Trip to Wakatobi (part 2)

On the day two, at the Hoga Channel near Kaledupa Island, we were attending training and met with media team consisting reporters and presenters. I managed to get signature and photo of the famous presenter Rianni Djangkaru as requested by my nephew who is very much fond of her. The training was about how to perform monitoring. It was very much scientific, but to perform it requires an advanced diving skill. The data will be used as a feed back to TNKW (Taman National Kepulauan Wakatobi – Wakatobi islands National park). The data includes Reef health status, herbivore fish population, and carnivore fish population. There is a correlation between those three that indicates ecosystem healthiness. The other training was on Spawning Aggregations (SPAGs) monitoring; whereby we monitor fishes especially of a rather large commercial fishes were mating in a large aggregation. There were 5 known locations for the SPAGs usually takes place, that are now reserved and agreed with locals not be fished. The locations are kept secret to preserve the fish populations. To monitor SPAGs requires a lot of effort as it took place in heavy current area. The current ensures eggs are spread around avoiding being eaten by the predators.

I realized, I have entered a scientific community where people talking about fish by their scientific names instead of common names such as Baronang, Kerapu etc. The TNC personnel were talking about fuscogattus, aerolatus, etc. Upon mixing with these researchers, Bendri –our speed boat captain- has developed his own scientific name for his Batak friends such as ucoklatus etc.

The diving was quite good. We saw several Spawning Aggregations. We saw Wakatobi pigmy sea horse, turtle, large fish and also nudi branch. I was once attacked by a trigger fish called Titan. Luckily, I can move back quickly avoiding it. Pak Putu, TNC personnel, was laughing when I met him shortly afterwards, it was the first time he was laughing under water and I was a bit shock at that time. Later at the ship, Sessy informed me that there was an event she read in a magazine where by a diver lost his ear eaten by Titan. Titan can be very aggressive especially when approached by human while it nesting. Titan has very strong jaws.

To avoid problems due to unfit body, I always dive closer to the surface than anybody else in the group and immediately went on to the surface once one of the researchers surfacing. Kiki once asked me why I surfaced so quickly. The next dive, however, she was diving close to the surface also. Upon asking her on air status, she showed me the gauge that went 50bar then reduce to 30 bar and increase again to 50bar. I then open her tank exhaust and immediately the indicator showing 100bar. So she surfaced with 100bar tank.

On the day three we were hit by a storm. The ship was move around by gusty winds on top and heavy current in opposite direction at the bottom resulting both anchors were moved several meters. The ship ended up sink to the sea sand below. Upon starting the engine, the rear side of the ship sink deeper as the front side was stuck at the sea bottom. The ship can leave the site after water level increased due to high tide at mid night. The next morning, the snorkeling crew found the ship propeller was damaged. The ship was then docking at Kaledupa port and we stayed there for about 2 days while waiting for propeller being fixed at Wanci. The good thing was that we can perform Jum’ah prayer at Kaledupa in congregation instead of individually at the ship as it was originally planned.

After hit by a storm, the team spirit was down, nearly all team members were sick. The only one who was not sick was Darwin, the body builder. Sari tried to boost team spirit by performing a visit to Kaledupa salt water lake and wait for sun set at Sombanu beach at the other side of the Kaledupa Island. It was quite enjoying actually. Just before the storm, we visited a village in Hoga to release tension after a training that finished late at night and a full day monitoring exercises. However, being a true divers, the team spirit always boosted when we were about to dive especially a fun dive. Nearly all team members went diving regardless of their sickness. At the bottom, the sickness is healed, they said.

From Tomia, we were informed that BMG (National Weather Bureau) had released information saying that in 1-2 days ahead a huge tropical storm will be approaching. After diving in the morning under light rain, we headed up to Wanci which took around 5 hours under heavy storm using Menami. We spent New Year eve at the boat at Wanci and visited TNC-WWF office at Wanci. I took Yayan’s picture in front of TNC-WWF office as depicted above. From Wanci we went to Kendari using regular ship that took around 10 hours.

At the end of trip, we were greeted with Ir. Hugua, Wakatobi district head (Bupati) in Kendari. He asked us how our feel on the overall trip. Before meeting him, Sari already appointed Yayan, the eldest among us to talk on our behalf. So when Bupati asked how our observation was, we all looked at Yayan. Being late at night (around 23:00 hours at that time) and lack of sleep, Yayan nervously mentioned that we have visited Tomiang (should be Tomia) and Kelapa dua (a district in Jakarta instead of Kaledupa). The team was then burst in laughing. Anyway, I saw a leader with very optimistic view in pak Bupati. Being an entrepreneur himself, he has a vision to make Wakatobi a major tourist destination in the near future.

Overall trip was quite adventurous and yet scientific. Look forward for another trip with NGI.