Dive schedule/operations - Eat (a lot), sleep (a lot), dive (never enough)
The dive schedule is pretty much as you wish. The resort provides for 3 escorted dives per day, either boat based or shore based, but you are free to participate in them or just do your own thing. There are 2 requirements from the resort: minimum one hour surface intervals and no solo night dives. Outside of these, the resort considers you adult responsible divers who will behave accordingly. Remember that there is NO recompression chamber around, the closest one being on Bali.

From 6am to 6pm a "taxi" service is available to take you to various spots along the house reef and of course pick you up at the end of your dive. Just to give an idea, some people have spent 2 weeks diving only the house reef!!! Also, as you are walking towards the beach, resort staff magically appear with a big smile to help you carry your dive and camera gear.

As was stated to us during the initial briefing, if something should happen to you try and have it happen in the morning (sic) as the airstrip is not set-up for night landing and take-off and should something happen in the afternoon there would not be enough time to get a plane in from Bali. Your evacuation would have to happen the next day, with all the consequences you can think off.

Boat diving
If you are diving from one of the two resort boats, your gear will be loaded and placed according to a number assigned to you when you arrive at the resort. This ensures that your gear is always on the right boat at the right time (there were a few glitches but they were mostly user errors). You will find on the boat the required number of tanks in front of your gear. You can choose between various tank sizes up to 15 liters, a nice thing for big air guzzlers.

Shore diving
When diving from shore, you kit up in the dive gear area and then just walk to the beach or taxi. At the end of the dive you return to the resort and store your gear in your box. Resort staff are there to help you with your gear and cameras.

The Resort - Remote and eco-friendly
Wakatobi is in fact located in the Tukang Besi archipelago in Southern Sulawesi. Current accommodations are either what are known as longhouse rooms or in beach bungalows. Longhouse rooms are located in the main building and do not have private bathrooms, however my understanding is that the resort will be doing away with them and only providing bungalow based accommodations.
The bungalows are situated along the beach or within the gardens of the resort and are built local style. They provided all the basic comforts including hot water (yes!!!) and amazingly ethernet ports (you can have internet access via satellite for a very reasonable price but it is really only usable in the early morning for some unknown performance reason). No air conditioning yet, though I hear that this is coming very soon.

There is an air-conditioned camera room with ample space and power outlets and camera towels

Food is served buffet style in the main building. To my taste, there was way too much western-style food, I don't travel halfway around the world to eat spaghetti bolognaise. But it was all good and the staff were great!!!

Fresh fruit juices, cocktails and beer are available, for a fee, at the bar.

The weather - Wind, rain, clouds and sun
Well it was the transition season so we got lots of wind and clouds interspaced with some beautiful sunny days but not nearly enough.

Currents were very mild, except on the house reef where they ranged from very calm to flying conditions, and changing directions quite randomly. But on the house reef there are 2 gullys that protect you form currents and are filled with all sorts of critters including a blue ringed octopus.



The diving mechanics - Boats, times, groups and gear

All the boat dives are done from the 2 dive boats that drop you and pick you up after the dive. A few times they were moored, but for the most part it was "live". After the first dive you have to change your tank as there are no compressors on board.

Dive time was limited to 75mn on most dives and you just popped up when you felt like it. Note that the longer you stayed down, the shorter the surface interval you got. Most dives were well within recreational limits, though one or two sites we visited could allow you to go as deep as you want.

Divers are put into groups with a give dive guide, 6 people per guide. They are very knowledgeable, enthusiastic and manage to find most of the critters that you want to see, if the latter are at the site. I feel that 6 divers per guide is way too high, even though our group was very disciplined in terms of sharing critters amongst photographers and letting non photogs see the critters first. Still, it caused traffic jams and is a very negative point for this operation, I feel.

The Diving - Walls, walls and more walls - Bio-diversity
Most of the sites are wall dives, with a few being more like bays or bowls. Recommended profiles (but not enforced) were go deep if there was something to see, then cruise up the wall to the top of the reef and spend up the remainder of the dive cruising between 10 meters and the surface. In fact, I would say that it is typical Sulawesi as I recall the same type of diving in Bunaken (minus the currents).

