The Pelagian - A luxury live-aboard dive cruise review

Each evening, just before sunset, coral formations and rock piles around the base of a remote pier come alive as scores of mandarinfish emerge from their hiding places to begin their nightly courtship ritual.

The females in groups of three to five around a favourite meeting spot will await the arrival of potential partners. When a suitor arrives, he asserts himself, becoming highly active as he performs an intricate mating dance, fluttering his pectoral fins like a hummingbird, circling one to two of the slightly smaller females.

This nightly display takes place at Magic Pier in Buton Island’s Pasar Wajo Bay and is amongst the most talked about dives offered by Pelagian dive yacht. For good reason. In one cluster of rocks I observed as many as four males successfully mating with up to five or six different females within a half hour.

Most of the mandarinfish I have found in other destinations tend to be small, averaging 2.5–4cm in length, and shy. Those at Magic Pier are more than 5cm long, with some of the males around 7.5cm, and surprisingly bold! A 60mm macro lens and modelling light with a red light mode was all I needed to fill the frame with these brilliantly coloured fish.

After the males have attracted the attention of a willing female, the pair begins a spiralling dance, rising two to three feet above the coral. The purpose of this manoeuvre is to increase the distribution of the eggs, as mandarinfish are broadcast spawners; both eggs and sperm are released simultaneously into the water column to be carried away in the currents. In order to achieve optimum fertilisation, the female must come as close to the male’s pelvic fins as she can, then at the peak moment of their climb, she will release her eggs. Once their mission is accomplished the two flutter back down the bottom, where the male will again take up his courtship moves on the next available partner. Talk about some guys having all the luck.

Taking to sea

To complement its land-based operation, Wakatobi Resort manages the Pelagian, a 115-foot/36m dive yacht that cruises the Wakatobi archipelago and the southern portion of Buton Island. These waters lie within the Coral Triangle, a region known to contain the highest coral reef biodiversity in the world.

Seven-day itineraries and seasonal 10-day trips take in a diverse range of underwater environments, from steep walls perforated by overhangs along the outside edge of Karang Kaledupa and Karang Kapota atolls to the exceptional muck diving opportunities of Buton Island’s Pasar Wajo Bay. The Pelagian also skirts the southwestern edges of Wangi Wangi and Kaledupa Islands, providing another round of magnificent reefs, dramatic vertical drop-offs and pinnacles, each revealing a kaleidoscopic menagerie of marine life.

A proper yacht

The Pelagian is not a typical liveaboard vessel, as it is configured to hold a maximum of just 10 divers in five spacious cabins. Guests enjoy comfortable accommodation more akin to a hotel room with en suite bathrooms and showers. The crew of 12 includes an executive chef and stewards, adding fine dining and five-star service to the itinerary.

Diving activities are conducted from a pair of custom-made dive tenders, with the crew handling all gear management. Wakatobi dive guides provide in-water support when requested or needed, and are expert at locating rare marine subjects. Because dives are conducted either in shallow-water muck sites or on structures with significant vertical reliefs ideal for multi-level profiles, bottoms times routinely exceed 70 minutes. The schedule allows for up to four dives a day, including night dives.

Ready set, reef

Day one of a cruise starts on Wakatobi’s doorstep with a couple of afternoon warm up dives before the Pelagian pulls away to begin its journey north towards Buton Island. The next morning finds divers exploring sites between the massive reef atolls of Karang Kaledupa and Karang Kapota. Here the reefs are among the most colourful and dramatically-contoured in the region.

The top edges of these structures are carpeted with a wide variety of hard and soft corals. The slopes and walls that plunge into the depths are covered in a different but equally broad collection of large, vibrant-coloured soft coral trees and gorgonians in red, orange, pink and yellow. Visibility here typically exceeds 75m and their dramatic drops are ideal for taking in the big picture sometimes serving up open-water species like blackfin barracuda, sea turtles and eagle rays.

In addition to dramatic seascapes, these reefs hold a wealth of small finds. An excellent place to look for them is among the sea whips covering slopes and walls. Though often overlooked these long, sometimes spiralling strands are a haven for whip coral gobies and small shrimp.

