we had found
a safe anchor place we could make our first exploratory dive at the north-eastern
edge of the reef. Our first impression was breath taking:
With a visibility exceeding 40 m we found a wall densely covered with
hard and soft coral. From 25 m onward until more than 50 m there were
huge gorgonian fans, large quantities of black coral and enormous barrel
sponges. The picturesque overhangs and the dense growth were offering
excellent opportunities for underwater photographers. We could not find
any traces of damages caused by dynamite fishing. Two grey reef sharks,
schools of snappers and jacks and a lot of smaller things made this dive
to one of the best during our trip. We called the dive site of course
Gorgonian Forest and made another two dives at different sections of this
fantastic wall. During some occasions we had to struggle with strong and
shifting currents.
We spent two days at Kakabia to get an overview of the different dive
sites. We found a very high biodiversity,
excellent coral growth and unbelievable visibility. During our trip in
April 2003 Pulau Kakabia will be again an important destination on our
itinerary.
After another 12hour drive through the night we reached Pasarwajo the next morning. On the first view this place does not look very promising as far as diving is concerned. The dive site is just in front of a small village in the bay and the water did not look very clean at all.
However under water this place is a real alternative to the Lembeh Strait
in the north of Sulawesi. We saw a lot of nudibranchs, different species
of lion fish, cucadoo wasp fish, sea moths, leaf scorpion fish, razor
fish, crocodile fish, different species of sea needles, mantis shrimps
and during night dives Spanish dancers and octopuses.
Hoga has become
famous during the last years because it is the centre of Operation
Wallacea. From June to August the Island is taken over by far too
many volunteers from Europe, who can learn how to dive and also make a
reef survey of the reefs around Hoga during their two to four weeks on
the island.
In the meantime on Hoga there has developed a basic tourist infrastructure
as the locals have constructed basic huts for the foreigners. However
during our visit in April all huts were still empty waiting for the rush
of foreigners arriving in July/August. There were far too many mosquitoes
and we were glad to anchor safely away from the island.
 |
 |
 |
Due to the calm weather in April we were able to dive the reefs in the north and north-east of Hoga (Pinnacles, Northern Wall). Pinnacles is an underwater ridge. On the top big schools of fish gather and we could watch giant trevallys hunting. Northern Wall was another nice drop off where we met eagle rays, barracudas and schools of snappers.
From our anchor place near the island of Tomia we dove the classics of the Wakatobi Dive Resort: The Blade, Mari Mabuk, Waiti Ridge, Roma and Table Coral City. There is a description of these extraordinary dive sites in German here.
Binongko is the southernmost island of the Tukang Besi Islands. Our dive in front of the steep north-west coast (Fish Wall) proved to be unspectacular: We saw black coral and huge barrel sponges but very little fish.
Much more interesting was Pulau Ndaa, an atoll south of Binongko. With a visibility of more than 40 m and little current we had an excellent dive along a densely covered wall. We saw turtles, schools of jacks and batfish, scorpion fish and different rays.
Pulau Ndaa already gave us some idea of what diving will be like during our next trip on the ciska covering the eastern atolls of the Tukang Besi region. We are looking forward to diving with excellent visibility and high biodiversity and hopefully more big fish than during this years trip on the Ciska.
Suche im BodeWeb
|
E-Mail