Monthly Archives: November 2009

//November

Being with WWF in Wakatobi

2 - 12 November 2009 The hour we arrived in Wanci, we immediately had a meeting with WWF Indonesia Wakatobi Project Leader Veda Santiadji in their Wangi Wangi office.  He offered us different travel scenarios and we got really excited when the first option was to do initial diving on 2 snapper Spawning Aggregation Sites (Spags) then proceed to [...]

Coral Miners

2 - 12 November 2009 We noticed from early on how different the sea gypsies from Wakatobi lived compared to their Bajau relatives from Sabah, Malaysia and the Philippines. The Bajo from Wakatobi reclaimed land and had sturdy houses on top of their new land. We heard from Sugi how complex the situation is because [...]

Faces of Wakatobi

2 - 12 November I cannot write enough about the people we met along the way. Their faces have left an indelible mark on us. Here is a gallery of the look of Wakatobi. Young Bajo maiden with bedak or traditional sunblock on her face Muslim lass stands out in her bright [...]

Muslim Mosque in Binongko

2 - 12 November 2009 You cannot mistake the religion  of this area. Five times a day, we would hear the Imam sing from loudspeakers of nearby mosques. I loved it. This young man walks to the mosque for his noontime prayers Our WWF companion Sugiyanta or Mas Sugi as everyone called him, [...]

People of Wakatobi

2 - 12 November 2009 To many divers around the world, Wakatobi South Sulawesi is an underwater destination. Wakatobi, which is short for its many islands, stands for Wangi-Wangi, Kaledupa, Tomia & Binongko. We went to all these islands and beyond with WWF Indonesia and its partner agency TNC. We didn't do much diving here. Rather, we spent of our [...]