A highlight of any Pelagian cruise is the abundant opportunities to find pygmy seahorses; three of the most prominent species are the Bargibant’s, Denise’s and Pontoh’s. A specialty of the Pelagian’s crew is also locating the tiny, white Pontoh’s (Hippocampus pontohi) seahorse sheltering among the halimeda algae though capturing them can be a challenging exercise in macro photography.

Muck diving

A signature element to Pelagian’s itinerary is the muck diving opportunities not common elsewhere across most of the Wakatobi archipelago but abundant on the southeastern side of Buton Island.

To a neophyte muck diver the question might be “Why am I here?” until you start to see what’s there! The first sighting might be the mottled red face of a reptilian snake eel protruding from the sand. Or perhaps a wunderpus octopus out for a stroll. A closer look will reveal Coleman shrimp atop fire urchins and alien-like peacock mantis shrimp, along with shrimp gobies keeping house with their alpheid shrimp roommates, who seem to do all the work.

Pier dives

Any self-respecting muck diving destination should include a pier dive, and in Pasar Wajo Bay, the Pelagian has three to sample: Asphalt Pier, New Pier and Magic Pier.

Despite a look of seeming abandonment, Asphalt Pier serves as the island’s primary terminal for loading bitumen, a natural form of asphalt quarried on the island and loaded onto waiting cargo vessels. Divers can safely hunt around the front of the pier and the clusters of pilings, and at depths from 5 to 15m will find shrimp gobies, frogfish, leaf scorpionfish and robust ghost and banded pipefish.

New Pier is the most recently constructed landing dock in Pasar Wajo Bay. And like Asphalt Pier, depth profiles run from 5–7m. While the pilings are a great spot for finding blue ribbon eels, ringed pipefish and spiny devil scorpionfish, the adjacent debris field is a good place to hunt for octopus and gobies taking refuge in shells, cans and bottles.

Saving the best for last, Magic Pier yields pretty much what the first two have to offer but between dusk and dawn the Magic Pier is super loaded with mandarinfish (Synchiropus splendidus), a member of the dragonet family, plus a menagerie of invertebrates from cuttlefish and blue-ringed octopus, nudibranchs to flatworms, as well as frogfish and twin-spot lionfish.

Reefs, walls and pinnacles

The third leg of the Pelagian’s itinerary targets the coral-rich shallows, slopes and steep drop offs between Wangi Wangi Island and Hoga, adjacent to Kaledupa Island. Reef profiles here rise to within a metre or two of the surface allowing bottom times of 70 minutes or more.

Among a broad list of sites around Wangi Wangi is Komang Reef, an elongated sea mound alive with vibrant growths of soft corals and sponges nurtured by the currents, and swarmed by plenitudes of fish life peaking when the tide changes. Another site aptly named Fish Market for the high numbers of schooling fish it attracts, including schools of blackfin barracuda. Fish Market features a combination of a steep wall with two deep ravines and a detached pinnacle rising to within 10m of the surface.

On the way to and from home base at the Wakatobi Resort, Pelagian may stop at sites such as the seamounts of Blade, an unusual structure consisting of a series of knife-edged parallel pinnacles connected by a lower ridge giving the entire structure the appearance of a serrated knife blade set on edge, one of many memorable sites divers can experience. And by combining a cruise with a stay at Wakatobi Resort, you can experience the best Indonesia has to offer.

Learn more about Pelagian and Wakatobi Resort at www.wakatobi.com
Contact the Wakatobi team directly – email office@wakatobi.com

About diving Wakatobi, Indonesia

Location: Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia Seasons: Dry June–September; the rest is rainy season
Temperature: 26–33°C
Water temperature: 22–29°C
Language: Indonesian
Currency: Indonesian Rupiah

Indonesia is connected to the rest of the world by numerous airlines. Ngurah Rai Airport in Bali will take you the closest to Wakatobi, with direct flights from several Australian cities; travelling from elsewhere you’ll stopover in Australia or elsewhere in Southeast Asia.