Though the reefs are quite healthy, there is evidence of dynamite fishing and reef damage. In fact one group during our stay witnessed the results of probably dynamite fishing with dead fish all of the bottom including clownfish in their anemones. Sad, but the work the resort is doing and the money they pay the local community is helping curb this. Hopefully, reason will succeed and the local fishing community will come to understand the treasure they have beneath them.

The sea life is amazingly diverse. I saw critters that I did not even imagine existed, and some times just nodded to John (our dive guide) when he was pointing at something that in fact I could not see!!! Our group found a nudibranch that seems to be unknown as of yet - it seems that this occurs relatively frequently in Wakatobi.

My highlights - Pygmy seahorses, frogfish and a breaching manta ray
It is difficult to point out the better parts of the trip as it was really great, but from my perspective it was the first time I saw pygmy seahorses (bargibanti, denise and a white variety). Once the guides point them out and you figure out what to look for, it becomes relatively easy to find them when you dive on your own. This of course is only true on fans you know are hosts to seahorses. If not you could spend your entire holiday looking at sea fans and not finding anything.

It was also my first time seeing frogfish, and getting half decent photos of one them as well. They are very very strange looking fish with an attitude to boot. Either that or they are exhibitionist and like to show off their fannies because most of the time we I saw them they were showing their backsides.

And lastly, during one of the rides back from a site we actually saw a breaching manta ray. Wow!!! Only happened once so you will have to trust my word as I have no photo to prove it.

The crew - A fantastic group of professionals
All the resort staff and the dive staff were great. Whenever we had a need or a question it was satisfied or answered with a smile. Nothing more to say than BRAVO!!!!.

Comments
All operations have their good points and areas that could/should be improved. Wakatobi is not different and from my perspective here are the key ones:

Good
- The whole experience from Denpasar, to the resort and back
- The diving - amazing critters, weird critters, rare critters, warm waters, relatively clear waters
- The dive guides - great, very patient, and excellent and finding critters
- The resort staff - always there to help with a smile
- Camera friendly resort - rinse tanks, camera room, power strips... all a photographer needs
- The special price - rebates are always good even if it was expensive
- The heads on the dive boats - all dive boats should have them
- The divers - I met a great bunch of people, amazingly enough we even had mutual acquaintances. I also met Eric and Dave from wetpixel.com. Eric is a fantastic photographer. You should look at his site he produces some amazing stuff.

Needs improvement
- Number of divers per guide - given the price and the reputation the resort wants, 6 divers per guide is unacceptable. Elsewhere in Indonesia, for similar or lower prices you get one guide for 2 divers. It seems that Wakatobi used to provide more guides, I don't know what happened. For me this is a no-return point. If this is not changed I will not return.
- Nitrox - Given the number of dives that you can do and the remoteness of the resort, I don't understand why it was not offered. I understand that next year it will be, but again for me this is a no-return point.
- Air-conditioning - I just can't imagine that place in the middle of summer with no air-con. I know this might sound spoilt, but it is our hard earned cash that is being taken and for that amount you expect some creature comforts. Again I understand that some bungalows will have air con at a premium price. From my point of view this is not good value, and it would make me think twice before returning there.
- Gear manipulation - Given the price and the reputation the resort wants, I feel that I had to manipulate my gear way too much. Not that I mind, just that again it is a question of expectations given the money paid.
- The dive boats - Our's, Wakatobi IV, was ok in terms of size and space, but I think some redesign of the boats, and maybe one to replace Wakatobi III would be nice additions.
- The food - As I stated I don't travel halfway around the world to eat spaghetti bolognaise, especially that I live very close to where they make the best in the world. I was expecting more local and regional food and was disappointed by the menus on offer, but not by the quality which was very good.
 

The photos
All my photos were taken with the following set-up: Olympus C5050, Ikelite housing and arm, Inon D180 Strobe, Inon UWL 100 WAL. Post processing was done with Photoshop CS and consisted mainly of white balance, exposure tweaking and contrast adjustments.  You can see the trip photos here.


Conclusion
Was it worth it? Given the caveats noted above, yes it was, but the special price had a lot to do with it. For me, the full 2 week price is way too expensive for what you get.

Will I go back to Wakatobi? No. Even if they fix the points mentioned above, there are many more places in the world and in that area I want to go to before returning there.