Tawali Trip Report

[shellim123]

Great pics. Thanks for sharing!

 

[imasleeper]

I don't mean to steel the thread but Hi Scott, I mean travelnsj, ;-)! Neal from Wisconsin, who was also at Wakatobi while we were there heading up the Wisconsin group, is organizing a trip to Tawali for May 2009.. If your interested I can get his phone number to you....right now he just getting a head count....Susie and I are most likely going

imasleeper

 

[Travelnsj]

I don't mean to steel the thread but Hi Scott, I mean travelnsj, ;-)! Neal from Wisconsin, who was also at Wakatobi while we were there heading up the Wisconsin group, is organizing a trip to Tawali for May 2009.. If your interested I can get his phone number to you....right now he just getting a head count....Susie and I are most likely going

imasleeper

Hi Paul....I'm headed to Layang Layang in April then Little Cayman in June...probably Palau in Nov...also I might go to Ginnie springs in Feb with David and Colleen for the Mantees.....plus I leave in 4 weeks for Lembeh/Raja...thus my dive card is filling up....I would like to catch up you and Susie again...any of the above fit into you schedule?

I had a friend who just got back from Tawali 3 weeks ago. He said good things about the resort. BUT....He really complained about the dive boat problem and operation. It seems their one big boat was under repair which I've heard this on other trip reports for the last 2 months and heard really negative things about their dive operation over the last year. At the Long beach scuba show in June I asked one of the part owners of Tawali about the problems that have been written up in Undercurrent and a couple of other magazines. He said one of them (owners) were moving over there to take control of the dive operation. Obviously that has not improved. I have heard with a group you are OK for a single you and other singles get the small boat that does not have room to suit up. Plus you get the inner reefs. Chuck (my friend) said the diving was great on the outer reefs and was good to OK on the inner reefs...he ended up mostly on the inner reefs....He arrived today in Wakatobi and will give me a comparison.

This is probably more info than you wanted...but until I hear rave reviews about the dive operation....I am going to wait.....little spoiled after Wakatobi!

 

[alijtaylor]

Clinton

Geat pictures, I was in PNG last year - liveaboard from Walindi which was great - but the more I see of other places it is harder and harder to decide where to go back to.
Thanks for the report.

Alison

 

[silent running]

Several times we saw mobulas jumping out of the water and we also saw a few big dogtooth tuna. There was a pod of dolphins hanging out most of the time right in front of the resort but they were a bit skittish and we didn't see them underwater at all. On my trip on the Golden Dawn to Milne Bay in 1999 we saw a few more sharks including grey reef sharks and we did see Mantas at the cleaning station near Samurai but that's too long a run for Tawali. 2 Guests on that trip saw a couple of hammerheads at Deacon's.

Overall I'd say that big animals at Milne Bay would be more of a bonus rather than a reason to go there. You might see some but the attractions are the nice reefs and little stuff.

Clinton

Thanks for the report Clinton. As for big stuff in MB, there is plenty, but it's usually found a bit futher out. Capt. Craig of Golden Dawn took us to a seamount where we saw a big silvertip, hammers, grey reefs, a 12ft sand tiger, a 15ft+ oceanic manta and a rhinopius-on the same dive. I would guess it would be about an hr by fast boat from land, not too bad, I've spent 2 hrs getting to some of the better sites in Ambon. I do not know the name of the site as it was a bit of a secret, but I bet Rob Vanderloos would.

Oh, and on both MB trips I dived at Deacons, I saw a hammer early in the morning about 7:30ish. Also saw my first giant trevally at Deacons on my 1st PNG trip. The big stuff is around, you just have to be in the water at the right time of day-early morning/late afternoon for sharks and preferably in as small a group as possible. Before you go, I would recomend specificly asking the dive op if they would consider taking you out to one of the seamounts or at least to any of the big drop offs to look for big stuff.

Or do a LOB trip and you'll be sure to get to the best diving. For those
who have seasickness issues, Golden Dawn is a good boat to try your luck as she is the only LOB in the south pacific that I know of with active stabilizers. They work well enough to allow me to sleep through an onbeam passage in 12ft seas, trully amazing device. -Andy