418 Dive Log Australasia JUNE 2026.pdf

WAKATOBI NIGHT DIVING ADVENTURE

Parrotfish taking refuge in the safety of a channel in the coral

The reef at Wakatobi is just a few minutes walk from my beachside hut. Once I had booked my night dive, My dive Guide, Omie, organised all of my gear to magically appear at the end of Wakatobi’s wharf. As always there are several dive assistants to carry you gear from the dive shop and down the wharf and then down the stairs to the dive platform or into the boat. Independent Aussies like me have to let them pitch in and do ‘stuff’ for you. It is part of the management policy to employ hundreds of locals so that some of you money goes into the community. Frankly, I think that this community outreach is a brilliant idea.

The end of the wharf is thirty metres from the House Reef drop off. A few minutes adjusting gear and checking buoyancy and we are off. There is a sandy channel that we pass until the drop off. We turn the corner and observe a large sea cave at nine metres. It is full of more than a dozen Ornate Crays coming out of their den to forage in the darkness. This is a great start to my dive. Dive planning here involves swimming left or right depending on the current and tide. As always, a safety boat is on watch to make sure that we return to the wharf and do not not succumb to any tidal current. Before long, I bumped

This cave was full of Ornate lobsters two minutes into the dive at nine metres depth.

16

DIVE LOG Australasia #418 June ‘26

www.divelog.net.au