Whales, Wildlife & Wilderness                                                                                                                                                 Pam & Wayne Osborn

Wakatobi

 

A remote outpost fringed by the Banda and Flores Seas, the Wakatobi Dive resort lies at the far flung south east tip of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Nestled in the Tukang Besi archipelago, the resort indulges access to the waters and reefs of the famed coral triangle.These fringing coral reefs and atolls host one of our planet's richest marine biodiverse regions with 3000+ fish species and 750 coral species.

 

100,000 people from the Bajo Tribe live in the Tukang Besi archipelago. It's close to a subsistence lifestyle and these people are naturally fisherfolk. Diving tourism brings in important additional revenue and jobs as well as initiatives such as regular rotation of fishing grounds, relieving some of the inevitable environmental pressure on the coral reefs.

 

Wakatobi National Park was declared in 2002 (1,400,000 hectares) and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.

 

We have visited Wakatobi eight times since 2013.  These images are a result of Wayne's 400+ SCUBA dives there and Pam's extensive freediving.